I need more control for Statistics Center (privacy issue)

[Kiriakos GR]

Statistics Center this is visible to guests by my choice, but Statistics Center this includes fields including members names about their in forum performance.

My requirement this is registered forum members names, them to appear to guests in a scrambled form ... example:
Top 10 Posters..
********    2000 post
********    1300 post
etc etc   (for those 10 lines)   

and this appearance also for Most Time Online , & Top Topic Starters

I did restrict Member-list to all regular members, because I had incident of new members them getting registering just to spy over-all forum activity and especially check Member-list.
Viewing an individual member account this is not restricted, because if you do so ... PM functionality this is no more.

In conclusion I did manage to (protect members list ) even for regular members, but guests now they see more details because of Statistics Center.

[Kiriakos GR]

Question comes next in line, after my report,  this is if SMF developers are interested to improve this privacy issue ?

Alternatively if someone wrote ( did ) a modification file this including such features, please let me know of the download link.
Thanks. 

[Arantor]

The SMF developers are not interested in implementing this, I can tell you that now (having been a member of the dev team)

I have never seen a modification for it either because protecting members' names is largely a waste of time and effort. If you don't want details to be shown, don't make the boards visible to people, much simpler, much quicker and much more private if you actually care about such things.

Or let people use pseudonyms.

If your point is that people can log in with the names they find, that's why there are display names; you cannot log into this forum using 'Arantor' as the log in name, for example.

[Kiriakos GR]

I am using SMF as forum engine this serving people working professionally as electricians or in electronics.
I am not encouraging anonymity, members has the chance to get to know its other,  they can develop PR for business and if they wish it even real friendships.

Only members qualifying with specific criteria can join in this forum of elite professionals. 

Statistics center as is now, this simile to keyhole for spying activities.

Simplest alternative solution = Less work for software developers:  This is forum administrators having a choice of which sectors of forum stats will be displayed at Statistics center.


»Administration Center » Members »Statistics center
Top 10 Posters..  ( Yes / No)
Most Time Online ..  ( Yes / No)
Top Topic Starters..  ( Yes / No) check box.

     

[Kindred]

Except, that is certainly not "less work" for forum developers...

That adds a bunch of conditional code, plus the code to manage and store the conditional setting, plus the database entries for each setting...

All for something which would be needed or even wanted by less than 1% of the admins (if even that many)

[Arantor]

Strikes me that the entire behaviour desired - i.e. hide the info centre from people who shouldn't see it - can be achieved by having the mod for it.

Yes, it's not so fine-grained as discussed but I'd honestly doubt it would be used in the manner actually discussed anyway, and that it would be 'you're in this group, you can see all the things'.

I do love it when non-technical people tell me how complicated something is to build.

[Kiriakos GR]

Except, that is certainly not "less work" for forum developers...

That adds a bunch of conditional code, plus the code to manage and store the conditional setting, plus the database entries for each setting...

All for something which would be needed or even wanted by less than 1% of the admins (if even that many)

Maybe I need to clarify, what I do suggest this is (show / hide ) additional controls , especially for Guests visitors.
Statistics Center page alone, as is now, this delivers a pile of statistics.

After of five years of my Blog operation, I am extremely happy, that my idea about using SMF as extension of my Blog ( News Feed & publish of small articles) this made statistics counters to jump as high of one million of traffic per year.

[Kiriakos GR]

Strikes me that the entire behaviour desired - i.e. hide the info centre from people who shouldn't see it - can be achieved by having the mod for it.

Yes, it's not so fine-grained as discussed but I'd honestly doubt it would be used in the manner actually discussed anyway, and that it would be 'you're in this group, you can see all the things'.

I do love it when non-technical people tell me how complicated something is to build.

I will push the envelope by asking you if you are good at deleting code ?   

I will show you how to do it, and I am industrial electrician (and other things) .

1) Get this Statistics Center page,   make a copy of it , rename this in to  Mini Statistics Center.
2) Now delete lines of code (hooks) relative to individual members stats. 
3) Add this file also at SMF root files.
4) Navigation ...  »Administration Center » Members »Statistics center
5) Add one option for administrators >>  Stats center panel for member groups  >>   Statistics Center or  Mini Statistics Center

Speaking of popularity, how many will need this?  Well it is obligation of entire web and software developers, them always to handle lines of code even if those serving boring topics as is  privacy issues.
No one ever congratulated an electrician because he did good work at making SAFE electrical installation, all of you, you are getting happy only if your light bulb this is on.

Thanks for this interesting dialog, and I hope to motivated you all enough, in favor of Safety and innovation.

[Arantor]

Start with https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2473 which will work on 2.0.13 without any changes (it might need helping along with version emulation), this will hide the info center from the front page from guests with a few clicks in the permissions area.

Then go into the permissions and untick 'View forum statistics' from guests.

You really don't need to go and edit all that code when you can do it with much less effort.

But you're the one who insists that your way is less effort...


Also, re motivation, the only motivation I get from this is to avoid your topics. You ask if I'm experienced in deleting code; I've written more lines of mod code than almost anyone else at this point... including deletion where necessary.

[Kiriakos GR]

Also, re motivation, the only motivation I get from this is to avoid your topics. You ask if I'm experienced in deleting code; I've written more lines of mod code than almost anyone else at this point... including deletion where necessary.

You got it wrong again, what we have in common this is intelligence for serious troubleshooting but in different sectors.
What makes us shine this is our skills and not our words. 
 

[Gluz]

Statistics Center this is visible to guests by my choice...

Statistics center as is now, this simile to keyhole for spying activities.

My question is, why have the Stats visible to guests?

Your concern is spying in the Stats, but have them to anyone can see, it's a little contradictory.

Also, if you have the forum open to guests and they can see the posts and profiles, then having name in the Stats hidden don't do anything at all, they just go to the profiles and see all the info in the user's profile.

If you really want only hide the user names in the Stats for guests, can be made with a single line of code in each section, but kind of defeat having that entire section of the Stats showing at all, and thus the reason I ask why have the Stats visible to guests.

[Arantor]

You got it wrong again, what we have in common this is intelligence for serious troubleshooting but in different sectors.
What makes us shine this is our skills and not our words. 

And you think this motivates me to want to help you when at every turn you assert that I'm wrong, and you assert that what you want is how it should be... a decade of running forums (and longer participating) disagrees.

Your concern is spying in the Stats, but have them to anyone can see, it's a little contradictory.

Yup. He wants the benefit of having the stats visible to show off to guests what a valuable resource the community is, but without the headache of privacy leaks to guests. Unfortunately it's not just the stats where such privacy 'leaks' are an issue because any area that the forum is open to guests, it's possible to see user names and infer their stats.

Which means you'd have to protect the whole forum in the same way which is somewhat against the point of doing it.

Especially as that in the context of a forum for business professionals, part of the reason they want to contribute is to promote themselves - which means they don't want to be hidden.

I wonder if the OP actually spoke to his community about what he plans to do.

If you really want only hide the user names in the Stats for guests, can be made with a single line of code in each section, but kind of defeat having that entire section of the Stats showing at all, and thus the reason I ask why have the Stats visible to guests.

Which is why I suggested the simpler, faster and more maintainable method.

[Kiriakos GR]

My question is, why have the Stats visible to guests?

In my case, Guests could be advertisers looking for investing money in advertising, this is good, this is useful.
About the amount of registered members if few or many, I do not care, I am the source of content as professional Blogger.

From the other hand they are few who care to see how rich this is my forum speaking of members activity, so them to join in and take advantage of them.
Due strict forum moderation such people will never have the chance to play such games.
But I need them stay blind and even when they are not registered.

Simple as that. 

   

[Kiriakos GR]

I wonder if the OP actually spoke to his community about what he plans to do.


Yup. He wants the benefit of having the stats visible to show off to guests what a valuable resource the community is

I am not using SMF so to organize a community.
As administrator all that I am interested for,  this is any one interested to engage with me, he will do it by playing with my own rules.

I added a simple idea about a feature this missing from default SMF code, and I did justified  (clarified) the need for it.

Dear anonymous person,  I am Kiriakos Triantafillou from Greece,  Blog Popularity level  ( In Top three worldwide), Blog age five years.
I am not show off due SMF code.  There is a well established Blog  http://www.ittsb.eu/    and Official Google stats. 

End of conversation with strangers. 

[Steve]

Just trying to understand what you wrote ... you're saying your blog is one of the most popular three in the world?

[Kindred]

That's what he wrote....  but it is, if course, provably, untrue


This is deinfitely not a "missing feature"
And, apart from Kiriakos, there is not actually any need for it... which makes it definite mod material

[Gluz]

In my case, Guests could be advertisers looking for investing money in advertising, this is good, this is useful.
About the amount of registered members if few or many, I do not care, I am the source of content as professional Blogger.

From the other hand they are few who care to see how rich this is my forum speaking of members activity, so them to join in and take advantage of them.
Due strict forum moderation such people will never have the chance to play such games.
But I need them stay blind and even when they are not registered.

Simple as that.

Is everything but simple what you are saying, I barely understand something about why you want that, and makes no sense to me why trying to keep the usernames hidden from guests in the Stats area when you don't have that many users and have your forum open to guests, the "feature" you want serves no purpose another than waste a little (very little) time for someone to figure out the stats of your forum from the posts.

This is deinfitely not a "missing feature"
And, apart from Kiriakos, there is not actually any need for it... which makes it definite mod material

I would say it's just a custom code for the site that doesn't need to be in a package.

[Arantor]

Putting even custom code in a package is actually a good idea unless you have masses and masses of it since it's still all kept together and you can easily replicate between a test site and a live site.

I love how the OP thinks that this privacy issue is 1) an issue and that 2) following his definition of fixing it would improve the situation.

[Kiriakos GR]

Just trying to understand what you wrote ... you're saying your blog is one of the most popular three in the world?

Yes it is, and this is defined by tecnical content and topics, and most of everything, of how good you are your self at making PR directly with corporations.
Any Products reviews Blog with out fuel ( Product samples) this is dead Blog.
And finally most valuable asset in personal Blogs this the person it self who owns it.

Naturally I do understand that I am causing here a bit of confusion to most people.
I am using SMF as extension of my Blog ( storage box of my own content).
I am the content creator of 99% of anything exists at my Blog including content inside this forum (my forum). 

And finally, ultimate judges of my performance these are 10 times highly educated people than me, as such are marketing directors and Top level electrician engineers which them working in High-Technology manufacturing sector.     

In conclusion the answer of whom worth and of how much?  Does not delivered by plain numbers (stats) in my case.

Stats value for me this is limited about them answering two questions.
1) How many they read my content?
2) Which topics attracted higher reads count.

This is my last clarification which answers everything, and I hope that it clears any misunderstanding.
With out intention of me to insult any one else way of thinking, I will say this too, when some one like me, makes a choice to deliver content with name and surname, he runs the show by a strategy of his own.

[Kiriakos GR]

That's what he wrote....  but it is, if course, provably, untrue


This is deinfitely not a "missing feature"
And, apart from Kiriakos, there is not actually any need for it... which makes it definite mod material

My opinion this is that anything related to privacy issue ( despite popularity) this is not ... Mod material.
But in any case I am not going to start a war about it (change others people mind).
 
Personally I feel admiration for SMF developers team, they did create a valuable software engine, this serving my own productiveness for five years.
My insights serving as my own contribution about this becoming ever better. 
Therefore my words are heavily charged with positive energy.

My complain as administrator this is that no one came to me to suggest a change for improvement specifically related to SMF functionality, and therefore I need to think ahead even for such details.