Dear Ning, Private Network with Public Pages?

[Possibility]

Hi Ning/Everyone

I have two main ning websites. One is a private forum for my niche industry and the other is a public site which I use as a content management system to market my customers who pay me to promote them online.

I know that the Terms and Conditions page on all Ning sites is a public page that everyone can see regardless of whether they are a member or not.

On a private network is there some way to make certain pages or areas of the site public? For example could I create pages that the search engines and general public can see without them having to log into and sign up to the private site?

Thanks

[Eric Suesz]

Hey, Roy. You are welcome to criticize. So, by all means, please do continue to engage!

Sorry if my private message seemed strange. When you asked why I wasn't answering one of your responses, I was just trying to be clear that 1) I'm not always able to respond but I try, and 2) I sometimes don't follow up if someone replies to an answer I give with a "Big Fail". 

[Roy Simmons]

Direct quote from your message to me

"I sometimes don't respond to negative, mean-spirited comments. "

 

'Mean Spirited'?  as I said in my private message back to you, there is a difference between critisizing a company and a personal attack, and no I will no longer be engaging in these discussions, I have always addressed my complaints to 'Ning' not an individual. I am a paying customer who is frustrated, and quite frankly deserved better treatment.

[Eric Suesz]

You're welcome to criticize the company. I guess the point I was trying to get across is that I won't be able to respond to every criticism. Doesn't matter to me what the criticism is about, and I certainly didn't think you were criticizing me. I just sometimes try to steer clear of negativity.

[Kristin]

Yes this is a need for me as well, I currently have 2 sites, one representing the public stuff and one for the private community. I am about to integrate the two of them and the platform I end up sticking with is dependent on this kind of a feature, I'm looking into the paid option, to have different roles that aren't admin that can see different parts of the site would be a way to do this as would be a public/private switch on various features/pages.

I have played with taking the identity containing items off the front page (activity feed/blogs/discussions) but it complicates checking in on what's happened for the members...this would work pretty well for me if I could put the activity feed/recent blog posts/discussions on another page too.

 

So close to perfect but so far away... 

[Sean O'Donoghue]

Thanks Eric!

 

Finally...

 

I thought there had to be a way to get Eric to notice... thanks for replying... and sorry for having to take such drastic measures to get you to notice us in here... it must have slipped under your radar somehow?

 

If you look at how many people have posted in here to say we need this, I'd hope that your product team would look into it. This surely cannot be a difficult request. Other networks can do this, and I'm sure that technically it can't be all that hard... especially if you can allow paid for options onto the site (but then you get an additional fee for that, so I can see the incentive to you to push that one out!).

 

Still... let's hope your product team will have a good think about this one... anyone with a private network would have a good use for public pages, that's got to be almost certain. If this discussion shot up the rankings to be a "top this week" - then I'm sure we'd get even more people commenting on here in agreement. 

 

Look forward to seeing some news on this soon... please do update us as soon as you hear anything Eric. 

 

Thanks again for taking the time to finally give us an answer. I really appreciate it! 

 

[NingStar]

This feature is easy to implement since the frame work is already there please we need this.

[AC]

Hey everyone,

For now, if someone really really wants public pages with private network, it is possible via a workaround. This is what I did for my website.

NOTE: You must have the pro subscription as you will require access to file manager.

My network is a private network: www.mumgum.com

However, I have created custom html pages such as terms of service, privacy policy, contact us, feedback that are accessible publicly. Had to customize the pages with css etc. so that they can integrate with the ning colour schemes. Once the html pages I created, you can upload them to the ning server via file manager and customize the links.

I know this is not the best way and it would still be great to have ning actually provide this on their own. But for those who really want this NOW, I thought I'll share my two cents.

Examples of my website:

Private link: www.mumgum.com

Private link: http://mumgum.com/photo (you will not be able to access this page without signing in)

Public link: http://mumgum.com/privacypolicy (can access this page even without signing in)

Public link: http://mumgum.com/feedback (can access this page even without signing in)

Cheers... Arjun

[Eric Suesz]

Good point, Arjun. 

Yes, you can use the File Manager to make custom landing pages. Here's some other suggestions and a link to a video that shows how this works. 

I know it seems really easy to change this, but it's actually quite complicated. We have written a spec for this type of behavior (public pages on a private network), but it hasn't progressed further because it would require a lot of additional work. Again, sounds super easy, but there are details about it that aren't. Right now, we have to stay focused on chat and mobile, which are themselves very large projects. Just wanted everyone to know that we aren't not considering a change like this; just that we have to prioritize.

[frankie]

The one major flaw that I see with the private network for me is the fact that when you use twitter, facebook or any of the popular social networks and create a link to a post or activity, that link will immediately take you to the signup page and not display the content. I believe we should have the option to display blogs and activity feeds as pubic links while still having your site set to private. When potential members click on my twitter activity and are presented by a login page this almost immediately turns off would be potential members. I really do not see why we can't choose what we want public similar to the tabs settings that already exists. For the amount of money we are spending this option should be a given. Social networking using private settings is useless to say the least.

[DJ Gazzel]

Hi all,

I'm new to Ning and I am surprised that people are puzzled as to why anyone would want a Private/Public network.  I want that, let me explain.
let's say that you wanted a network for the top 100 cardiologist in the world as members.  They are invited they join and they now post their professional blogs, pictures and video.  Do you want you and I non-cardiologist also joining to post pictures of our cat socks and ad-libbing medical posts.  May be you do.
And for beating a dead horse,on the site CNN.com you cannot post your own news, pictures and video there but that has not deterred us from visiting and enjoyed what their  correspondents (members) have supplied.  On my site you should not have to join in order to enjoy and infact majority of website are "read only".  It could also be I'm more interested in the network aspect more than the Social aspect, again most websites are not social and just because everyone on Ning chooses to build a social network "open to all" does not mean that's what I want.My Network will be like a site with 1,000 select experts you visits to read their content and that's my goal. So perhaps we can stop question motives.  Thanks all.

[Raphael Voellmy]

Hi Everyone/NING

I am in the process of setting up a NING site for my company, and I just signed up for Creators to say that also for us it is a major flaw of NING that public and private sites are only possible with a workaround. I really hope you are going to change that!

Other than that I am absolutely astonished what can be done with NING, it is really great!

Cheers,

Raphael

[NingStar]

A lot of comments on this issue have already been made please Ning we need this feature when will this be added to private. The option to make pages and other contents public my NCs on their networks is really important and should not be overemphasized. Thanks