Add User Preference for Public Visibility

[seanahrens]

We currently have a preference to show users to others on the network, but we need just one more preference that gives us the authority to show their picture / location on a public homepage mosaic/map if they give us permission.

I added a new checkbox/radio button on the social profile to indicate generally where this would go.

[seanahrens]

This is a note-comment, a summary of the questions Piotr arose:

Sharing name on map different pref than sharing location on map?
What user information is on forum? Logged in vs. Logged out?
User Information shared on Post Research Topics?

Just two settings? Visible to public vs. community?

[seanahrens]

@pmanko and @remomueller here is my thinking of the design of "identity" we should use and stick to.

There are only two levels of visibility: social profile and anonymous.

Your social profile is a public profile (not that it will necessarily be shown prominently to the WWW, but that's how people need to think about it). It is a separate profile from any research health information, you have complete control to make it as real or masquerading as you want.

This means that in any instance when we show a user's identity, we are showing their social profile. Whether the viewer is logged in or logged out, whether the viewer has a social profile or not, etc. There are some features on the site that are reasonably only accessible by people with user accounts, but it should really be thought of that it's so the person they "use the features" vs. see the social identities of the users inside.

We don't show health information of a user to other users. Only their social profile.

This means that when users show up on the map, their social identity is what is shown.
This also means that the checkbox on their profile for "show my photo on the homepage" is literally just saying "Can we display your photo so prominently?" NOT "Do you give us permission to show your photo publicly?"

If the user doesn't create a social profile, they are anonymous. Perhaps a gravatar image can represent them, but they will have no socially-identifying information. Optionally, you can imagine that on forum posts or research topic posts, we could add the checkbox of "Submit this post/question anonymously" and even if they have a social profile, that post would be "unsigned" by the user. But this is still simple as it is an attribute that does not change whethether someone is logged in / logged out etc. The post was either signed or it wasn't.

Thoughts?

[remomueller]

I agree with most of this (social profile is a public profile), however I have questions about the following:

This means that when users show up on the map, their social identity is what is shown.
This also means that the checkbox on their profile for "show my photo on the homepage" is literally just saying "Can we display your photo so prominently?" NOT "Do you give us permission to show your photo publicly?"

I'm not sure what this means since the homepage is publicly viewable, so we would be showing the photo publicly if it they said "Show my photo on the homepage". Or is the homepage in this case the user dashboard after they have logged in?

If the user doesn't create a social profile, they are anonymous. Perhaps a gravatar image can represent them, but they will have no socially-identifying information. Optionally, you can imagine that on forum posts or research topic posts, we could add the checkbox of "Submit this post/question anonymously" and even if they have a social profile, that post would be "unsigned" by the user. But this is still simple as it is an attribute that does not change whether someone is logged in / logged out etc. The post was either signed or it wasn't.

I'm not sure allowing users to post anonymously will add a lot of value to the forum. While I see how it could be done, it would add a bit more clutter to creating comments because now you have additional options to do things anonymously versus not. I feel that this would be less simple than stating, if you post, it's using your public/social profile. (without additional options). We may also run into issues where people say: "Oh! I thought I clicked anonymous, but now my 'irate/sarcastic/immature/political/inaccurate' comment is attributed to me! Please make it anonymous!"

[seanahrens]

@remomueller "Show my photo on the homepage" preference, would be putting their photo on the logged out homepage. It's just them saying "I'm okay being public enough that I can help be the face of this website". If they don't select that, their photo/name/social profile could still be seen in the forum and if a logged out user clicked in the right places.

I agree with you, that for now, not enabling anonymous posting of the forum seems like the right path. BUT we do need to realize that some research questions / forum topics may be embarrassing and I see a "post anonymously" checkbox as the simplest implementation of this. And the reason is that it's effectively signing the post or not. This could potentially be an added feature in the future but we'll hold off for now.