Is Reading "Off-Topic" Restricted to Registered or Paid Members Only?

[Len-2A Training]

I was just going to send a link to our Backyard Brewery get-together (in Off Topic) to a friend who isn't registered on NES. So I tried to access the link from a browser without logging into NES. It turns out that Off-Topic is restricted to registered or paid members only.

Is this intentional? Or is this in error?

@sHORTY can you please educate me on this?

Thanks.
Len

 

[sHORTY]

Registered members, yes - not paying.

We made the change a while back to avoid those threads getting picked up by search engines as there is some.... questionable.... material in there at times.

Not sure if it still matters as much, but I'll leave that decision up to @Admin

 

[Len-2A Training]

Thank you for the explanation. I can fully understand that it is probably a wise decision.

I'm not advocating a change of policy.