Removing link between anonymised usernames across threads.

osarusan

Maybe this is what Boards planned all along, and if so, ignore this thread, but I thought it was supposed to work differently.


I thought the idea was that when a poster requested it upon closing their account, their username would be anonymised at random for all their posts, but consistently within threads. So, for example, every post in a particular thread would come under the username Monkey Silver Bracelet, whereas on another thread, it would be anonymised to something different, such as Pencil Table Show, and there would be no way to link the two usernames as originally coming from the same account.


However, it's possible, through the 'Find more posts by User' function, to make a link between the anonymised username. If I try to find more posts by Monkey Silver Bracelet, I can also find posts from other threads, which, if I click on them, come up as posts made by Pencil Table Show.


As an example of this, here's a post from a poster who closed their account and requested their username be randomly anonymised.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=107388631&postcount=5


But if I find more posts by Malik Limited Rose, I end up finding posts, which, if I click on them, are posted by Daniel Cool Peep, their anonymised username from another thread, and as Brecken Gigantic Reptile on yet another thread.


This is the kind of link I thought the system was designed to avoid, isn't it? Is it just a glitch of some kind?

Boards.ie: Mark

Can I ask what way you are finding more posts by the user? You shouldn't have a dropdown menu available after clicking their username to be able to select the "Find more..." option.

osarusan

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Can I ask what way you are finding more posts by the user? You shouldn't have a dropdown menu available after clicking their username to be able to select the "Find more..." option.

That's exactly how I found them, through a dropdown menu where I could select 'Find more posts by [Username]'.

Perhaps it's only an issue for vBulletin skin users or something like that.

Boards.ie: Mark

Thanks osarusan, it does appear to be related to skins.

osarusan

Just to add to this, if somebody uses the 'Who posted?' function to open up a list of all users who have posted in a thread (ranked in order of number of posts made), people who have requested that their accounts be anonymised appear on that list not as whatever name has been assigned to them for that thread (for example, Monkey Silver Bracelet) but as a string of characters (for example 8xdr56khl8hk864).

And that string of characters remains consistent when compared to a 'Who posted?' list from another thread. Hovering the mouse over that string of characters shows a link to the same profile/account number.

Boards.ie: Mark

Looking into this issue and site function now. Thanks for highlighting this!