Another Basic feature suggestion for IPB: Profile Privacy Settings

[rbiss]

Considering the majority of what's in the profile is also displayed with each post, I fail to see how "privacy" affects the forum members, unless they add more information. If the user wants privacy, they shouldn't put the information out there to begin with. Pure and simple.

On your forum I see you don't allow guests to view members profiles. Considering guests can read their posts, what's your concern about giving guests the permission to view profiles?

[Biker.GA]

There are a lot of things guests aren't allowed to see in the forum. And preventing guests from profiles is also an anti-spam measure.

[rbiss]

There are a lot of things guests aren't allowed to see in the forum. And preventing guests from profiles is also an anti-spam measure.

Then why do you fail to see a difference if you see a difference?

[Biker.GA]

You're joking, right? Allowing viewing access to certain parts of the forum can be used as a teaser to get guests to join and participate. Just because I block guest access from various parts of the forum as part of the registration and anti-spam measures should not be taken as an overriding concern for privacy.

[AndyF]

I allow guests to read (most) of my forum too. Probably helps help search engines as well. Although I do not allow guests to view member profiles, use search and a few other things.

[rbiss]

You're joking, right? Allowing viewing access to certain parts of the forum can be used as a teaser to get guests to join and participate. Just because I block guest access from various parts of the forum as part of the registration and anti-spam measures should not be taken as an overriding concern for privacy.

Nice try. lol

[TrixieTang]

If the user wants privacy, they shouldn't put the information out there to begin with. Pure and simple.

Exactly, if users want to keep something private then they shouldn't post it or put it in their profile. If your users decide to be stupid and post all their personal information in their profile then that's their problem. They don't need a profile privacy setting, they just need to stop being stupid and realize that if they want their info to remain private then they shouldn't post it on the internet.

[bfarber]

From a professional perspective, I've seen this request pop up a couple times, it wouldn't be overly hard to implement, and may (or may not) be done at some point.

From a personal perspective, I think the idea that a user should dictate whether their forum profile is public or not is silly. It should be up to the administrator if certain users can view a profile (and it already is) and not the user. Your profile is meant to facilitate other users finding your content (and perhaps finding out a little bit about you - such as your reputation, how long you've joined, how active you are, and whatever you CHOOSE to share on your profile). As others have said, your forum is not Facebook.

A forum is content-centered. The site is centered around the content (not the users), whereas a true social network is user-centric. That is the driving reason why profile privacy is important on a social network, but not so much on a forum (where instead, content privacy is important, and is handled through permission masks and similar tools). Just my .02.