Do we need private profiles?

About This Message Board
#1

Profiles in this board serve almost no purpose. If I hide my profile, I am not removing the ability for other posters to look at my activity. I’m just making it inconvenient.

Specifically, if I hide my profile, other posters can’t click the “only show Johnny’s posts” button. This is a super convenient feature for quickly reviewing what a poster has been arguing in a thread. I can still do a search for @Johnny_Bravo inside the topic, but the results aren’t nearly as easy to parse.

There are no requirements whatsoever to include personal information, email addresses, or other identifying material in profiles. As best I can tell, the only people who benefit from hidden profiles are those who want to obfuscate their activity from other members of the community, not those who want to protect their identities.

So - what value is added by letting posters hide their profiles?

If you have a hidden profile it is more difficult to follow your arguments
#2

None. But I don’t think we can turn that off.

Hiding Email Addresses is fine and normal.
Not accepting PMs is a reasonable option.
But the hiding profile option is not really of use on this site.

#3

I believe a site admin can turn off the ability to hide profiles.

#4

So looking at Preferences, the 2 basic features I mentioned, don’t seem to be available.

This is probably a thread for Site Feedback and not ATMB.

Incorrect information

Every other message board software I know lets you hide your Email from all but the Staff. If there is a PM function, there are settings for it.

I’m thinking if we cannot let people hide their Emails, we have to let them hide their profiles. Terrible, but it might be all we have.

#5

There is already a thread discussing this here:

I will close this one.

#6