I cant believe this is discussion!
SJay - Your family can just google your SN see that you post here and take the 2 seconds it takes to REGISTER, and then read everything if they really wanted to
Bunny - WHO CARES? Random strangers can see your pictures as long as they sign up and register, but if they don't register then UH OH! They MUST be taken down!
I don't get it
Point being is that for new posters to become part of the community, they would need to follow whats going on in the forum and then become interested and want to post. I think like Storm said, that if I hadn't been able to read the posts I wouldn't have signed up either.
Final thing, you guys realize that the forums were NOT private always right? I This is a fairly new idea, so all these HORRORS that you may be subjected to, you were already subjected to them and everything has turned out ok.
Freerolls and low buy in tournies aren't the way to gain more members. Well more members maybe, but not respected ones for the most part (I mean no offense to low limit and or freeroll players here, its just players who come here for that reason typically come play and then leave, while contributing nothing to this forum except for "I always lose with AA")
IMO the way to gain more members is more exposure, followed by more serious poker discussion, so that they people who do come across the site will see interesting discussion going on (current news, strategy, tough decisions etc) and want to become a part of it.