Make your Site's Homepage "Stranger-Friendly"

[Kat]

Until a week or so ago, the idea of making my website "stranger-friendly" was something I didn't know to be possible. I mean, how could someone with a basic understanding of CSS and HTML make what members see different from what non-members see? Thankfully, I stumbled across this post on accident while looking up a different tip for my site redesign. 

First, a little bit of background on my site and why this approach works for us: My site is geared toward teenagers who are interested in acting; more specifically, who are interested in auditioning for four upcoming YA (young adult) book-to-film adaptations. Our (somewhat unrealistic) goal is to have the casting directors from these films potentially ask one of our members to audition based solely on their videos. We hold months Voting Cycles and put forth our very best candidates for each character.

I have two issues which have been remedied by making the site "Stranger-Friendly":

• The concern that a Casting Director would see our Social Content (Latest Activity Feed, posts, etc) and not take us serious. After all, the site's membership is teenagers, who don't always put forward their best selves (myself included).
• The concern that individuals with mal intent could easily view member's pages and content.

 

If you share similar concerns about your site, read on!

 

1. Hide the Latest Activity Feed

One of the best things I did for my site was to hide the Latest Activity Feed from non-members. A fellow Ning Creator posted the code for doing so here: https://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/how-to-hide-latest-activity-i...

His example places text where the removed content should be, but I went ahead and replaced it with an image. You can do so by uploading an image to Ning (via comment box, blog, or discussion - no need to save), copying the image's URL, and pasting it into the field where the OP's text appears. You may need to specify your width and height. Use a <div align=""></div> to justify your image.

 

2. Hide all "Content Creation" links

What do I mean by a Content Creation link? I mean any and all links that allow members to add videos/groups/discussions/etc. as well as any links advocating members to welcome new members/join a discussion/etc. If any of these links are tabs on your site, you can easily open up your tab editor and set their view-ability  to "members" only.

 

If you have any text boxes with content you don't want non-logged in users to see, post this code in your Custom Code box and edit it accordingly. Note that the script code below should be pasted into your "custom code" box. 

 

<script type="text/javascript">
if (ning.CurrentProfile == null) {
x$("div.xg_module_activity").html("<div align='center'><img style='width:150px;height:250px;' src='https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/11387274?profile=original'></div>");
/* elements with class="riunli" are completely removed if the user is not logged-in: */
x$(".riunli").remove();
/* elements with class="pp_riunli" have their grandparent elements removed (e.g., use this for immediate children of custom xg_modules */
x$(".pp_riunli").parent().parent().remove();
}
</script>

 

In this case, I used "pp_riunli" as the class name ("remove if user not logged in"), but you can use whatever suits your fancy. You'll want to define the class in the text box's HTML like so:

I currently do not know how to hide other modules, but I suspect a variation on the Latest Activity Feed coding is possible.

 

3. Double-check that member's content is as difficult to access as possible.

 

To a non-logged in user, the central focus of our site is our audition videos, which are readily available to view by absolutely anyone. Of course, anyone could still find a member's content (profile page, discussions, posts, activity, etc) by clicking on the member's name. These tips are not a perfect solution if privacy is what you're looking for. However, do consider that after these changes, it's a heck of a lot more difficult for non-members to track members based on their site activity. Try to minimize the availability of such links to non-members, and consider using the same color font for both your links and your text to disguise links. (If you do, be sure to disable the "underline link" option!)

 

 

(Note that there are no sub-tabs visible under "Home" in the logged-out version!)

You can see the + tab in action here.

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Do you do something like this on your website? Are you going to try it? Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas!

 

*NOTE that if a non-member is not running javascript, the tricks involving Custom Code won't work.

 

 

 

[Josh Hall]

I agree with all that but to make it stranger-friendly, surely it's best to create a splash page that takes first time visitors to.

I made this recently for mine.

https://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/redirect-first-time-users-to-...

[Kat]

Cool splash page! I actually did have a splash page at one time, but it caused a lot of problems for members and I eventually had to take it down. Anyway, because our site revolves around audition videos, I think what I've done with it suits the site's purpose.

(EDIT: I do want non-members to be able to interact with my site, but in a limited way. Splash pages seem like a good way to keep people out of the site until they join, which isn't what I'm going for!)

[Lisa A Cash Hanson]

I like what you did looks great but even with the this is how I did it- for me I still don't have a clue.