# Private vs public site and sharing topic links
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-vs-public-site-and-sharing-topic-links/59322
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [March 17, 2017, 1:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-vs-public-site-and-sharing-topic-links/59322 "2017-03-17T01:23:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Shrike](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Shrike)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2017, 1:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-vs-public-site-and-sharing-topic-links/59322/1 "2017-03-17T01:23:46Z")
Hi.
I have a little bit controversial idea. I have a forum where it’s hard to decide for me whether it should be private or public (I mean should it require login for reading). What is for private: I want to see who uses it, it’s kind of a local community so it’s not much sense in anonymity. But being private for the forum has a strong consequence - it’s not possible to share deep links in social networks (FB and the like). That’s bad. That’s so bad that I doubt about keeping it private.
So the idea is: would it be possible to allow sharing topic links and keeping auth required? It’s possible to detect FB-crawler (which requests topic page for making a preview) and let it pass. Indeed it won’t be strictly private after that as anyone can pretend he’s a FB-crawler. But I don’t need strict security for reading here.
It could be the 3rd mode after public/private - require login for reading, but allow previews/sharing.
What do you think?
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-vs-public-site-and-sharing-topic-links/59322/2 "2017-03-17T01:31:34Z")
Maybe what you really want here is guest gate
> [@Guest Gate (Sign Up Popup Plugin)](https://meta.discourse.org/t/guest-gate-sign-up-popup-plugin/56625):
>
> In April 2022, the Guest Gate plugin was converted into a theme component by @Don. This plugin is now #deprecated. This is a more permanent post for a plugin that @vinothkannans created and I forked recently. Many thanks to @vinothkannans for doing the hard work of wiring up the main logic, @ljpp for stirring the original conversation, and @DiscourseMetrics.com for providing the impetus behind a customized modal. You have two main gate options: Generic gate Custom gate And tertiary opti…
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### Author:  [@Shrike](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Shrike)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-vs-public-site-and-sharing-topic-links/59322/3 "2017-03-17T01:37:35Z")
Probably this is what I need, thanks for the suggestion! I’ll give it a try.