This is a curious one these days, people really like their privacy and will leap out in shock if you violate it.
That isn't to say that I completely disagree with them, I myself am not fond of fishing exercises, but there is a point where it all becomes too much, as believe it or not, we live in a world of compromises.
I can push for privacy where I can, but if I need a piece of data (e.g. to tackle abuse), then I'm not going to hold back from grabbing it. I mostly hold back from collecting personal data for analytics, opting instead to gather aggregate data on user agents, countries, top referrers, etc.
I might opt for short term tracking of users, but I really don't care who you are, it is just business as to how easily people can find their way around the site, I've mostly put that on hold though as it's inefficient and less private than people would like.
IP Addresses may get logged, we can pretend that we can do NodeBB hashing to make it private, but any attacker with half a brain-cell can get around that easily and it'll make it harder to analyse.
And while I can get someone's location out of their IP Address, it's still infinitely more private than the alternative of encouraging users to provide their personal information for all to see.
I don't believe in providing specific fields to clutter up the account manager every-time you just want to change your avatar or when you register, people can just provide what they are comfortable with providing and I won't use UX to make them feel any less of themselves for not providing more.
Some forums even ask people for their phone numbers, why on earth should someone provide that, just to talk about cats? I just cut down on that nonsense right from the bat and push little bits here and there when it becomes obvious that going too crazy with a privacy measure is untenable for the running of a community and there are strong arguments in that specific case.
Demographics analytics is not one. I never start at the end of "give me your soul".
Nine times out of ten, if you want me to delete your personal information, I probably never had it to begin with. That excludes IP Addresses which people like to compare to phone numbers in terms of privacy.
What is your stance on privacy?
That isn't to say that I completely disagree with them, I myself am not fond of fishing exercises, but there is a point where it all becomes too much, as believe it or not, we live in a world of compromises.
I can push for privacy where I can, but if I need a piece of data (e.g. to tackle abuse), then I'm not going to hold back from grabbing it. I mostly hold back from collecting personal data for analytics, opting instead to gather aggregate data on user agents, countries, top referrers, etc.
I might opt for short term tracking of users, but I really don't care who you are, it is just business as to how easily people can find their way around the site, I've mostly put that on hold though as it's inefficient and less private than people would like.
IP Addresses may get logged, we can pretend that we can do NodeBB hashing to make it private, but any attacker with half a brain-cell can get around that easily and it'll make it harder to analyse.
And while I can get someone's location out of their IP Address, it's still infinitely more private than the alternative of encouraging users to provide their personal information for all to see.
I don't believe in providing specific fields to clutter up the account manager every-time you just want to change your avatar or when you register, people can just provide what they are comfortable with providing and I won't use UX to make them feel any less of themselves for not providing more.
Some forums even ask people for their phone numbers, why on earth should someone provide that, just to talk about cats? I just cut down on that nonsense right from the bat and push little bits here and there when it becomes obvious that going too crazy with a privacy measure is untenable for the running of a community and there are strong arguments in that specific case.
Demographics analytics is not one. I never start at the end of "give me your soul".
Nine times out of ten, if you want me to delete your personal information, I probably never had it to begin with. That excludes IP Addresses which people like to compare to phone numbers in terms of privacy.
What is your stance on privacy?
