I only just noticed, no one here has a visitor wall. Maybe it’s childish, but I like them. So why not here? Not serious enough for the board’s “FIGHTING IGNORANCE” philosophy? Too much extra work for mods? No one wants them here? 
They’ve never been a big fan of the social networking functions of the forum, really. I’m not sure there really is that big a desire for a place on your profile where people can leave public comments.
Yeah, I don’t see that ending well. Or starting well.
The middle might be OK.
So a visitor wall is like your wall on Facebook or something? Yeah I don’t think they’ll do that there. I see a much higher usage of such a thing to post insults and nastiness than anything good. Are there vBulletins that have such a thing? I’ve never encountered one…
I’ve seen it, usually a tab for visitor messages.
Would not use it even if it existed. Not into the whole social networking thing. Why would I want it on a message board? That said, guess it is up to TPTB.
It’s turned on over at Giraffeboard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it abused. Of course that board doesn’t take itself quite as seriously as this one and I don’t think people are as likely to get wrapped on in ‘heat of the moment’ arguments that might cause them to go write something nasty on someone else’s page.
I’m not even sure what that is. I don’t use Facebook if it’s some Facebookish function, which people seem to be implying.
Looks like this at Giraffe.
Well, they’re smaller so they also get a lot less traffic, and I’m guessing most of their posters are from here.
That’s what facebook is for, if you’re into that.
I don’t think we need that here, myself. Just like there are blogs out there, but we don’t really need it here. All available for those so inclined, not seeing the need to duplicate it.
Visitor messages are basically like a guestbook (remember those from the earlier days of the Web?) in your profile where people can write to you. Or think of it as your own thread visible on your profile via a tab. It’s a way for people to have not-hugely-public conversations (though they are public, they’re not wasting forum space with chit chat between two or three people).
I believe the visitor message option is standard in versions of vBulletin 3.7 or higher. The feature might be useful some day to consider as another fairly harmless perk to offer for an extra ___ bucks per year; members could be bumped to a usergroup that allows profile visitor messages. Those who don’t want to use it wouldn’t have to, and I can’t imagine it using all that much extra processor power than private messages.
On another board I belong to, visitor messages are subject to the same rules as the rest of our site. No personal insults, don’t be a jerk, etc. And a user can report abusive messages. It might mean extra work for the mods, but there can be consequences for leaving abusive messages.
Really? Really? You think if user profiles allowed for comments, it would be mainly used for personal attacks and insults? Do you really truly think that? If so, what makes you think ordinary board behaviors and rules would be scrapped with the addition of this feature? “Oh, we can leave profile comments now? Fuck everything, I’m getting YouTube up in here!” I mean… come on.
Anyway, I don’t care either way for this feature, but they’re never going to do it. No, it’s not serious enough for the FIGHTING IGNORANCE philosophy of the board. Sorry, Chuck.
I’ve seen this feature on other boards, and I’ve never seen it used for post insults and nastiness, even when these things are rampant in other ares of the board…
Having said that, I didn’t really expect SD to adopt this feature, just wondering why it hasn’t. Thanks for the answers. 
No, I never said they’d MAINLY be used for that*. I’m just saying it’s inevitable that they would sometimes, and it’s that much more work for the moderators to deal with. Because of that, I doubt they’d implement the feature.
*on re-reading my post I guess I did imply that. That wasn’t what I meant though. I just meant that I could see it becoming a common issue.
You can delete things from your own wall. You can report them as well, but if you don’t want to get the mods involved, you could just delete it and move on.
I also noticed that if you delete something the comment box stays there (And shows who it’s from) with a note that says you deleted it. I’m not sure how it’s displayed to others. The option to report it is still there so I get the feeling if you delete a comment and then report it, the mods can still see what it said even though it isn’t visible to anyone else.
The mods could also permanently delete a comment if you request it.
They’re magnets for spam on forums that are otherwise well-moderated.
This, and(speaking as an ex-mod) the staff are already kept pretty damn busy with the board as it is now set up.