In an ideal world a user viewing Discourse that has an account should be logged in at all times, this way we can capture all their viewing data. I will be making it so if a product user clicks a link in the product to view the community it will auth them, as well as any links that the user should only see if they are auth’d elsewhere (account page, for instance).
However if a user attempts self help via Google and ends up in the community, we can’t capture that data until they attempt to interact directly with the community, even if they’re auth’d elsewhere in our system. It seems the only way to solve for that is to have the login_required site setting enabled, which if I understand effectively makes the site private.
Thanks. I did not know this. I am a CM trying to understand all the ins and outs of three seperate products and it is melting my brain trying to get the particulars down for each one! Expect to see a few more posts from me trying to sort everything out, and I thank you for being patient.