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.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 01-06-2022 2:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119143388#Comment_119143388

Yes, they are aware of this.

MrMusician18 · 01-06-2022 2:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119144517#Comment_119144517

I don't agree Niamh, posting history is seemingly already visible through the community developed add-in. If mods need this to access post history, can't they use that?

The best way forward is usually to ask the fewest number of people to make a change. Instead, what the site is doing is imposing a change on everyone to make a small number of people's life a bit easier.

Private profiles were one of the few good things about vanilla, and now that's being taken away.

Boards.ie: Niamh · 01-06-2022 2:52pm

It's not about a user's posting history. History of mod actions are contained on each user's profile but only visible to Mods, Admins and staff. However when a user marks their profile as private all of this information is hidden from mods. It should not be. Mods need to be able to see a user's previous disciplinary actions (if any).

Mods are not a 'small number' of people, there are hundreds of them and without them the site would be a very grim place so we're doing all possible to bring their tools and features back to what they should be (and used to be before we moved). You as a user do not have to 'do' anything.

Private profiles were not something we expected on the changeover and not a feature we asked for. I recognise that some people felt that it was some sort of safety feature from other users being able to read their posts but the whole point of the site is that it is a community who share their thoughts and posts with each other. A small but not insignificant nummber of people have been re-regging and immediately setting their profiles to private as they know it is harder to follow their history across the site. They may troll one forum until banned and then move on to another, this is something we want to knock on the head.

I understand people's concerns and this is why I wanted to give advance notice and the opportunity to answer questions beforehand.

DelBoy Trotter · 01-06-2022 3:27pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119144678#Comment_119144678

If you don't want people to be able to read your posts on an online discussion forum, then don't post on a discussion forum. Everything you post online is in the open for everybody to read, and it really feels like there are a lot of people making a mountain out of a molehill here.

MrMusician18 · 01-06-2022 3:41pm

There are hundreds of moderators in name only, since the move to vanilla many are not active at all and have completely disengaged with the site. Last time I checked cmods didn't even know who were moderating their subforums and there were only a handful of people actually running the site.

As I said, it's leaving the door unlocked for everyone so the few that need access don't need a set of keys, rather than actually giving those keys to people that need them.

Esel · 01-06-2022 5:55pm

@Boards.ie: Niamh

Is there any chance that the Profile page can be expanded to include other data, such as was available on the old vBB system?

tjhook · 01-06-2022 6:33pm

Agree, I don't see this as much of an issue. Even without Boards facilitating it, it's fairly easy to use Google to search for a poster's Boards posts. (The exception would be posters with usernames like "Donald Trump", where the search results would contain a lot of unrelated posts)

As Delboy above says, content on a website like Boards is publicly visible. It's very difficult to prevent a person using Google (or any number of other tools) to gather and correlate information from it. This isn't my first Boards account. It's possible to piece together quite a lot about a longtime user from their posts, so I tend to close my account after a few years and open a new one. Now where did I leave my tinfoil hat :)

smuggler.ie · 01-06-2022 7:15pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119144551#Comment_119144551

I am here to express mine and solely mine opinion on the topic, and i did. It was "nice to have", not that it effects me personaly in the bad way, not that boards care or should.

Nothing personal

... i also remember some features we did had back then, like.... dark mode, 24h time... in the correct summer time, list of users thanking post in the banner, working notifications,... list might go on ......

I remember all the promisses it will be "good" and done "soon" because of "new platform". As you remaind me... since July 2021

The whole point of moving to a new platform was to make things easier

You not the first to say that and perhaps multiple times during past year.

Did it ? Perhaps did and i'm wrong... so why admin and mods(not even mention userbase) have struggle using this site, lack of "easy things"? Quite the oposite it seam.

Whomever from Vanilla fed this **** to whomever was responsible for "buying" it, it didnt implement any "ease" as it appear so far, else why does it require to strip off of some features of the "new platform" already.

I might not know all interworking there, but as user - expirience for me is poor compare to what it was before Jul21

Perhaps we should not play this "remainder" game...

It is what it is now.

I still do hope that boards will find their way out with at least some of its "face", else why would i be here... oh yeah, to do a DIY CSS on the site to suite my liking.

Again, nothing personal.

Caranica · 01-06-2022 10:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119144872#Comment_119144872

But I bring you back to my point about PI and RI, also Sex and Sexuality iirc. Those posts didn't appear on your profile on the old boards and they will now be exposed. This is not ok!!

Pussyhands · 01-06-2022 10:30pm

Oh well, it was nice having the private profile option. I've had multiple nutjobs who think lowly of me making comments that it's weird I have my profile on private. They were clearly looking to browse my posts to get info on me.

Konny Rool · 01-06-2022 10:30pm

a clusterfuq so

"Mods can't see" etc bans and the like , so "no more privacy options"

Well sort that shít out then, without depriving folk of their option/s to be relatively anonymous; using stuff like 'computer programming' and the like - something one would hope Vanilla are familiar with

Esel · 01-06-2022 10:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119146970#Comment_119146970

using stuff like 'computer programming' and the like

... or ask some of the knowledgeable and skilled users here to chip in...

Konny Rool · 01-06-2022 10:58pm

that too I suppose @Esel 😊 must be loads of those experts on here !

Esel · 01-06-2022 11:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119147100#Comment_119147100

I think there are/were a couple of user-developed add-ons in use which a lot of users seemed happy with.

02-06-2022 8:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119142091#Comment_119142091

You are seriously out of touch with reality if you think that tired statement of yours is true, are you imaging the Fr ted scene where the kids ring the priest hotline?

boards couldn’t be further from the radar of todays youth, it’s full of either middle life people (hence the cranky and suspicious tones) or bots sent here with an agenda

Caranica · 02-06-2022 8:12am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119147675#Comment_119147675

I was a mod for years, school holidays always brought out new trolls, usually late night.

Jequ0n · 02-06-2022 9:17am

“I was a mod for years”. Explains a lot then..

The private profile option was a nice to have, but not having them won’t be that big a deal. It’s laughable how poor the site is functioning for every party involved, posters and mods.

blackbox · 02-06-2022 9:24am

Long before the change to Vanilla, you stopped showing a user's location, supposedly for privacy reasons.

This was going to be reviewed with the possibility of being made optional.

I'd love to see it back - it's particularly relevant for forums such as farming, gardening etc. Not so much for After Hours.

CGI_Livia_Soprano · 02-06-2022 12:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119144551#Comment_119144551

Can I just remind you that the users of the site don’t have to be grateful with you removing a feature just because it makes your life a little bit more comfortable? Learn to take some feedback on board without getting snippy with people, good man.

I have used this site under various guises over the years and each time some lunatic would take umbrage with my forthright, honest style of posting and launch a campaign of following me from thread to thread trying to wind me up.

It doesn’t happen as much any more (though it does still happen) and that’s, in my opinion, because of the privacy option on my profile.

Reporting the posts doesn’t do anything because those underhanded, low-key forms of harassment can be explained away by “oh he’s just disagreeing with you” or “nobody’s stalking you” by mod or admin alike, particularly if you are poster the moderators don’t like (such as myself, I am very frank about the incompetency of the moderators/admins and I am not shy about it. This thread reinforces my view towards the moderator team).

It’s best for users such as myself for whom the moderators are no help to be able to keep our profiles private without fear of being followed around from thread to thread like a beggar by weirdos.

I think the boards.ie braintrust need to band together and work out how to give moderators their tools for spying on users without removing features for the regular user. I have worked in IT for over thirty years and genuinely boards.ie seems to be run particularly poorly. “Do no harm, don’t break users.*” Don’t give us excuses give us solutions.

* https://www.theregister.com/2017/11/24/linus_torvalds_approach_to_security/

Pussyhands · 02-06-2022 1:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119148712#Comment_119148712

Have to agree with most of that. As I've already said, I've had numerous comments now such as "why do you have your profile on private?" when it's clear they're snooping for info. As for people saying you can do a search anyways, it doesn't matter. These stalkers aren't the brightest so they would never think of that.

I would also say that saying something wasn't a feature of boards pre transition isn't a great defence considering there were a lot of features on boards pre transition that were removed and we had to get used to them.

Private Profile option

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