(1) Post it on the main web site (hopefully in the appropriate section, but that’s a whole different issue).
(2) Post it on the members-only section because of need for moderate privacy (as opposed to security, which again is a whole different issue).
(3) Don’t post it. I’d say the majority of church publications go in this category. They are mostly ephemera, with few-to-zero important documents that are too hot to post. My church used to have a few of those “too hot” documents, but I can’t think of any for quite a number of years. Oh course, maybe they are so hot no one is telling me about them. ;-)

For our congregation, the security has two purposes: first to allay the congregation’s concerns about identity theft, phishing, etc. and second, to prevent spammers from piling in garbage (big plus for me) or bots from dredging names, phone numbers and addresses.

While we do keep the newsletters in the members only section, I extract articles and post them on our Recent News Blog which appears on our main page.

And “members”-site is really a nominal term. They don’t have to be official members of the congregation. They have to be around enough that someone knows who they are and are interested in something enough to ask for an account.

It’s kind of like the anonymous blogging issue — many people who blog “anonymously” write things they wouldn’t with their own name, thinking they’re “safe” behind that pseudonym. But it doesn’t take much to get through that, either.

I guess I think the best way to go about these types of things is to be as intentional as possible. If it would cause major problems if a certain document were seen by a non-member of the church, I don’t think it belongs on the web at all, even password protected. But your minister’s newsletter column? That belongs on the main site.

For now, the way my church is doing things is to only put items in the members-only area that wouldn’t be posted at all if they couldn’t be private. I suspect we’re going to get more stuff posted that otherwise wouldn’t get on the web at all, and that seems like a good thing to me.

- Budgets (proposed or actual): These documents demonstrate what’s important to an organization. Having these as open as possible shows that you have nothing to hide and that you welcome input. Even more so for prospective budgets or planned spending. Most churches put their appeals for donations on the public site; what’s done with the money once received should be there as well. Exceptions would be staff salaries and such, which should be aggregated.

- Old newsletters: Great sources of long-tail terms and important for SEO. These also give prospective members a sense of what your community is all about. If your newsletters include articles “that members don’t want Google remembering ad nauseam,” should these even be said in the first place?

- Announcement boards: If I were advertising a business such as in the example mentioned above, I’d want as broad an audience as possible.

I can see the member directory as an exception. However, if it’s in an electonic form then it’s not hard to imagine the list becoming public when someone accidentally emails it outside the approved group.

Even the exciting work that Dean is doing doesn’t feel like it needs to be secret and locked down for the most part. I can see the need to control who has write-acesss, but limiting read-access can send the wrong message.

I think it would be useful to have some kind of guest-access for visitors who are considering deepening their relationship with the church — maybe collect some information from them for a “welcome wagon” type thing, and let them into the section provisionally? But again, it comes down to how welcoming that can be, compared to how vulnerable the congregation might be with certain information open to the public.

I think, fundamentally, this issue is really about a church’s approach to the web in general — do they want to be “safe” and protect members’ privacy, or do they want to let it all hang out as a way of welcoming all possible visitors?

The members only section has turned into a very exciting part of our website. It is on a subdomain but there is a link from our main page. Because people can see the members-only index page without an account, they have a clear idea what is in there and it makes sense why it is members only. People can clearly see that there are things happening and that this is an active vibrant congregation.

The opening page & a select set are open to the public. Currently content includes:

* Minutes
* Official documents (eg. MUP)
* Maps, drawing & diagrams of the facility
* Directory of Members
* Congregational History while it is under development
* ByLaws
* ByLaw drafts
* Long Range Planning docs
* Committee pages (title, purpose, members, minutes)
* Policies
* Forms
* News clippings
* Support documents such as instructions for Greeters, etc.
* Event photos

Dean

PS. I think that the other email is spam. Why else would their “name” be a direct link to their “church website” website. Didn’t know you could do that but I see how.