Hi,
I just noticed that it’s possible to view the content of all topics while logged out. And I wonder if that’s intended or a bug.
Because all people who have a beeminder account, have a forum account too. And I wonder if people share things, they know it’s readable by everyone including non members.
Thanks in advance!
It’s intentional that it’s a mostly-public forum (though there are some categories and locked threads; even logged in, most accounts can’t see everything)!
It’s interesting that you thought it might not be – do you have any thoughts on where the expectation arose that it was private?
I feel like non-users have no business in seeing the content of topics in for example the life category. And there might be some stuff in gratitude journals or personal topics there that is very personal.
I’m used to forums where non members are able to see categories, and sometimes a part with announcements / questions about the forum etc. But most of the topics just to users. If it’s intentional- it’s fine by me, but I wondered if it was.
For the record: I don’t see anything I shouldn’t be seeing while logged in, and I don’t see any things while not logged in that I can’t see when I log in.
Huh, interesting. On the flipside, I never imagined it was anything but public (even before I was a workerbee, I mean), and have always been absolutely fine with my “Life” category stuff being public – heck, that’s the point of anything I post in the forum. Because “Beeminder journals” often get posted there, it’s a valuable way potential users can read about how existing users use Beeminder, for instance. I’d always assume public by default, not private by default.
All the same, I would definitely urge people to manage their own privacy and not post anything they’re uncomfortable with being public, of course. Since it only takes a Beeminder account to become a member of the forum, there’s no high bar to entry, so folks shouldn’t be posting anything that they don’t want Joe Random to be able to find.
Perhaps relevant if you assumed the forum was private. By default your Beeminder goals are (partially) public, too.
Which definitely shouldn’t come as a surprise, since it’s explained during goal setup for every single goal! But if it did, because that wording wasn’t clear, then we’d be eager to hear more about that, of course.
Thanks, having partly visible goals was very clear to me 
. It was just the forum that gave me no clue (and I obviously didn’t check without an account before 
).
But it’s ok - thanks for all helpful replies.
I’ve changed the forum settings so that the Life category should now only show for logged in users.That’s a pretty low bar, but should mean that content in that category no longer gets indexed by the search engines.
As you point out, that category is one that might attract more personal content. Regardless, it’s still an internet forum, so everyone should be mindful and prudent about what they choose to post.
UPDATE: despite the likes I’ve now reversed this change - everything is as public as ever. Suspect it has to do with the perceived value of explicit and super public commitments, but I was ok with that applying only to folks in the Beeminder community (i.e. those with logins) rather than to J Random Internet Stranger. Debate if you like and make your case to management
Hmm, okay. I’d better move some of my topics to different categories, then, because I want them to be public.
I’ve just realised as well that this is a derailment risk for anyone tracking their Beeminder journal or gratitude journal posts using Postminder, as they will suddenly no longer count. We’ll have to think about how best to get the word to people about that!
For now, bolding for emphasis in hopes of catching people’s attention: Posts in the “Life” category will no longer count for any automatically tracked Beeminder goals!
Decision reversed!
The only purpose of this topic was for me to get clarity if all topics should be visible. And if so, keep it in mind for future posts.
I am very grateful about the replies and solutions provided, but I surely don’t want to cause trouble for all people beeminding their posts. And if nobody mentioned it before, it might be that it’s common knowledge or not important to all other users - and I should adjust. I’m just some new user, trying to figure this out .
Thanks for clearly posting the warning in several places for more affected people to notice. I am just grateful to myself I never switched to the automatic tracking through the integration and kept tracking my journal posts manually. Can imagine the avalanche you guys will have in the support email from everybody who got used to their goals functioning in a certain way, and now they out of a sudden don’t 
Postminding is the best reason for them being public. Reversed.
Suspect that this may apply equally to other semi-hidden categories, like all the bookminding that goes on.
edit: maybe the second-best reason, given @scarabaea’s astute observation about the potential support avalanche. Hopefully nobody’s crossed a relevant goal deadline in the last four hours! mea culpa
Maybe a good middle ground would be to disallow indexing of the posts in robots.txt ? That would still be an improvement without breaking Postminder and “sharing link to a friend”