profile privacy in IPB 4

[Morgin]

Ok, let's use your profile as an example. I've attached it to this post.

Your avatar is going to be public, and it doesn't make sense for that to have privacy options. That's your public face in the community.

Everything in the left hand column is "content" based, and wouldn't make sense for all the reasons previously stated to have profile based privacy controls.

That takes us to the main column in default view, being the "About Me" "Stats" "Marketplace" and "Contact", with your profile feed at the top.

Feed is 50/50 on whether it would make sense to have privacy attached - the utility of the feature drops if it's only viewable to your friends.

About Me is a public facing description of who you are in the community. Again, it's intended to b a public feature to allow others to check on who you are. Specific privacy here would perhaps be useful if there were two displays - one that showed to the public, and a more expanded that showed to your friends. That's not how it works though, so as is, privacy on it seems misguided. If they changed how it works, there might be an argument for privacy controls attached.

Community Stats is a bit of a mixed bag. Anything that is posting based stats (number of posts, number of topics started, registration date, profile views, etc) shouldn't be able to be hidden unless the admin wants it to be - that's an important feature to allow everyone else in the community get a sense of who they are dealing with. The rest, being "personal" stats like age, gender, location - I see why people might want granular control over those. As mentioned numerous times by IPS - they'll consider this, but it won't be in 4.0.

Marketplace is another content based stat, and allowing privacy over that serves no purpose.

Contact info has been thoroughly discussed as well. IPS says they'll look at it, but its not planned for 4.0.

Am I missing anything? There are literally two areas that in the present design of the profile (excepting custom profile fields) that could benefit from finer granular privacy settings. I don't disagree with those two, but is there really a case for privacy on anything else that I haven't addressed or got wrong here?

[Morgin]

Actually the one I missed is the friends list itself - I understand why some people might not want others to check who they are friends with.

[Makoto]

Actually the one I missed is the friends list itself - I understand why some people might not want others to check who they are friends with.

That's actually a good one as well. But other than this and contact information, no, there's really not much else. I'm with you completely.

I'd say some people here just want to cause drama, for reasons. This topic turned into an extremely simple suggestion thread for very simple profile privacy options to "IPS is evil they don't care about privacy!" for no real reason. You're not the only one who is bewildered by it.

As for the general suggestion that adding someone as a friend should serve more of a purpose in IP.Board, I actually fully agree with this, but that applies to a lot more than just profile privacy. For example, I use Adriano's >Friends Online hook on some of my forums, and I love it. It actually really adds a useful purpose to friendships. Not sure if this is really something that should be considered as a core feature, but I think it's a good example nonetheless.

I think another dedicated topic on expanding the friendship system could be good as well. I might start one up myself, after I try and think through some of the old ideas I've had to kick it off. :tongue:

[Dylan Riggs]

Ok, let's use your profile as an example. I've attached it to this post.

Your avatar is going to be public, and it doesn't make sense for that to have privacy options. That's your public face in the community.

Everything in the left hand column is "content" based, and wouldn't make sense for all the reasons previously stated to have profile based privacy controls.

That takes us to the main column in default view, being the "About Me" "Stats" "Marketplace" and "Contact", with your profile feed at the top.

Feed is 50/50 on whether it would make sense to have privacy attached - the utility of the feature drops if it's only viewable to your friends.

About Me is a public facing description of who you are in the community. Again, it's intended to b a public feature to allow others to check on who you are. Specific privacy here would perhaps be useful if there were two displays - one that showed to the public, and a more expanded that showed to your friends. That's not how it works though, so as is, privacy on it seems misguided. If they changed how it works, there might be an argument for privacy controls attached.

Community Stats is a bit of a mixed bag. Anything that is posting based stats (number of posts, number of topics started, registration date, profile views, etc) shouldn't be able to be hidden unless the admin wants it to be - that's an important feature to allow everyone else in the community get a sense of who they are dealing with. The rest, being "personal" stats like age, gender, location - I see why people might want granular control over those. As mentioned numerous times by IPS - they'll consider this, but it won't be in 4.0.

Marketplace is another content based stat, and allowing privacy over that serves no purpose.

Contact info has been thoroughly discussed as well. IPS says they'll look at it, but its not planned for 4.0.

Am I missing anything? There are literally two areas that in the present design of the profile (excepting custom profile fields) that could benefit from finer granular privacy settings. I don't disagree with those two, but is there really a case for privacy on anything else that I haven't addressed or got wrong here?

Nah, I think it's just a simple lack of inginuity to resolve this issue and better it for people that want privacy, while not neglecting the content discovery.

How you might ask? Have a block on the profile tab and display everything else. So on that first "Profile" tab - It could easily say something like "I'm sorry, but this profile is set to private" or have some sort of slick 'blurred out' affect to it, but where you can still click all those other tabs and display that other information that you might want to gather which is already on the public side already. Maybe you might think it would be annoying if you can't view the profile after you click them, thinking you could. And you'll always see that message or that blur effect- IPS could simply default to another tab if your profile tab isn't going to display information to the person that's looking at it - There are endless solutions to this issue, heaven forbid IPS would have to come up with a way to make it presentable to both parties.

You are indeed correct that the avatar and name is clearly public, there is no harm in showing that when you click a person's profile even if you don't want to display anything else to them.

Take this a step further, and maybe they just want to have some contact details out of that profile not listed unelss they're a friend? Everything else could be visible.

We could keep this on-going - There are endless solutions to solve this for both sides. What I just mentioned is how I'd pesonally do it, it's simple to do most likely.

[Morgin]

You haven't really responded though. You have this vague notion of wanting privacy for the whole profile block, but I just went through that block and gave (what I think at least) is a pretty compelling rationale for why there are very few user-provided content blocks in that profile screen would even remotely benefit from granular privacy controls. Blocking a profile sceen for the sake of blocking a profile screen doesn't make any sense, especially since more than half of what is on that page is statistics and other "stuff" that is all based on public participation (user rep, stats, profile pic, about me, etc.) You can hardly accuse IPS of a lack of ingenuity when you still haven't rationally explained WHY users would benefit from being able to restrict access to the entire profile block to only people they want to give access to. There are lots of downsides from losing access to those stats. What are the upsides besides some vague notion of privacy? The one example you gave about contact details has already been addressed multiple times in this topic - IPS is looking at those user-provided personal details and will consider privacy on those, its just not gonna make it into 4.0.

[CallieJo]

It's clearly been explained many times in this very topic by many of us more than once.

I don't think there is any other way to explain it! Period!

Whether or not some just don't get it really is irrelevant since it's not an important feature to those who oppose it.

All these opposing examples are pointless if you actually read through all the replies we've already made.

At this time it's a waste of our time to keep explaining something that others here just don't understand while the rest of the internet DOES....

[Dylan Riggs]

You haven't really responded though.

How did I not give you a proper response?

You have this vague notion of wanting privacy for the whole profile block

What part was vague? It's pretty clearly stated that some people including myself, would like to block certain information from the profile. Whether it's custom profile fields we could set, or just your whole profile... that is not vague at all.

, but I just went through that block and gave (what I think at least) is a pretty compelling rationale for why there are very few user-provided content blocks in that profile screen would even remotely benefit from granular privacy controls.

The choice is up to the end user.

Blocking a profile sceen for the sake of blocking a profile screen doesn't make any sense

Says who? You? Maybe it's not a good thing for you, but many people clearly want a little granular control to block certain content in their profile

, especially since more than half of what is on that page is statistics and other "stuff" that is all based on public participation (user rep, stats, profile pic, about me, etc.)

Uh huh, maybe I don't want people to see the amount of rep that I have, maybe I don't want to show that I've been viewed some 43,000+ times. Maybe my board has an avatar as well as a user pic, and I don't want people to view my user pic instead of the avatar. Maybe I don't want people to read my about me. Maybe I don't want people to see a bunch of those profile fields or certain profile fields. Regardless, even THAT data can be presented in a way so that custom profile fields people didn't want displayed, wouldn't be.

Or maybe, on some boards, THOSE statistics are quite useless, and I've replaced it with OTHER useful information and want to start blocking that content?

You can hardly accuse IPS of a lack of ingenuity when you still haven't rationally explained WHY users would benefit from being able to restrict access to the entire profile block to only people they want to give access to.

The reason is for the sole benefit of the user who wants to block information from others viewing. We are not the ones to decide and every board caters to something different. The point some of us make, is that IPS could give us the option to do so - There are WAYS to do so and keeping things neat and tidy and clean while not losing out on functionality

There are lots of downsides from losing access to those stats.

I agree, but there are a lot of stuff in a profile, I would not want to show in certain instances, again - we are not to judge this, this is up to them to lose these stats, that is their choice and their right.

What are the upsides besides some vague notion of privacy?

Already answered this, so has many other people in this thread with proper examples. The biggest that I've seen is just from blocking certain profile fields from view.

The one example you gave about contact details has already been addressed multiple times in this topic - IPS is looking at those user-provided personal details and will consider privacy on those, its just not gonna make it into 4.0.

My point is that there are so many ways to display the data and that it's up to IPS to come up with the solution for this. They cannot please everyone, we all know this, the key to success is trying to NOT please everyone for sure. It's impossible to do so - But there is NOTHING wrong with providing more options to end users to cater their software for how they want to cater it, even if it affects what data is discovered. A lot of boards out there, don't even allow you to USE the member/profile systems.

[Makoto]

But there is NOTHING wrong with providing more options to end users to cater their software for how they want to cater it

Except when those options make no logical sense.

A lot of boards out there, don't even allow you to USE the member/profile systems.

Right, okay.. and so how are these suggestions relevant to admins that don't use the profile system at all again?

Maybe my board has an avatar as well as a user pic, and I don't want people to view my user pic instead of the avatar.

What?

This topic just keeps getting more and more ridiculous.

[Dylan Riggs]

Except when those options make no logical sense.

Right, okay.. and so how are these suggestions relevant to admins that don't use the profile system at all again?

What?

This topic just keeps getting more and more ridiculous.

Except they do, just not for you.

It was just an example of what some boards run some of their sites - Oh, and maybe they block all member profile/modules, because of..... gasp! privacy???????? hmmmm

Never heard of a site that you know... that does some customization before? Come on now.... think outside the box, no one here runs a stock board, they all probably install something.... and some of the larger sites, use their own home bread stuff, avatars vs's user pics is one of them, never heard of it?

We'll just have to agree to disagree with some people in this thread. Clearly how you want to run things isn't the same how other people want to run things, which further reiterates why having OPTIONS is NOT a bad idea, and would only help people who want the same thing in different areas. If you REALLY think providing extra OPTIONS that are SELECTABLE in a MENU that DO NOT interfere with CONTENT DISCOVERY is a BAD idea... I pitty

Atleast if you're going to quote me, say something that makes sense :sweat:

[Makoto]

You're really a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

I'm done beating the dead horse in this thread now.

[Dylan Riggs]

You're really a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

I'm done with this thread now.

:bye: (jk. about the sad part though)

[Makoto]

(jk. about the sad part though)

How mature.

[Dylan Riggs]

Coming from you... lol

:huggles:

[Soniceffect]

Come on guys...... Seriously?

[Dylan Riggs]

Come on guys...... Seriously?

Wasn't me, I swear :tongue: - I don't have much else to do working the grave yard shift, but pick on Kirito.

[Jim McClain]

Blocking Discovery of User Generated Content

This is not something we are going to do. It breaks content discovery and that's just silly. It's also not really private! If user Matt blocks his profile I can just use an alternative search method (even Google) to find his publicly-viewable posts.

I have not seen anyone here - at least no one hoping for more profile privacy control - ask for this feature for members. Admins, of course, can privatize certain forums, which would prevent anyone who doesn't have access to those forums from searching for that content and prevent it from being shown in the search results. The only people I have seen argue about blocking forum topics and posts by members is IPS staff. Those of us asking for privacy controls have not asked for it and (I can only speak for myself) I see no need to bring it into this discussion. Threads and posts is not something I want my members to block anyone from seeing. So, I wish we could stop even discussing that issue in this topic.

Blocking User Contact Details

The obvious response here is simple: if you don't want people knowing your Skype or whatever else then don't publish it in your profile. That being said there is a valid use case here as that is truly a personal content item. So we are looking at easy to manage ways to allow for that information to not be broadcast into the world.

It seems that most people appreciate that consideration. Many of us are asking for even more controls. I listed my wish list. It had nothing at all to do with members hiding their own threads and posts though.

Randomly Blocking stuff for Guests

We are not going to implement features that make communities unattractive to those not logged in. The majority of traffic to any community are people who are not logged in. If you make their experience unfriendly by blocking content discovery, photos, username display, etc. then they'll at best just never register an account or at worst leave and never return because it's irritating to browse.

The more I learn about your software, the more that is revealed by the blogs featuring the upcoming IPS4, the more I like what I see. However, I do NOT want you or anyone else judging what content and features are attractive to MY visitors. I don't see where that is your business.

My business is much different than your business. On the one hand, I have the majority of my unregistered visitors visitors coming to learn about flooring - how and where to buy, what types and styles to choose, how to find the best installers, an inspector or a cleaner, or how to do all of that themselves. We also get a lot of floorcovering industry visitors who see opportunity - not only to make a sale, but where they can learn new business information, training, the promise of access to private information they don't want consumers to be privy to.

On the other hand, I have registered members. The majority are consumers and DIYers. They pop in, ask their questions, find solutions and usually leave a short time later. But while they are there, there is some information that pros might need to know in order to offer the best help. That information might best be provided in their profiles, which as an admin, I will prevent other visitors and non-pros from seeing. Some of that info is volunteered and isn't related to the flooring industry, so it doesn't do me any good SEO-wise anyway.

Then there's the pro members. I would like everyone in my industry to work together, but the fact is, some pros, like the CEO of a major manufacturer, or a professional expert witness, do not want their presence known on the site, except in those private forums. Pros can find their information and they can discuss policy, ad campaigns, debate inspection findings, etc. without worry that consumers will become privy to that info or will try to contact them privately or even as participants in topics to "get a good deal" or a favorable inspection result.

For those who demand the utmost privacy possible, I would offer them the ability to hide contact info, personal galleries of pictures (maybe of a not yet publicly introduced product or of inspection reports), limit who their feeds can be sent to and more.

You don't understand that what makes MY site attractive is the level of professional courtesy and privacy I can offer them. If I treat them right, then they might also decide to share publicly to help that consumer or DIYer - and that is exactly what we promise those consumers and DIYers: the best information and guidance from the best of the best flooring professionals.

So you see, I don't believe you know what's best for my community. I have worked 40 years in it and even I am still learning. What I am pretty sure about is that IPS could be the best software I can offer my members and visitors. YOU just don't know it yet.

Jim

[Jim McClain]

No matter what "privacy options" you give yourself through the software, once you submit a piece of personal data into the database it's out there and you do not control it. Lets say you want to put your skype information on your profile for your friends to see, but you absolutely hate my guts and don't want me to see it. Let's say that your forum software of choice helps you accomplish that. What stops me from getting one of your friends to give me that information? Who knows, we might have a mutual friend. Maybe the admin of the site is a buddy of mine and will give me that information. What if I made a new account, acted like a completely different person, and managed to befriend you all in order to get that "private" information? What if I manage to hack your account? What if I manage to hack your friend's account? What if a bug in the software allows me to bypass the privacy blocks?

You complained about a bad analogy? THIS is bad. Maybe we shouldn't lock our doors because someone else will break in anyway. Why put up security lights if someone will just throw a rock at it? Why put a leash on my dog when he can chew through it and run away anyway?

Please. We, as admins, do our best to protect the privacy of our members. That doesn't mean we tell everyone we lock it behind an impenetrable fortress. It just means we offer them controls to manage the levels of privacy they desire and we do our best to protect them from being violated. I have done that on my flooring forum for nearly 8 years without a breach. Pretty good record.

I don't have a girlfriend right now. That means that every girlfriend I ever had has broken my heart. But that will not deter me from falling in love again.

Lots of bad stuff happens every day on the net. We fix it as best we can and try to keep moving forward. I am not an advocate of no progress just to protect myself from disappointment.

Jim

[Jim McClain]

Your avatar is going to be public, and it doesn't make sense for that to have privacy options. That's your public face in the community.

I don't believe anyone has suggested we allow members to have an option to hide their avatar. You can control that by not having one or having one everyone can see. The admin might be able to control what user groups can see an avatar. If I could, I would hide it from all unregistered visitors to save bandwidth and improve page load speed. It's not important to SEO in my field. I might promote my site to visitors by offering avatars as one of the inducements (among other options).

Everything in the left hand column is "content" based, and wouldn't make sense for all the reasons previously stated to have profile based privacy controls.

Says who? I agree that every profile should include a link to find that user's posts and threads - public content and even private content for those other users who have permission to view those content areas. But galleries aren't always public content on some sites. There might be a reason to have private pictures, as I described in a previous post, that you only want to share with certain other user groups. I'd like to see that option given to the member.

Maybe a member doesn't want everyone to know who their friends are. Maybe they don't want everyone to know what files they have. Maybe, as in my niche, a member has a blog that he/she only wants to show to a specific user group and not to just anyone - an online "seminar" on pricing strategy, customer relations, how to beat the prices of the big box store. Other members might have a blog they specifically want consumers/DIYers to have access to - how to flatten your floor before installing the vinyl, 10 best vacuums, what to know before you ask the sales person how much. Privacy controls can help here. And on my site, if a consumer wants to have a blog, they might get redirected to WordPress.org. That would be an admin control.

About Me is a public facing description of who you are in the community. Again, it's intended to b a public feature to allow others to check on who you are. Specific privacy here would perhaps be useful if there were two displays - one that showed to the public, and a more expanded that showed to your friends. That's not how it works though, so as is, privacy on it seems misguided. If they changed how it works, there might be an argument for privacy controls attached.

I agree that this is another area that should only be controlled by the member by either creating content viewable by all, or not. But I would prefer to have admin control to exclude or include visitors and search spiders from that content, based on the user group the content belongs to because of its SEO value. My pro members can supply that section with valuable keyword rich content. Consumers telling about their families and kids or their favorite hobbies, not so much. Registered members would enjoy it, but I don't want Google indexing it unless it's content from a pro.

Community Stats is a bit of a mixed bag. Anything that is posting based stats (number of posts, number of topics started, registration date, profile views, etc) shouldn't be able to be hidden unless the admin wants it to be - that's an important feature to allow everyone else in the community get a sense of who they are dealing with. The rest, being "personal" stats like age, gender, location - I see why people might want granular control over those. As mentioned numerous times by IPS - they'll consider this, but it won't be in 4.0.

I agree with you here. It baffles me why IPS4 wouldn't have this basic privacy.

Marketplace is another content based stat, and allowing privacy over that serves no purpose.

I don't know what content that involves, so I can't speak to it.

Contact info has been thoroughly discussed as well. IPS says they'll look at it, but its not planned for 4.0.

Another basic privacy option, in my opinion. I don't understand why it won't be in IPS4.

Jim

[Dylan Riggs]

And, I just wanted to throw my example about having a Avatar vs's a User Pic into the loop - Since someone has never ever seen such magic on a board, and makes absolutely no sense at all!

http://prntscr.com/36m426 <--- Avatar displayed on the forums

http://prntscr.com/36m48x <---- A user's picture displayed on the profile page rather then an Avatar

What sorcery is this...it's... it's ridiculous! Surely something like that would never benefit from privacy control, right? :logik:

Anywho, I've done beat a dead horse as well, and tried to sell w/e benefits would be best with profile options, whether used or not - IPS already stated that they aren't really looking into it, not much more you can do. Guess we got to wait for IPS 4.0 + Rimi's hook or another persons if we want something like that, sadly. IPS can't please everyone

[Ryan Ashbrook]

I've cleaned up this topic. Let's stop with the childish behavior please. :)

[Rimi]

It's clearly been explained many times in this very topic by many of us more than once.

So has the opposing opinion. :D At least IPS is willing to listen unlike you. :sweat:

You complained about a bad analogy? THIS is bad. Maybe we shouldn't lock our doors because someone else will break in anyway. Why put up security lights if someone will just throw a rock at it? Why put a leash on my dog when he can chew through it and run away anyway?

How is that a bad analogy? I'm literally referencing the exact hypothetical situation that callie wants to see in the forum software. xD Ahahaha, and then you go on with your own terrible analogies. This is just too fun.

I don't have a girlfriend right now. That means that every girlfriend I ever had has broken my heart. But that will not deter me from falling in love again.

Wait what? What does this...I mean. Like. What? I'm confused. How is this relevant to anything? What? Huh? o.O

I've cleaned up this topic. Let's stop with the childish behavior please. :smile:

Dammit. I missed something good. Never sleeping again.

And, I just wanted to throw my example about having a Avatar vs's a User Pic into the loop - Since someone has never ever seen such magic on a board, and makes absolutely no sense at all

But that's not how IPB works anymore

[bfarber]

I'm not really sure how much benefit there is to letting this topic continue at this point.

Some clients have pointed out they would like profile privacy. Their requests range from allowing users to restrict access to their profiles for only friends to allowing users to block certain fields, amongst other suggestions. Some clients have pointed out they have no need for this.

For our part, IPS has indicated we are not making any changes to how this works in 4.0, and may consider allowing you to make custom profile fields private in a future version beyond 4.0.

Beyond this, I'm not sure what more there is to say. We can argue back and forth all day but I don't see what benefit it serves at this point. We've all said our bits, so unless you have something *new* to add to this discussion or a different but related thing you want to implement privacy for, I think everyone's requests and positions are clear at this point. :)

[Morgin]

Not to derail this even further (hah), but since we're on the topic, there is one thing I'm sure I'm misusing - is there a setting to site-wide disable the "users who last viewed my profile" thing, or is that entirely based on whether you login as anonymous or not? If not, I'll add that as something I think there may be a legitimate rationale for giving some privacy options to (again, noting that I seem to recall this might already exist, I just can't remember how to do it). I get a couple comments about that now and then from people who don't really like that it shows when they've creeped on someone else.

[Rimi]

Not to derail this even further (hah), but since we're on the topic, there is one thing I'm sure I'm misusing - is there a setting to site-wide disable the "users who last viewed my profile" thing, or is that entirely based on whether you login as anonymous or not? If not, I'll add that as something I think there may be a legitimate rationale for giving some privacy options to (again, noting that I seem to recall this might already exist, I just can't remember how to do it). I get a couple comments about that now and then from people who don't really like that it shows when they've creeped on someone else.

You can just delete the block from the skin.

But while we're on that topic (lol) I wish that logging in as anonymous made it so that if you read a pm it doesn't say that you did.

[StealthBravo]

You can just delete the block from the skin.

But while we're on that topic (lol) I wish that logging in as anonymous made it so that if you read a pm it doesn't say that you did.

I suggested this 6 months or so ago, and I really think it's something that should be added as well.