Yes. Most people don’t get this or even know. iPhones can be set up to disable tracking in every app, SIRI etc.
i lost a phone last year and knew I had done a good job as the gps could not be tracked on google.
I do think folks are be becoming more aware of privacy and one has options. You can browse on your phone in a private browser, disable google tracking and go into every app. You can have emails ehicj aren’t trackable. There is even a way to backend into twitter to read ( not post). I take privacy seriously. My spouse has been in the software industry since the 1980s. Believe me, we realized the danger back then.
Never shared info, never will. Kids are the same.
So much data is mined and sold. We’ve told our kids how it works.
Some apps cannot be used without “oversharing” and there are vackdoors on many apps too.
That does seem like the best policy.
Part of why I raise the question is that there are differences of opinion on what should be shared and I’d like to understand them. I didn’t see @MWolf’s reply as an attack, but I do think ‘calling this “stalking” is ludicrous’ was more pointed then necessary. Again, I think it comes from different values people have, so that’s the part that we should focus on.
In any case, moderators and staff will have access to this sort of history no matter what else we end up doing. It’s pretty important they have it to track down people who are causing trouble.
Great that you are getting feedback and that’s the bottom line.
Seems like it would have been better if the temporary configuration for the new site was to make it like the old site, where post history, join date, and last visit are public, but everything else is private (or user switchable). The “all or nothing” public / private setting does not allow users to have it be like the old site that they were presumably ok with.
It was a technically easy solution since hiding the entire profile was already supported by the software. Removing stats is going to require some development work.
Sorry, this is long.
I want to know when someone last visited, so I know if they’re active. Lots of newbies, eg, post once then disappear. Even older posters come and go. (Did they take a break or I’ve just not seen them?) That’s not snooping.
I want to see history for, as said, context. Not for idle snooping. Eg, somebody asks a question without naming colleges. Or stats/ECs. Or all sorts of info I think is relevant.
Sometimes it’s mentioned in some older thread. Again, not snooping.
Does that need to be protected? Hiding has also messed my ability to PM.
CC is a public forum. I understand you may regret some not-smart prior post. But to go and treat history as if it were state secrets is odd to me. It just is, to me.
You could be more cautious when commenting. You could review your post before sending. You could accept that it’s a public/anonymous forum and “We are what we write.”
In ways, private or not, we all leave a trail of breadcrumbs- who lives where, went to what sort of college, what job field, kids’ info…even spouse disputes. Lol. I try not to reveal what I don’t want known.
I wish it were not an “all or nothing” situation. I switch back and forth A LOT, actually. I have some folks that I do message back and forth with, and I really like that feature, and that is usually what prompts me to be public. OTOH, sometimes I switch to private because I don’t think all of that data needs to be public. I am not ashamed of any posts, have been entirely truthful in all posts and replies, and I will freely answer questions about where my D visited/applied or about our experience. I don’t think some of the metrics are necessary or helpful (some, such as time spent or last visit may not even be accurate just based on my own profile and what I know I am doing) and I don’t think they need to be reported to the community at large.
I get that it needs to be collected and I appreciate that it knows where I left off in a thread. The question is whether or not that needs to be visible to everyone else. How long I have been a member? Yup. Being able to read my previous posts based on something I just wrote? Sure. How is knowing I read 5 topics and didn’t comment relevant? Maybe all of the posts I read had vague titles or asked about something I can’t answer. Am I trying to hide my activity? No but it’s just unnecessary to display it, not to mention some of it is inaccurate. No one seriously thinks I was reading posts for 22 hours straight but at one point, that’s what it said.
Well then.
I also find the read time to be the most intrusive (and incorrect) piece of information. I almost never close the browser window on my iPad. My current read time says 3 days. I assure you that I have not been reading the site nonstop for three days, that was just the last time I opened the browser window. Still, the idea that someone could look at my profile and think that I have been reading that much really bothers me for some reason. That is the reason I went private.
Just to reassure you, I don’t check read times or other unnecessary info. I personally doubt many do. Imo, it’s some metric but by no means interesting to the average bear.
Some of the info is just wrong. My profile says I have created 56 topics, when in fact I have created only four.
And I agree with others that the “read time” metric is really invasive and not at all useful when many of us just keep a tab open that we may or may not be actively viewing. I also don’t see why it’s anybody’s business how many bookmarks we create.
Instead of adding all this info to our profiles, importing our past “likes” would be more useful in establishing our credibility record on the site. (Also, the fact that all our old PM’s are still gone is a real drag, but that’s outside the scope of this thread.)
I think other users should be able to reference our posting history and maybe our history of “likes” from others. Date joined and most recent visit are useful, the better to avoid responding to people who have already “ghosted.” I don’t think the other stats are helpful for other users to see.
In the former scheme, couldn’t drafts be counted as new topics started? I ignore details like that. And don’t see how some other user, looking at your record, would do anything with that info.
I didn’t know you could hide it until I read this thread and now I set it to hide.
Like others, I find it unnecessary to show how long I am reading (wrong info, since I leave browser open).
If I search on a user’s name in the search bar, all of their posts come up, whether their profile is set to private or not.
I sometimes also check past posts by poster to see if they have been consistent, or do get a more accurate picture of the situation.
I agree almost entirely with this post. I have no problem with users viewing what I’ve posted. I don’t think anyone needs to see my read time here. Why is that of benefit to another user? If info is available in our profile and others can view it, there should be a practical reason for doing so. Knowing how much time I spend reading CC is no one’s business.
That said, I find some new things very annoying and seemingly without purpose. @CC_Jon, I wish CC would fix this one in particular:
I like knowing who has liked my stuff. It seems pointless to keep a tally of the likes I’ve received and never know which comment I’ve made has been liked or who has liked it. The only ones I do know about are the ones that get ten or more likes.
Why does it matter? Because If I know that I consistently get likes on certain topics, maybe I can spend more time in a particular sub forum or on a certain thread. I might make more of an effort to reply to that user’s comments or threads.
As it is now, I never know if a comment I make has had any impact. Has it helped anyone? Maybe the comment I got one like on really helped someone, but I don’t know. Yes, threads I’ve replied to will show up, but I comment on a lot of threads, so I want to know where I’m making an impact.
A good feature from the old platform that I REALLY want to see here was that I could click my likes, see which user had liked which post, and see if that was a thread I could revisit. So yes, the reward of a like does have a purpose. It’s feedback that I’m having an impact. I didn’t think it made much of a difference at first, but as time goes by, it is a bit disheartening. After all, we are here to engage with others, hopefully by being helpful. But now, I often feel like a hit and run poster because I don’t know if I will revisit a thread again. The like feature serves a purpose, at least to me. And I don’t need to hide that I’ve given and received likes.
And, it is also a shame that CC didn’t import over all the likes from the old platform. I think especially for newer users (most likely students) knowing that a pinned post in the College Life forum, for example, has a lot of likes, is perhaps reassuring to them. It’s a way for them to know that other young people found the Making Friends At College thread helpful, for instance.
The TLDR is that being able to see who likes a post affirms to the post creator that they are having an impact.
@Lindagaf If you click on the number next to the heart, there is a drop down of avatars (I think, but I can’t see the pics due to my ad blocker). “__ lked this.” If you hover over each of those, you can see who liked that particular post. Tedious, but it’s available.
Only if it go back to each post I’ve created, and only if I know I’ve already received a like on it. Generally, that only applies to posts that have at least ten likes.
I think there’s a happy medium between providing the privacy that we all want and the transparency that readers of our posts deserve. Some of the statistics currently displayed don’t enhance tranparency but compromise posters’ privacy in some cases. I actually prefer a consistent standard for everyone, rather than giving posters the option to hide their profiles.
Agree on the hiding. When an aggressive poster comments and runs, and you can’t see what he/she is all about - feels like a drive-by IMO.