# What were you THINKING?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1561

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**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\
**Post date:** [February 29, 2024, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/1561 "2024-02-29T17:26:22Z")

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> [@What\_Exit](#):
>
> Wasn’t that the default with the port over from vBulletin? I think a lot of users are set to hidden.

This thread certainly implies it.

> [@"This user's public profile is hidden."](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-users-public-profile-is-hidden/913834):
>
> So someone opens a thread, which I read. But then I’m curious about what other threads they started, what posts they’ve made, how long they’ve been on the board and so forth but clicking on their name results in a message, “This user’s public profile is hidden.” No information is available about the poster. Can this be changed?

And there was a suggestion in that thread as to why it happens to some people and not others:

> The preference may have been carried over from vBulletin, where I think I deliberately opted not to display whether I was online but you could still see past posts and threads.

So depending on a person’s profile preferences in vBulletin, it may have tried to reproduce those by hiding a person’s profile here on Discourse.

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