ATTN: ADMINS

[M. Nigel Salt]

With all the stalking that many of our members, including myself, seem to be on the receiving end of much of the time, it seems unnecessary and perhaps unwise to allow users who are not logged in to view people's profiles and search their post history. Few forums I am aware of have that feature turned on, for reasons that seem obvious; why would a non-member want to look at members' profiles and post history?

What do you say?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

My position on this is that they shouldn't be able to do so.  I have debated it with some of the other admins.

[M. Nigel Salt]

I'm not at all comfortable with the fact that unregistered users can riffle through my post history.

Just sayin'.

[Hoopla]

Agreed. 

[stelz]

Lock that shit down.

[Luna]

Logical, particularly given the stalker crap going on.

[Pixie]

seconded, thirded and fourthed.

[Cain]

I understand why people want this, but realistically, it does almost nothing to raise the opportunity costs of datamining someone.

It's not going to make your information more secure, and apparently it's going to give a whole bunch of you the illusion of security, which IMO is more dangerous than the current system.

I'll vote for it to be turned off if you want.  It doesn't worry me to do so, because it wont make much of a difference.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I understand why people want this, but realistically, it does almost nothing to raise the opportunity costs of datamining someone.

It's not going to make your information more secure, and apparently it's going to give a whole bunch of you the illusion of security, which IMO is more dangerous than the current system.

I'll vote for it to be turned off if you want.  It doesn't worry me to do so, because it wont make much of a difference.

It lets you conveniently page through someone's posts, etc, rather than googling a known item.

[Faust]

I'm not at all comfortable with the fact that unregistered users can riffle through my post history.

Just sayin'.

They can do that without going to your page or clicking that link. They can only access material you have made public.

[Cain]

Set Google (or another major search engine) to search a specific site, select a username and you get much the same thing.

I know, I've done it before.  It's no great obstacle.

[Faust]

Heres a funny thing I just found out, It's also an unrestricted feature not linked with having an account. Meaning that even if you make profiles private the feature and information is still available for guests

Now I am happy to turn it off, as I hate you and I love turning off search features, but it turns it off for all users not just guests.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Now I am happy to turn it off, as I hate you and I love turning off search features, but it turns it off for all users not just guests.

Fuck.  That's not really a solution.  That's how I dig up old stuff for reuse/revisit.

[M. Nigel Salt]

Set Google (or another major search engine) to search a specific site, select a username and you get much the same thing.

I know, I've done it before.  It's no great obstacle.

You know that. I know that. But the kinds of brain-damaged morons who tend to go to people's profiles and hit "view all posts by this user" in the hopes of finding something to threaten to sue Faust about, by and large, for some reason, do not seem to know that. Plus, it's possible to circumvent that just by changing our usernames, which happens often enough.

But, hell, if it suits some portion of y'alls egos to not turn of profile viewing for unregistered users, go for it, it's not going to change anything for me except not letting my kids register here.

[Cain]

What does ego have to do with any of this?

Sorry, I'm not in the mood to answer lazy ad hominem arguments.