Agree on search, it is now open for non users. Affiliation is to avoid content dilution. Any alternative ideas are welcome (and as you can see with search, implemented)
You don't any users, you have an incredibly tiny niche, and starting a new forum these days is already ultra hard.
You should be working on getting users at all costs, not planning for the glamorous problems you might have if your moonshot happens to land, like having too many math novices cluttering up the high brow academic discussion.
lol, c'mon.
You need to understand that right now your forum is about as enticing as installing vBulletin on localhost to talk to yourself, just without the arxiv.org bot.
I started a large forum over a decade ago when it was easier. I spent almost a year sockpuppeting with myself so the first users didn't arrive at an empty forum. And that was in a popular forum-faring niche.
I look at your forum and you couldn't even be bothered to write a single comment on launch day. What's the plan?
As for affiliation, make it optional. Affiliated users get a little icon next to their username.
I'm a recent math graduate, working for a couple years before going back for a PhD. I'm a little sad about the affiliation requirement because I'd really like to be able to read and ask questions, even if I am a fool (relative to the rest of the community). As someone who does not get to work in an academic setting or regularly attend conferences, I wish I could still have opportunities to participate in these communities.
I don't know if Hessix was meant to include people like me, but I would really love to be a part of it.
Absolutely dragon96 drop. Its by no means meant to be elitist. I just don't know any other way to avoid low quality content. Please send me an email at hsx at hessix dot com and ill send you a registration link.
It auto checks affiliation and PhD status from a limited list of universities. If there is no match it puts the registration temporarily on hold until I can quickly check myself
