I've been thinking through security/privacy a lot lately as I build my site, both as they relate to the profile and journal.  I've already posted a thread regarding the journal.  Having read Will's latest blog posts, I will start a new one around that issue in the feature request forum. 

However,  there is one major thing (for my needs) that seems like there has to be a workaround or something I'm just missing. 

How is the "Friends Only" privacy setting supposed to be used?  I'm anticipating, much like on Facebook, that most of my members will want their profiles to be "Friends Only".  So, I want to set that as the default.  However, if a person's profile is set to friends only, no one can become friends with them because they can't find them.  Nor does there seem to be anyway to "befriend" someone even if you know their username unless their profile is visible to everyone. 

It seems like the only way for a group of people to join my site and become friends would be to coordinate a time to make their profiles visible, all befriend each other, then make them friends only again.

To add on to this topic, what is the difference between hide from search and only friends? Does hide from search hide it from everyone who does a search, but allow it to be viewed by anyone? I would think that it makes more sense to have the hide from search be independent of your profile setting. For example, you may want to have a friends only profile and show up in search or you may want a friends only profile and not show up in search.

Anyway, my really big issue is trying to figure out how to use the only friends option effectively. I just can't figure out a way to create a community where friends only is even a legitimate option. It appears to me to be a chicken/egg problem. If you want your profile to be semi-private you set your profile to friends only, but then you can't get any friends.

I'm hoping someone can give me a "switch" to flip to fix this. Or even 100 switches.

Posted By TotalGolf on 13 Jan 2011 02:39 PM
I've been thinking through security/privacy a lot lately as I build my site, both as they relate to the profile and journal.  I've already posted a thread regarding the journal.  Having read Will's latest blog posts, I will start a new one around that issue in the feature request forum. 

However,  there is one major thing (for my needs) that seems like there has to be a workaround or something I'm just missing. 

How is the "Friends Only" privacy setting supposed to be used?  I'm anticipating, much like on Facebook, that most of my members will want their profiles to be "Friends Only".  So, I want to set that as the default.  However, if a person's profile is set to friends only, no one can become friends with them because they can't find them.  Nor does there seem to be anyway to "befriend" someone even if you know their username unless their profile is visible to everyone. 

It seems like the only way for a group of people to join my site and become friends would be to coordinate a time to make their profiles visible, all befriend each other, then make them friends only again.

I think I am having the same issues. You can't even see these members in the member list. I think even if the profile is set to friends only, one should be able to see the profile image and add as friend link under it. All other tabs should be hidden.

I tried to make activity tab for friends only but that does not work because it affects all other tabs.

Since I'm not the only one, I guess its probably not just a change in settings. I'm curious to know if this is by design.

Does anyone know if this is by design? If so, what is the reasoning?

Issue with the groups Privacy/Security thingy

If you upload a document in the a group journal, that document will show up in the summary and journal. Also, you can download those documents without being a member of the website or the group.

You've tested this on 1.9.1 and the group isn't open?

I tried Frozen DNN's document issue in a private group being certain to set the file privacy to "Group Members" and the security works as expected (My other options are 'All' and 'Community').  I am curious to see the response on the original "friends" portion of this thread. This does seem to be an issue as you can friend them if you can't see them.

Thanks. I wasn't able to find any problems either.

I will reply to this topic in more detail later today.

Ok. Will was correct. The group was open. It was closed before and now it's open hence the confusion.

On the other hand, even when the group is open one cannot see the forum topics unless one becomes a member so why it's not same for the documents?

Thanks.

I am sorry but the problem still exists. The group is closed and you can still download the documents uploaded by that group members. 

Hey Will, I'm not sure what you were going to reply more to on this topic, but if it was regarding the Friends Only profile issue, I would really like to hear what you were going to say.

Thanks!

I didn't receive a response to my original problem here, so I'm posting again. Is the friends only behavior I describe by design? I'm hoping it is being addressed even if it was by design.

Sorry to bump this one again, but this is a critical issue for me. I"m starting to think I may have to try and remove the friends only privacy options from my site (if that's even possible, though I see that is the case here on activemodules.com).

So many of the people I show my site to ask me how they can share their information with only their friends or only with select users. I'm embarrassed to tell them its basically not possible even though the setting is there.

In addition, I don't really understand why "Hide from Search" is mutually exclusive option from the other settings. You should be able to pick Everyone or Friends Only AND Hide from Search. At least that makes more sense to me. If that change was made so that you could choose whether your profile teaser showed up in search results regardless of who could view your full profile, this problem would be at least partially solved.

I also think it would be a good idea to be able to have some mechanism for sending a friend request to people who have their profile set to friends only (if you know their username or display name).

Lastly, I can't save any changes to my profile privacy settings, but I'll start a new thread for that in community support.

Can someone from Active Modules please respond to this thread? I've been waiting patiently. Especially with the whole issue in the news lately about security/privacy issues with Facebook and Google, this is an important problem. The crux of the security matter that everyone is concerned about is that some of people's social profile data is publicly available by default.

As far as I can tell, and no one has said otherwise, the only way Active Social currently can be used for social interaction is if people use the Everyone setting for their profiles.

Not sure If I am having the same issue... seems to be. I just posted this over at the Dig Articles site. I am having "Friends only" issues with both Active Forums and also Dig Articles.

Hi All,

My Digarticles are being posted to the Active Social Journal when "Everyone" is chosen... but when I select "Friends" nothing is posted?
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Just tried an experiment.

Opened MS SQL Server Management Studio and did some poking around. Active Social has a Journal Table, with a field called SecuritySet.

With the option "Everyone" set... I entered an Article. It showed up in the Journal with SecuritySet as having the following:- P10,U10,E

Seems P10 and U10 are "Private" settings (changed it to see what the Mouse hover over the "lock" would say in the Journal). E is everyone.

I noticed there was a friends request Journal Entry with the SecuritySet field having F11 (presumably F for friends).

I changed the DigArticle Journal Entries SecuritySet entry to F11... and Bingo. The hover over now states "Friends Only" .. and logging in as one of the Authors friends shows the published story in that users Journal.

So...?? Whats the Scoop?
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As a by-the-by ... I also have the same issue with Active Forums posting to the Active Social Journal when "Friends only" is selected

Any thoughts? Active Social Issue? Something in my DNN site?