Articles, Links and Ads for Registered Users

I wanted to turn lurkers into members so I recently added three (3) new areas to our "Registered Users" forum (http://www.salespractice.com/forums/):

Leading Articles
Directory
Marketplace
In these different areas "members" can post articles, links and ads. What do you think? Good idea, Bad idea?

The only challenge I'm having with "Articles" in the "Registered User Forums" is the RSS feeds don't display because of the permissions. [of course]

Of all the forums to have a RSS feed this would be the one. Does anyone know if there is a workaround for getting the feed to show up?

I like the idea of having member only content. But still allowing the guests to view what they are missing out on. Although if would be nice to see actual post and thread counts to see how active the area is. As some guests will assume it is dead and never posted in.

Although if would be nice to see actual post and thread counts to see how active the area is. As some guests will assume it is dead and never posted in.Is there a way to show "last post, threads and posts" on the home page however when a visitor follows the link it gives them the "You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page" message?

I would guess so, you would probally have to sort out the conditional values in the forumhome templates.

Problem with not using group permissions is that the titles for your private forums may be exposed. That really can start trouble.

There are many hacks available you could rip the code out of to achive this properly.

But before you dive in, ask yourself, is a vBulletin 3.0.x hack worth coding now?

I decided that I would allow visitors to view the forums but restrict posting to registered users.

Thanks for the input everyone. ;)