I don't understand the hiding of a section from public view, are the viewpoints to extreme for the general public to see?I don't see what the appeal of dpad is for a new person. They've clearly branded themselves as a gaming forum, first and foremost; the name, the logo and theme, etc. Yet their gaming section seems pretty dead compared to other forums.
So then why else join? They've hidden half of their forum from the public so you don't even know what else there is in there that might or might not be appealing. So that means they need a really strong gaming section to pull people in, but they just don't have it.
And now that they're only accepting referrals, it seems to me like they're moving away from their original growth goals all together. Looks like what they're going for now is just maintaining their little closed off space to shitpost in private.
Surely you want to attract people to your site by allowing people to see said stuff.