Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback
previously only the first part of a user's profile was accessible without having to log into the site, eg username, location and last topic etc. Now everything is accessible, web address, msn address, and all the user information. this means that anyone looking at the front page of the site will know whatever they want to know about the users without having to become a member.
is that really such a good idea?
previously users might have put their msn address on here for instance knowing that only users of the site would be able to access that information, now putting details such as your msn address on your profile means that that info is accessible to the whole of the www, which essentially means that no user information on here is really secure now apart from password.
MSN is not shown when somebody is not logged in. I just checked now. But i might miss something. If it is shown to everyone i agree with you.
i disagree with this. first what stops people from finding out msn addresses from myspace or something like that? second if the profiles were a log in only thing the site search we be next to useless
I agree with SB here; totally not necessary. I vote not to ahve the entire profile visible to those not logged in.
hmmm, one advantage of having the whole profile showing, is that say if thetre friend joined the site, and they wanted to join, they can check the whole profile, just to see what people are like.
it will inspuire them to join or not, and, come on. if someone ads you to msn, and you don't know the address, then are you seriously going to add them?. i know i wouldn't. i think we should keep it as it is
lol. just as i said that, someone aded me
Speaking of adding PPL to MSN, yesterday, I added someone that I talk to frequently by using the MSN address in their profile. I've never tried to see if MSN addresses are shown if people aren't logged in. I'd agree with SB here.
hmmm, I actually agree. I don't really like this idea. I'd like to see more posts from users htough, before I bring it up on the staff list, on whether or not they agree or disagree, cause I personally disagree with it.
thoughts from the rest of you who we haven't heard from yet?
I agree with the starter of this topic. I don't think that people who aren't a member of the site should be allowed to read complete profiles of those who are members. On the otherhand, there are other sites, such as MySpace, where, if the user chooses, you are able to review their profiles, so, maybe that's an option that we could have here? We could have a choice of whether or not we'd like for nonmembers be able to review our profiles without having to sign up. I guess we could have some sort of check box or something, in our user account settings. Just a thought.
Well, here's the thing, I've just tried this while not being logged in and I certainly don't see messenger info being given. When I log in it is there but not when i'm not.
All that said I'm not sure I understand the fus anyway. Aftre all, anybody is free to create an account here if they wish so it's not like people anywhere in the World couldn't get the information if you chose to give it in the first place.
I work on the assumption that if you give such information as messenger addresses etc. In your text profile, then it is possible, even likely, that people whom you may wish not to converse with, will get hold of it. If you don't wish for such information to be readily available, don't offer it full stop because surely it doesn't matter whether the wierdow bothering you is a registered zone user or not, does it?
Dan.
In addition to the precious posting I'd like to add my 2 cents as well normally when you get on MSN you will get a message asking if you want to add so-and-so or not. Well simply disapprove of it.
Yahoo Messenger is the same as MSN. If a message comes up dissaprove of it then your troubles are over.
I'm not entirely sure if it works that way for AIM or not but you can always block whoever it may be on there. I personally don't use AIM anymore though.
Oh but wait here's an even better idea why not just take the info out of your profile messenger and where your from city/town wise that is. Most of what you decide to put in your profile you really need to think about before doing so to begin with anyways.
Honestly, I didnt' even try to see if I could check an entire profile, while not being logged in. However, I do agree, that if you dont' want everyone to know what your messenger addresses are, etc., then don't put them in the profile to begin with. but, I still stand by my suggestion of making it an option of whether or not we'd like nonmembers, (or members who aren't signed in), to view our profiles.
I think that it should not be a big deal. Who cares about your profiles. If you can put it up for people on the site then you can put it up for anyone.
i agree with jess here
I agree with the idea that people could choose if they want their profile displayed to users who are not logged on. It's a good idea.
But as long as msn and skype are not shown i don't understand what is the problem either.
In livejernal people can see more information if the user make it pubblic to everyone. Here is just a small description of somebody.
If i had my msn and skype info i wouldn't want anyone to see it but i don't mind people seing the description in my profile.
as has been said already, you can aprove or not aprove a user for msn, skype, and yahoo. aim has something similar too. if someone does get aproved by mistake and they are bothering you, block them! let the profiles stay this way
i kind of agree with both sides, which is strange. i believe people should have the right to say whether their profile is shown to outside users, definitely and as for msn, yeah, just block them if you don't approve of them adding you. maybe if not a check box in account settings, maybe hide msn addresses or something? just trying to go from both sides of the coin. also, i don't think some boards should be shown out of the site too. children could view any of those and, some topics, i wouldn't like my own children, if i had any, to see.
I don't see anything wrong with viewing a users profile if you are not logged in.
I agree with Rat and Dan (etirnity) on Yahoo some people who I don't know have added me! If I don't want to talk to them than I don't! If they are rude to me I can always block them! It's the same on Aim! So I don't mind if some one not logged in reviews my profile! I joined this site to play games and make new friends!
i don't see what the fuss is. i trid to view profiles and it doesn't show all the info. hmmm. shrugs. maybe i'm wrong?
Well I just looked at a couple of profiles that have there msn info listed and when I was not logged in, it didn't show them.
So maybe the person you saw put it in there text profile or something.
yeah, did the same thing a little while ago with my own profile, no messengers shown.
Well I checked this out for myself and like the other posters have said the messenger info aren't in them. I check a few before logging in today while offline.
I did notice however that at the bottom where people describe themselves are now available no big deal or at least to me it ain'tbut there ain't no messenger info though, there is webpage info that shows though.
Even if the messengers were to show in them what I've spoken of above would make sense to.
Ok so the msn info appears not to be visible from the outside, but everything else is. Date of birth, website address if you have one, all the info you choose to put on to your profile. The issue I have with it is this:
Previously, you could click on a profile and the info you would be given would be general, name, location, location on the site, and the rest you had to be logged in to view. So people may put all their info on their profile, because they’ve come to this site to make friends and they’re happy for the couple of hundred users who generally log in here to have access to most of the information about them. And then, overnight, without any prior warning, all that information is opened up to the entire world wide web. Now to some it might not appear like a lot of info, but it’s actually surprising what you can find out about someone purely from just a little bit of info. From your date of birth and the town where you live it actually wouldn’t be that hard for me to find out your address. Especially if you had a website which was linked to your profile as well I could find out who the domaine name was registered to, and then find out where you live from the rest of the info on your profile. And the difference between me doing it when logged into the site and not logged into the site is that the admins would be able to establish who had clicked on your profile while being logged into the site, whereas if I go to your profile from the front page there is no way of knowing who I am.
And yes, I am fully aware that anyone can create an account on here, but the reality is that there are only about 3000 accounts on here so when you compare that to the whole of the www that’s a tiny amount by comparison.
Now I’m sure that people are going to say that “if you’re not comfortable about people knowing who you are then you shouldn’t have the info on your profile”, I disagree. I should be able to put information about myself, eg my name, my date of birth, some more basic information about myself, on a site that has registered users, without the fear that this information can be viewed by anyone trawling the internet looking for it. We’ve had numerous complaints that users don’t put enough information on their profiles, if users are aware that all their info is available to the masses users are going to be even more reluctant to share info about themselves.
At the very least there should be the option to “make my profile publically available” or to “make my profile available to registered users only”, so that those who are not comfortable with their info being available to all but who are happy to divulge a bit of themselves to the users who are logged in, can do so.
start harping on myspce then. i haven't seen anything private on there yet.
On MySpace, users have the option of whether or not they want the world to view their profiles. I think that's how it should be here, too.
Oy.
Yeah ... what Dan said.
Hello. First, to clarify, the fields that we amde public were the words of wisdom, extended profile, and birthday. As I mentioned when this change was made, this was done to help the Google search feature. It also increases our visibility for people searching and may bring in more members. The webpage links help you as well as it could improve the ranking of your pages in search as Google will see them linked from here.
That being said, I see some merit in hiding profiles from non-members, and this is something I'll look into to see how other community sites handle it.
Thanks for the comments.
Like I said it doesn't bother me! As long as I don't give out my phone number and address! For the phone number thing that's why I have a lazer box! For my profile I only give out the basic info! So I'm fine with it!