bfarber Posted March 13, 2014 Posted March 13, 2014 1) You control which groups of users can view profiles. By default, guests cannot view profiles in 3.x, however you can absolutely change this in the ACP by editing the guest group. Search engines (which are treated as guests by default) will use whatever setting you specify. In other words, yes you can allow search engines to crawl profiles with just some ACP settings. 2) We are not presently intending to add profile privacy options in 4.0. This does not mean they will never be added, however after prioritizing the thousands of feature requests and change requests we have received, this one simply did not make the cut. I realize some of you have a desire for this feature, but I hope you can understand it is simply impossible to include every possible feature ever conceived of. There is always a 4.1, and there is always the possibility of creating plugins/hooks to change how the software behaves to better suit your personal needs.
Dylan Riggs Posted March 13, 2014 Posted March 13, 2014 Can you share some lights in another topic with the ones that did make this cut? I haven't really seen much for the features outside of modernaziation
bfarber Posted March 14, 2014 Posted March 14, 2014 Can you share some lights in another topic with the ones that did make this cut? I haven't really seen much for the features outside of modernaziation We are blogging about changes that are being implemented in 4 already. I apologize if you haven't seen something discussed yet that you have been looking forward to, but my best recommendation is to subscribe to the blog to be notified of new entries as they are posted. :)
Alex@ Posted March 15, 2014 Posted March 15, 2014 It should be possible for users (or admins) to disable the feature where all users can see where other users are in the forum on the usercard popup. It should also be possible for members only to allow friends viewing their profile feeds.
wingman23 Posted March 17, 2014 Author Posted March 17, 2014 I do love this software which is why I've had nothing else for years but it does need to become more versatile for all the different reasons people use the software for. Like I said before, we all run different communities with different sets of members. Some want an open space and some want completely private. The problems start though when you want an open space with bits locked off. It is important as I just found out a few weeks ago. I have a site with around 90% of women! I recently got a male member who only joined to stalk the women! cruising around the profile pages, reading the info then messaging the selected more vulnerable ones. This one member is apparently doing it on lots of sites like mine and the police have called him a very dangerous individual. He got his hooks into one female member who discovered he was into some sort of sex ring, she was raped by this member and is now living in fear and having to move area while the police gather evidence to prosecute. How different this could have all turned out for want of profile privacy and only friends viewing.. So no, for some, it's not a small thing and exactly why Facebook are forced to do it.
Rimi Posted March 19, 2014 Posted March 19, 2014 I have a site with around 90% of women! I recently got a male member who only joined to stalk the women! You're about to get another one. :whistle:
Dylan Riggs Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 You're about to get another one. :whistle: You're not going to stalk me :(
Jυra Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 Forums are communities based on giving support, organizing things, or on a topic, etc. I don't see a need for this. I have rules against revealing certain types of private information on my forum and I will remove profile editing abilities if needed. Social networks have breed a dangerous false sense of security that needs to be stomped out.
Makoto Posted March 23, 2014 Posted March 23, 2014 I have rules against revealing certain types of private information on my forum and I will remove profile editing abilities if needed. So do I. Forums are communities based on giving support, organizing things, or on a topic, etc. In that case, forums don't need user profiles period. So why do we have them? Social networks have breed a dangerous false sense of security that needs to be stomped out. While that may be true, that's not a valid reason to be against offering privacy settings.
Jυra Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 We have profile card things that hover over our names now. So perhaps profile pages do have little use anymore.
Jim McClain Posted March 25, 2014 Posted March 25, 2014 Am I wrong in thinking that flyout contains less information that what is available on the profile page? And can it be configured (I'm only concerned about IPS4) to show only specific portions of the profile information? Jim
Jυra Posted March 25, 2014 Posted March 25, 2014 Default it does show less and I'm sure it's currently possible for someone to skin in new bits. I'm sure it would have more information if there wasn't a profile page. Maybe have a profile page drop down above a reply or post. Our replies do have large bar above them that has our name and the post number, but not much else.
GreenLinks Posted March 25, 2014 Posted March 25, 2014 We have profile card things that hover over our names now. So perhaps profile pages do have little use anymore. Profile Privacy and Hover cards basically have 0 relevance.
Jim McClain Posted March 25, 2014 Posted March 25, 2014 Profile Privacy and Hover cards basically have 0 relevance. I don't agree. If something is private in the profile, it should be visible only to those who have permission to see it, whether that's on the profile page, or in the "hover card" (is that the official name?).
Makoto Posted March 25, 2014 Posted March 25, 2014 Also, just to throw this out there, IPS develops Community Suite software, not strictly forum software. Forums don't need image galleries, file managers, or calenders, and they certainly don't need blogs. But we have all these things. Because IP.Software is community suite software, not strictly forum software. So I think it's completely invalid to dismiss this suggestion with the rationale that "forums don't need this."
blair Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 As a forum user, I'd hate to see privacy settings anywhere near as complex as Facebook. As an admin, I realize forum profiles are mostly worthless. I don't show them to guests. I'd like that to change. Facebook, LinkedIn, and many others have built businesses using user profiles. There's obviously room for improvement. Maybe in 5.0?
GreenLinks Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 As a forum user, I'd hate to see privacy settings anywhere near as complex as Facebook. As an admin, I realize forum profiles are mostly worthless. I don't show them to guests. I'd like that to change. Facebook, LinkedIn, and many others have built businesses using user profiles. There's obviously room for improvement. Maybe in 5.0? 5.0 is too late. This should be a part of 4.0 or 4.1 And IPB team should start valuing privacy way way more as it is clear they put zero value on this thought at all.
Dylan Riggs Posted March 26, 2014 Posted March 26, 2014 Here is a quick exampe of why I'd like to have a little more granular control over profile privacy. Let's take my profile here, it has been viewed a total of 44,416 times currently - That's all great and dandy, I feel loved. However, out of all of those, I have a few friends. I'd like to restrict to all the random viewers some of my contact information, but show it to my friends. This can't be done and to take that a step further, if you did even allow a setting like that. All anyone would have to do currently is click the 'friend' button and you are not their 'friend' even though I could despise that individual, because there is no control over who is and is not your friend. And to take that a step further, if Joe added me as friend and I'm like... what? And I remove him, Joe can just immediately add me back... But on the flip side, what's it really matter? Friends have no relevance on your profile outside of showing a thumnail and a name, lol.
CheersnGears Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Just because profile privacy settings give people a false sense of security on Facebook and other places doesn't mean we can't strive to do it better.
Rimi Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 For the record you can set it up so that you have to approve a friend before they show up on your friends list.
CallieJo Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Sticking with the motto of being consistant across all apps, I'd like to see privacy taken seriously in all areas related to member content. Privacy: Blogs - Can set to friends only (hopefully still in 4.0) Gallery - Can set to friends only (hopefully still in 4.0) Profile - Cannot set to accepted friends only (was really hoping to see this in 4.0. Huge disappointment it will not be!) Downloads - Can these be set to friends only? (what if members want to share downloads with friends only?) IP.Content - No friends only setting for submitted articles (may make no sense for most, but possibly some) IP.Nexus - No friends only setting (may make no sense for most, but possibly some) IP.Board - Makes no sense for topics & posts to be friends only (but not everyone will base their site on having forums) As it stands, there is very little of any privacy settings for members' content. If you're just running a support forum like IPB for their products then it's no big deal...who cares about privacy & profiles. If you are running a full community, then it's a huge deal for some of us. If you are aiming to stay up to date with TODAY's standards, then privacy should be on the top of your list since it IS the norm and what people are accustomed to having on the biggest websites out there. If you think it's just copying them, you ARE WRONG...as I've already explained so many times about past requests long before those sites were born! Those sites chose to do it right! We are still stuck with the idea here that communities are a free for all. Here is a screenshot of VB's profile privacy (available in 3.8 & 4.x). If nothing else, at least they got this part right! Those who disagree, clearly do not see past their own forum. If I were to base a site on just a forum and nothing else, I'd use all my XF & VB licenses (17 in total!!). They work fine and do have more privacy permissions. I'm not interested in just forums, though. I'm interested in communities! If you say you provide a community suit, then provide a community suit that meets today's standards for member privacy consistant across all apps. I like IPB as a company and was hoping for more in 4.0 for the members themselves. Consistant privacy permissions across all apps was important to me. I'm happy to see all the new things in the blog updates here. But, the members are the most important to me...and privacy is at the top of that list.
Soniceffect Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 I like IPB as a company and was hoping for more in 4.0 for the members themselves. Consistant privacy permissions across all apps was important to me. I'm happy to see all the new things in the blog updates here. But, the members are the most important to me...and privacy is at the top of that list. To be fair they havent shown much of that side of things yet, so will reserve judgement until they do so. Everything they have shown so far looks to be well thought out so looking forward to seeing what they have to offer. IPB as far as I can see do tend to listen to posts like these and I'm sure if its a concern for a lot this will be just another one of those topics. A hell of a lot of work has evidently been put into 4.0, but I would have thought the main framework has had more emphisis put on it than any of the front end features. The fact that the front end features we have seen so far seem on the face of it to be extremely well thought through IMO is a massive plus point considering the task they laid out for themselves. Dont forget IPB has a lot more to rewrite than any of the other software and the undertaking I imagine is huge.
Rimi Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Like why are you guys still going at this when ips has said it's not going to happen? I'll make the hook guys. Don't worry. I got you.
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