Hi all - Is there a way to limit the search feature to something like trust level, so that unregistered users can not access it and thus must sign up and login to use search?
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around limiting search availability based on user trust levels. agemo inquires about this feature, suggesting it could encourage users to sign up and engage with the community. codinghorror questions the desirability of this feature, prompting agemo to provide potential pros and cons.
The proposed benefits include enticing users to sign up, increasing engagement, and reducing server load. However, agemo acknowledges potential drawbacks, such as reducing anonymous user engagement.
codinghorror suggests hiding the search feature from anonymous users using CSS classes. Stephen disagrees with limiting search, arguing it comes across as user-hostile and drives users to rely on Google instead. agemo appreciates the CSS solution and plans to explore it further.
Why would this be a desirable thing to do?
Ok so I take that as a no! 
Yet a good question - here are few reasons, quickly off the top of my head (but actually not the motivation for the OP) and I’d be sure happy for others to chime in if they see value.
Pros
- Entice users to signup and engage, extra feature/bonus - added value.
- Increase engagement on some sites (so you use it!)
- Preserve the function for serious community based on trust (in line with Discourse trust-thinking).
- *Reduce server load on big and busy forums. (I do not know if technically that is a thing!)
Cons
- It might reduce anon users engagement on some sites (so you don’t use it!)
Being able to simply toggle it on/off for logged in / logged out users might be just right for some sites - others might find benefit assigning it to trust based levels.
My motivation to ask was to see if it was a feature anywhere that I had missed based on user feedback, so following it up and I did try search the topic before I posted 
*a foggy memory of early days when you didn’t want the search function to be hit by bots or abused using up server resources but this may be utterly out-dated and irrelevant!
You can hide it with CSS if you like. There are classes for anon users.
If your site is available publicly and crawled by search you’re just driving users to use Google to find things on your site.
I can’t think of one site where search being hidden behind user registration has compelled me to sign up. It just comes across as user-hostile.
Ok cool and good to know, thanks.
I’m not familiar with the classes so I’ll have to look 'em up!