Private Profile option

#1 · 31-05-2022 3:44pm #1

Hi all,

Back when we switched to Vanilla last year there were some concerns that there was an option to ‘Allow other users to see my email address’ on profiles. This was switched off by default but nevertheless some users had it switched on and there were concerns about privacy. Many users then opted to use the ‘Private Profile: Private profiles can only be viewed by authorised users’ option just in case they ever accidentally ticked the option to allow others see your emai address.

However this has caused issues of its own which we are now rectifying.

Using the ‘Private Profile’ option has no effect on who can see your private information (email address & IPs) - this is only visible to admins and staff whether you have PP switched on or switched off.

Having it on does mean that no other users or mods can see your profile page with your list of posts and of threads started by you. Mods are unable to view your history of infractions or warnings (if you have any). This is very disruptive to the moderation process and has been something mods have understandably been asking to be rectified since the start.

Yesterday we removed the option to ‘Allow other users to see my email address’ from all profiles.

We intend soon to also remove the ‘Private Profile’ option and return all profiles to 'public' as they always were on vBulletin.

Admin & staff will continue to be the only ones able to see a user's email address and IP addresses as they always could.

You will be able to see a list of another user's posts and threads on their profile as you always could on the old platform.

Mods will be able to access the history of mod actions on a user’s account as they always could on the old platform and should have been able to on Vanilla as well.

We are aiming to remove the Private Profile option on profile pages next week and shortly after that all profiles will be reverted to public, i.e. you will be able to see all other users' lists of posts and threads they’ve created and mods will be able to see all users infractions & warnings history.

If you have any questions, let me know. Thanks.

o1s1n · 31-05-2022 4:02pm

Thanks for the update Niamh - I was actually quite enjoying the anonymity the private profile was giving me, nice not having folks able to track my posts across different forums. No chance of still retaining some aspect of this for normal users no? (and maybe just allow moderators to see your fill profile?)

Caranica · 31-05-2022 4:06pm

What about forums like Personal issues and relationship issues. Posts on these forums didn't appear on your profile on old boards. They do on vanilla which is why a lot of people have private profiles.

Hotblack Desiato · 31-05-2022 4:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140405#Comment_119140405

If that's the case, that's just not acceptable. Not everybody who starts threads in those forums uses an anonymous / throwaway account. Also many of those replying will reveal private information about themselves and don't have the option of anonymity, so hiding it from search is the least they can do.

Like the "display email" option, yet another thing that should have been seen in testing and resolved before going live not nearly a year later.

Caranica · 31-05-2022 4:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140445#Comment_119140445

Precisely. Managing a throwaway amount is a nightmare if you're a boards regular. So many people accidentally reply from their proper account

Hotblack Desiato · 31-05-2022 4:18pm

It does make you wonder how yer man with ten accounts managed to keep track of things 😝

Goldengirl · 31-05-2022 4:27pm

It would be nice if those posters on ignore could also be blocked as on other social media platforms?

Not too happy about everybody being able to see everybody's posts and discussions even when they are on ignore.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 31-05-2022 4:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140383#Comment_119140383

This was the most straight forward way to give access to user history for mods so we had to go with this rather than what you have suggested which sounds simpler in theory but not in practice. It's due to the way Vanilla's Admins & Mods work, to do it the way you suggested (just allow access) would have meant giving all mods Admin access but this would have meant all mods being able to access email addresses and IPs too.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 31-05-2022 4:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140405#Comment_119140405

I'll look into this and see if there is a way to prevent them appearing on profiles or not, thanks for flagging it.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 31-05-2022 4:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140516#Comment_119140516

@Goldengirl - we have an Ignore feature where you can ignore other users, i.e. not see the content of their posts.

We don't have a block feature if that's what you mean and there is no prospect of adding one either. It's the opposite of posting to a community if you want to pick and choose who could or could not see your posts.

Goldengirl · 31-05-2022 4:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140565#Comment_119140565

I don't mind people seeing my posts , that is why I post!

I don't mean on the threads but on the profile .

My issue is the lack of a safety valve / space , if being harassed by a poster who yes, you can ignore . But it's still uncomfortable.

Will discuss by PM if you want .

Boards.ie: Niamh · 31-05-2022 5:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140593#Comment_119140593

Yes PM if you like :) If someone is harassing you, you can report to Mods/Admins to be dealt with

Goldengirl · 31-05-2022 5:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140677#Comment_119140677

I know .

It freaked me out at the time that the poster was looking at all my posts and continuing to comment even after being warned by a mod and ignored by myself .

MrMusician18 · 31-05-2022 5:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140538#Comment_119140538

Is the most straightforward way just a euphemism for the cheapest way?

Surely the site could've been reprogrammed to give access to that information to mods only, rather than do away with private profiles altogether?

breezy1985 · 31-05-2022 5:52pm

I really enjoyed not having nutters use my public profile to follow me around making stupid comments

Gregor Samsa · 31-05-2022 5:56pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140943#Comment_119140943

Having your profile private doesn't stop people seeing a list of all your posts. Just hover over a poster's name, select "View all posts" from the overlay and you see this: https://www.boards.ie/discussions#bes:breezy1985

Glaceon · 31-05-2022 6:01pm

I set my profile to private to reduce the risk of creeps using my past post history against me at a later stage. Definitely not happy with this change.

Gregor Samsa · 31-05-2022 6:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140405#Comment_119140405

..

breezy1985 · 31-05-2022 6:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140956#Comment_119140956

Can I do that on the phone ?

I certainly can't see your posting history right now.

Gregor Samsa · 31-05-2022 6:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119141008#Comment_119141008

EDIT: actually, it must be a feature of the Boardsie Enhancement Suite plugin. I've had it installed so long, I forgot what features it provides and what's default. But when I check in Edge (where I don't have the plugin), the option isn't there.

Trivially easy to do when you have it, though.

smuggler.ie · 31-05-2022 7:23pm

disapprove private profile removal.

Mods/admin needs some monitoring tools - fine, give them, but stripping off "private" option from user is not welcome from mine point of view

Sleeper12 · 31-05-2022 7:34pm

I think it's a good idea. It's easier to spot the trolls when we can see their posting history

31-05-2022 8:15pm

I'm kinda ok with the locked accounts, it lets me know that they're probably a less than honest poster. I think the bigger problem is letting new users post away in CA threads, giving them the benefit of the doubt. And then they eventually turn into the locked account sh*t poster.

There used to be a limit of 100 posts before you could post in feedback. I know this, because I feel foul of it once. There was a discussion about a thread I'd been involved in - I can't even remember what it was at this point - and I made a fairly reasonable comment in feedback about it. And the post was deleted cos I had only 80 posts or whatever at the time. It's always kinda rankled with me, considering the stuff that's let slide here.

So, maybe apply a 50 post count rule to CA and see if it helps? Like, no normal new person joining here is going to launch into a thread about Teachers, Trump, Ukraine etc. There's a bunch out there right now who should be like shooting fish in a barrel on a recent Ukr thread.

breezy1985 · 31-05-2022 8:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119141519#Comment_119141519

Its not just CA. Absolute loopers set up threads in accommodation, motors, relationships and legal too always with crazy far fetched stories they can't back up. Said threads are clearly designed to create a pile on and clog up the trending page.

Caranica · 31-05-2022 10:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119141568#Comment_119141568

This time of year draws them out, school holidays.

31-05-2022 10:48pm

@Boards.ie: Niamh

Can you confirm the date this is happening? Or post when it is applied.

Really not happy about profile privacy being removed, as it will make it much easier for nutjobs to follow people around, and god knows there are enough of them on here doing it already without making it easier for them.

MrMusician18 · 01-06-2022 12:02am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119141021#Comment_119141021

I originally thought that the removal of private is akin to the police ordering you to leave your door unlocked because they might at some time want to have a search. It's actually worse than that as your post points out - private profiles aren't really private at all, and with a community developed plugin you can effectively bypass private profiles. This begs a couple of questions: if it's possible to effectively bypass private profiles, why not use that method for moderation access to old posts rather than opening profiles by default? Secondly, if it was possible for the community to develop this tool, why couldn't the site develop it for moderators?

oneweb · 01-06-2022 10:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140538#Comment_119140538

Has this been fed back to the developers of the Vanilla software?

Boards.ie: Niamh · 01-06-2022 2:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140719#Comment_119140719

what you ahve suggested sounds straightforward in theory but in practive is not. The whole point of moving to a new platform was to make things easier not to have to build and produce new things just to have the site work the way we want it. Straightforward way = the way most likely to be done any time soon. We are severely limited with dev time so we are doing what we can with what we've got. This option is available and relatively straightforward, it willl help mods in their job which I'm sure you will agree has not been easy on the new platform at all up to now.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 01-06-2022 2:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140943#Comment_119140943

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119140981#Comment_119140981

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119141310#Comment_119141310

Can I just remind all of you that this 'private profile' feature only appeared in July 2021 and all of you were members before that with open profiles. It was a Vanilla feature we inherited with the changeover but it doesn't work for us overall.

If a user is following you, and replying to your posts and you feel they are harassing you rather than just being interested in the same topics as you are. you can report to Mods or Admins.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 01-06-2022 2:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119142233#Comment_119142233

I will post when it is being applied. As above, if any "nutjobs" follow you around the site, report them. If they are acting up in multiple forums this will now make it easier for a mod of one forum to see that they are a timesink elsewhere as well as maybe their own forum and action them accordingly. Right now mods can only go by what they know of the user from their own forum.

Private Profile option

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