Members allowed to choose whether to show profile?

[destalk]

Unless I am missing something major, there is no ability for members to choose as to whether to show their profile to others when their name is clicked on.

All I know of is that admins can either enable or disable the ability of membergroups to view members profile.

Even more useful would be the ability for members to choose what aspects of their profiles to show - and who to show them to.

It would also be good if admins could have more options as to what aspects of members profiles are available to show.

[Sheepy]

What you proposed would involves a fair amount of coding.  In addition of checks for user's preference, which is far more then a simple boolean value, permission to override profile hiding has to be coded and checked as well.

What is it that they want to hide?  There's not much mandatory info.  You can hide your email, and you can omit all other fields except id.

[destalk]

What is it that they want to hide?  There's not much mandatory info.  You can hide your email, and you can omit all other fields except id.

And that's the point. There are only two options. Show everything to everyone, or nothing to nobody.

There are many different types of forum and many different types of user/member and having a variety of options would be useful.

For admins, the ability to limit certain fields in profiles is useful, for example users web sites, which is becoming a common place for spammers to hide backlinks.

[Sheepy]

There are many different types of forum and many different types of user/member and having a variety of options would be useful.

For admins, the ability to limit certain fields in profiles is useful, for example users web sites, which is becoming a common place for spammers to hide backlinks.

Aha. While I don't feel inclined to it, SMF has the name 'simple' in its name.  So I won't have any hope the core team will consider this.

However if it's the admin that controls what fields can be seen and what not, well, then yes it may be useful.  Maybe there's even some way it can be integrated into the custom profile field mod someone is doing?  Of course that would be less powerful then you envisioned.  Hmm.

[destalk]

Aha. While I don't feel inclined to it, SMF has the name 'simple' in its name.  So I won't have any hope the core team will consider this.

I don't really understand your point here. This is hardly a complex function.

[Sheepy]

No it's not.  But is it necessary and useful to most people without paying too high a cost (e.g. in performance)?  Your answer is likely to be different from what I think and from what the core team think.

[Sheepy]

I mean, SMF is not about a gigantic forum that does everything everyone would want.  It's about a simple, sleek forum that do the basic and do them well.

Oh they're expanding the feature list, for example they added thumbnail attachment view, but attachment has always been a core feature so that's like an enhancement.  Your proposal is a new model for managing visibility of user profiles that doesn't exist before.  No it's not that complicated, but I doubt it would be seen as "needed by most".  Useful is different from needed.

Of course that doesn't mean we can't have a mod for that.

[destalk]

I'm a bit confused sheepy. Are you saying that you are one of the developers and that you are not intending to consider this feature, or are you simply offering your opinion? It's just that you appear to be implying that you have some kind of insider knowledge.

The reason I ask is that what you are saying about the goals and direction of SMF, doesn't appear to fit in with what anything that I've read elsewhere. I'd have though that a few checkboxes to allow users to control their profile is hardly adding anything that makes Simple Machines forum any less 'simple' than, for example, the calendar function, or the Karma system.

I would be interested in hearing from one of the SMF tream.

[Sheepy]

I'm just offering personal opinion. Sorry for the confusion.

[ExistenZ]

This would be a very nice feature, but would they be able to hide it from admins?

[GC]

It would take a while to do it. But i could finish it in about 5 days. It takes longer because i got shcool . This weekend i'll do it for yeah. And, i'll be done, say, thursday? The beta will be out thursday. Anyone wonna be a beta tester? PM me and i'll do this.

[destalk]

GC

That's awesome. There's no rush, but it would be great if you could do this. I have a test server I can beta-test this on.

Thanks.

PM sent

[destalk]

This would be a very nice feature, but would they be able to hide it from admins?

Oh no. I would have thought that admins would have the usual access permissions.

My main motivation for this is that on one of my forums I have a 50% of users that are 'demanding' the ability to show their profiles to other members and also to see other members profiles. And then I have 50% of members that want to be able to hide either all of their profile, or only show some aspects of their profile.

Also, as an admin, I would like to retain the ability to still only show profiles to members of the forum (not guests) and aalso to restrict what aspects of their profiles members can show. Perhaps this could be done via a membergroup system...? Or am I asking too much now?

This mod would make everyone happy.

[GC]

thats gonna be a challenge. So now you want me to make it possible for some member groups to see members profiles?

[Dannii]

I can't see how this could possibly be useful. If you don't want to show your profile don't fill it in! If the problem is spammers, then disable profile viewing for guests. If your users want to only show their profile to certain people they are too picky, and they can always PM anything they want.

[destalk]

thats gonna be a challenge. So now you want me to make it possible for some member groups to see members profiles?

Hey I'll take whatever you can do. Stick with my first suggestion, it's up to you - whatever is easiest.

[destalk]

I can't see how this could possibly be useful. If you don't want to show your profile don't fill it in! If the problem is spammers, then disable profile viewing for guests. If your users want to only show their profile to certain people they are too picky, and they can always PM anything they want.

So you don't think it would be useful to stop spammers and also allow members to have their profile shown? Best of both worlds.

[klumy]

Unless I am missing something major, there is no ability for members to choose as to whether to show their profile to others when their name is clicked on.

All I know of is that admins can either enable or disable the ability of membergroups to view members profile.

Even more useful would be the ability for members to choose what aspects of their profiles to show - and who to show them to.

It would also be good if admins could have more options as to what aspects of members profiles are available to show.

good idea

[GC]

This mod has way to many problems. Every time you hide it, you hide your post count and karma. It's really ******ed up. In the posting area, it shows a " " (a space) beside post and same thing for karma. And when you remove the checkmark, you can see your post count.

[destalk]

Hmmmm. That's a shame.

Thanks for trying GC.

Perhaps the 'big wigs' of SMF will decide that this is a afeature worth including one day.