Nope, this was something I did. Except for the classifieds sections (except for the non-herp ones, which I've just been too lazy to deal with), viewers need to be registered and logged in to be able to read any of the threads. They can read the topic lines, but not the thread content.
The reason for this is because I feel that those lurkers really have no intention of contributing to this site with posting. They are here merely to read and not actually participate in any manner whatsoever. Matter of fact, if they should decide to participate with a reply to a thread, more than likely they will not, because then they have to go through the login procedure, then find the thread again, and most people probably won't do that.
Secondly, the server stats have been climbing pretty high lately, so in this manner I can cut down the amount of traffic being spent on search engine spiders that wind up accessing every page on every thread in every forum. I really don't even want to think about having to go through another server upgrade anytime soon, so I'm going to be looking at reducing overhead and loading first before I hit that bed of coals I will have to walk on again.
Hope that explains it well enough.
