completed User Privacy Settings Don't Seem to Have Right Descriptions

It appears that you have to be careful about setting your privacy settings to "Shared-profile owners and followers." What I'm seeing that actually means is that people have to be members on the site, and they have to be followers, to be able to see your profile, play your songs, etc. With this setting, you can't get followers because they can't find you to follow you. I would think that label needs to be the one marked "Most Private--followers only." But, it needs to have a way to be found so members can get new followers. As it stands, it would seem they have to reset their privacy settings to something more open every time someone wants to be added to their followers list. Am I missing something? It seems to me that this is the least "shared" profile setting possible. So, I don't understand why it says, "Shared." I had a new member use this setting, and nobody can see her or even search for her profile. If it wasn't for me having so few members, I would not have caught the issue. And she probably wonders why nobody's commenting on her profile.

If you don't want the general public to be able to see your profile, then you should change the setting to "Private-profile owners only." That will mean that only members of the site can see that you're here. I would mark that one as "Semi-Private--Members only." I don't think people understand what "profile owners" means, but they would generalize and understand, "members only" without regard to quota types which they don't understand anyways.

But if you want to show up on the front page information to the public, then set it back to the default "Global - anyone." I would change this description to "Public--anyone."

Just my thoughts for whatever they are or aren't worth.
updated by @davej56: 04/14/15 08:27:59PM

If you are NOT a follower of a profile that is set to Shared, then you'll see a "follow" button on the profile page - i.e.

https://www.jamroom.net/jamroom-hosting

so I'm not seeing an issue here.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Hello there Brian. It's not working that way on my site. I use my account Dave, and I can't see the shared account at all. Linne doesn't show up on the Artists list--her quota. I can't follow because I can't get to the profile even with a search. So I figured that shared means they have to be a member and a follower both, to see her profile. Funny thing is, I just set her profile to Private and checked again, and I still couldn't see it from Dave. Something wrong with her profile?

No - there's nothing wrong with her profile - that's how the core privacy functions work. If a profile is set to a followers only privacy level, then only followers and site admins will be able to view the site in a list - i.e. the profile will NOT show up in the lists on the main site unless the viewer is a follower or admin.

The expectation is that if a profile WANTS to be private, then they should be private. If they want to be "found" then they need to set their privacy to Global.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Brian, I set the profile to Global, then I could find her and follow her, which I did from Dave. After doing that, then I set her back to shared, and now Dave can see her at that setting. Before changing her to Global, I couldn't see her at all whether she was set to Private or to Shared. How can a Shared profile get any followers, if the profile can only be seen by people who are already followers? Seems to me that they have to set to Global to get any followers in the first place. I guess that's what you are saying is right.
updated by @davej56: 03/01/15 08:31:03AM

If Dave is not an admin account, that is correct - like I explained above. If Dave is an admin account, then something is wrong - I've never seen that before though (it works here on Jamroom.net).


That's correct. The reasoning behind it is that with Jamroom we did not want the module developers to have to worry about privacy - it should be automatic, and 100% in control of the user. The site owner should not be able to "accidentally" expose private items.

So if a profile is set to followers only, then only followers and admins will see items in lists from that profile - that's hard coded at the core level and cannot be changed (again, on purpose).

If a profile is trying to get followers, then they need to be GLOBAL - it's that simple. If they set their profile to followers only, then the assumption is that they know WHO they want to see their profile and will invite them and approve them to be followers. If they want just anyone to be able to follow them and find them, then it is no different than Global.

Let me know if that helps.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Okay, so my question then is "How do they invite and approve followers" other than setting to Global?

Right now they would email the people they want to follow them. Otherwise if they want to be found and followed by people they don't know, then they would be Global.

Let me know if that makes sense. I know in the past we've had a few customers wanting to know how to make a profile "private but global", which seems to be what you are looking for, but it's tricky - what information do you allow to be global versus private?


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Hey Brian, I'm just not understanding why when I set Linne to Private, even the member profile Dave could not see her at all. I guess what I'm looking for is for Private and Shared profiles to show up as having a profile that you can click on the follow button for, even though you can't actually view the profile until you are approved as a follower. I just want people to be able to search and see, Linne has a profile, and then click on a follow button. Maybe I'm being a bit redundant in what I'm saying, but I hope you get the jest of it. And my thinking too is, if they have to set to Global for a short period to allow someone to follow them, then they are being forced to give up the privacy they wanted in the first place, because there is not other option.
updated by @davej56: 03/01/15 09:05:50AM

I understand what you're getting at, but would disagree:

1) If a profile is "private" it should be 100% private. the site owner should not be able to override that.

2) If a profile is "shared" then it should be 100% private to those who are profile owners and followers.

What you're looking for might override what the user wants. What if I want a private profile? Why should my profile image be viewable to anyone? What if I want a profile that is private for just me and my friends? Why should a user I don't know be able to see anything about me? These are the types of privacy "leaks" that has gotten facebook into trouble in the past.

When someone says "private" the expectation should be 100% privacy - this includes not being found.

If someone says "followers only" it should be just that - all items hidden from users who are not admins or followers. Again if the profile wants to be "discoverable" then they need to be global.

What I want to avoid is coding a solution that prevents the user from having final say over their privacy, so if we allow "leaks" like this then the user really does not have control - the site owner has now removed that control from them.

I know that's not what you're looking for, but hopefully you understand why the settings work the way they do. And that's not to say that we can't code in different levels to support what you're looking for - that is just not the way it currently works.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Okay, let's agree to disagree.

Just a hypothetical question here-

What if I want to have a site where there are no 'hidden' members? What if I want it to be simply that if you want to be a member, you agree to be seen as a member of the site, and the whole site is INTENDED to be public and not intended for sensitive personal stuff or people hiding their memberships? I guess that is just not possible with Jamroom?


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Yeah its possible, you could use CSS to hide the privacy setting option so they never see it. Or create a simple module to check for the settings and return them to public, or use the Batch Edit module to check that setting manually, so yes, its possible.

Thanks, good to know! My site isn't really a hidden-member kind of place, so I'll need to keep these options in mind if I see problematic issues resulting from 'cloaked' members.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Actually, I was over-thinking it. Easiest option is already in the ACP:
ACP -> USER PROFILES -> QUOTA CONFIG -> Show Privacy Options

I still think the descriptions on the privacy options are misleading. Shared is more private than private since they have to be members and followers to see the profile set to shared. And if set to shared, the only thing they can do is reset to Global to get followers, then reset back. That isn't how it works in Facebook. In Facebook, you can still see that they have a listing, you just can't see anything on it when it's private. Then you ask to be a friend, and if accepted, you can see everything. Sorry, but I think the "Follow" option being only in the profile is a problem.

I believe that Jamroom's privacy options are based on the Twitter model.
IMO facebook has big problems with their privacy policies!!


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Unfortunately, I don't use Twitter, so I don't know how you follow someone there. But I have to think, you must be able to follow without the followee having to reset their privacy settings every time someone wants to follow them, and then reset back again.

I tend to agree with Dave on that. It's kind of like having to turn off your electric fence so that somebody can just quietly leave an invitation in your mailbox.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

Hey Brian, I just noticed what you said, and I do see a problem. If the profile is set to shared, you can't get to it to press the follow button. A profile set to shared doesn't show on the members list (for whatever quota it is assigned to). So, you can't find it to get to it in the first place. I feel like I have to be missing something here, but that's how it's working on my site. I still think "Shared" is even more restrictive than "Private" with the way it is actually working.

"Private" is more restrictive than "Shared" in that you won't even be able to view the profile page - you'll get a "404 not found" if you are not the profile owner or site admin. With Shared you will get the ability to follow the profile.

I definitely understand what you are guys are looking for - I don't know if I agree, but I understand

The Privacy setup in Jamroom was setup purposefully this way - not being able find someone in search to follow them when they are set to Shared was done on purpose. I understand why at first glance that probably seems wrong, but for privacy reasons (which I outlined above) it's really the only way it can be done.

To satisfy what you are looking for - which is "private but discoverable" we would need to make a new privacy setting for that - it's not something supported at this time, nor can we make changes to the existing privacy options to "make it work" (since that weakens Jamroom's privacy model).

I've got this down to investigate for Jamroom 5.3.

Hope this helps!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

You can't see the profile with "Shared" either, if you are just a member.

I'm not aware of any issues with that - if you enter the direct URL you should be able to see the "follow" button for the profile.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

I just tried the URL a little bit ago, and I got an error. I sent you a support ticket to show you what I mean.

Your ticket indicated you could not find the profile in "search" which is correct - it will not show in Search.

I just set our Jamroom Hosting profile to Shared:

https://www.jamroom.net/jamroom-hosting

Do you see the follow button?


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Sure do. But my system isn't working that way. You can't find the person on the list of artists or members. I tried the URL on mine, and I get "Not Found." Do you really want users to have to use a URL to find a profile? They'll never figure that out.

Correct - like I have said above they WILL NOT show in lists or search - no where on the site unless you go directly to their profile URL. This is how it works right now.


That's what you will get if the profile is Private. If the Profile is SHARED then you should see the follower option (as long as followers are enabled).


Yes - that is exactly what they have to do RIGHT NOW. Like I mentioned above we can look into a "Shared and Discoverable" option for a future release, but I want you to understand how it works right now.

Just to be re-iterate - a profile that is set to "Shared" privacy will not:

- show up in search
- show up in lists
- show up on ANY page on your site

the only way you will find them is to enter the direct URL to their profile.

I know you don't want that, so again - we will look into alternate options for this in a future release. Since they are handled at a very low, core level it's not something I can do in 5 minutes.

Let me know if that helps.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net
updated by @brian: 03/02/15 01:17:06PM

Gee, I don't want bunches of creepy hidden members lurking about on my site unseen. If they want to be members of my site they have to join in with everyone else, not hide in the shrubbery! =8-*


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

You can always prevent your users from selecting any privacy option and just set all to Global - then you don't have to worry about it.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

I did that, thanks.

I do still agree with Dave though, that an additional option more in the middle ground would be good. Personally, I'd vote for having members be able to select if site members ONLY are able to see their profile pages, or just viewable by everyone online.


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

We will come up with something that should work for what you and Dave are looking for.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

I've got a feature request ticket open on it here:

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/tracker/1201/new-privacy-option-for-shared-but-visible

Check that out and see if that would be a good solution for what you are looking for.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Looking into this it should be easier to setup than I thought it would - should be able to support this pretty easily.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

If this is the wrong discussion to post to, or if I need to open a support ticket, please advise.

I am learning how privacy settings work in Jamroom and am very confused by what I'm seeing when I test. I understand we can effect how user profiles are presented by assigning them to different quotas. I understand the profile can be marked private by the user, if the user chooses to invoke the option in their profile page.

Where I get confused is when the PROFILE ACTIVE option is unchecked in the user's profile. Doing this puts a big yellow bar at the top of the profile that reads: "This profile is not active and is only visible to admin users and the site owner". However, when I log a test account on that has no ADMIN privileges, that account is able to see the profile of the account that's now marked as inactive.

I've reset the caches as the admin. I've cleared the cache on the test account and relogged. Same effect.

That's not related to privacy options, but is related to whether or not the profile is active. I have not actually looked in that area of code in quite some time - I'll check it out and see if there is an issue.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

The Profile Active setting is not being checked properly - I've got it fixed for the next Profile module release.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@Brian. Thanks for confirming its a bug. Once this is fixed, if a profile is set as inactive, will that also nerf all the content associated with that profile so that only admins can see it?

Yes it should..


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Just an update that this is now supported in the latest Core and User profiles module updates - update and you should see the new Privacy option.

Hope this helps!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net