Cardio

I just wanted to point everyone to the sticky in the Newcomers section that discusses privacy and warns others about internet predators. The reason I'm doing so is because after reading through that sticky I decided to change my privacy settings and do a few other things that will minimize the ability for anyone to search for me on the internet and find me here. For that reason I opted to remove "friends" from my profile here so that any contact information that I have would be not be viewable. I didn't remove the people that I "friended" because I don't like you, it was just the only option I had to keep contact info completely unviewable!

I suggest that if you are at all nervous about being found here that you might like to read through the sticky and consider making your profile "safe."

Thanks for reading!

Dee74

I'm glad you feel more secure Cardio.

I do recommend people check out their profile privacy settings tho if they;re unsure what they are

User CP > profile privacy

I'd just like to point out tho I believe that our member profiles are by default only accessible by other members not by the general public

I'd also like to reassure people that we wouldn't have a 'friend' system if we thought it was unsafe to do so


D

Anna

Agreed, Dee.

And it's unnecessary to 'defriend' people so they won't have access to your contact information.

Simply don't supply your contact information on your profile and then no one will have it.

You do not need to remove 'friends', you can simply remove your contact information.

Please be assured we do nothing here to put your privacy in jeopardy. Quite the opposite. We work very hard, on a daily basis, to assure that our members are protected.

Cardio

I don't have any personal information listed in my profile, except for my email address (which I changed to a new, more anonymous address). I have to have an email address to join here. It appears that there is no default setting for it to be viewable to "no one". I can only select, "Everyone," "Contacts," "Friends," etc. So, since I couldn't select that "no one" could see my email address, I had to nix the friends in order to keep it unviewable. Make sense? If there is another way of doing it, though, please let me know. I'm not suggesting that the friend network is unsafe, but it does allow members to see your email address.

Cardio

I'm not trying to suggest that you guys would do anything to put us at risk. In fact, it was your very sensible suggestions that made me check my profile just in case. But let me know if I'm misunderstanding the viewability of email addresses. I could simply just be wrong about this.

Dee74

I can't see your email address anywhere on your profile Cardio?
We wouldn't allow that in any case

Maybe drop me or Anna a PM?

D

Cardio

Under privacy settings there is a drop down box that asks who your contact info available to. I'm assuming that's my email address. At present I have it set to "friends." But (sadly) I have no friend lol! Sorry, I'm finding that funny. Anyway, you may not be able to see it because of the setting I chose. I don't know. I'm not concerned if you can't see it

Dee74

OK...getting it now....you can elect not to recieve PMs or email from other members.

You don't seem to have the 'contact by email option' available tho....

But even if you did have the email option enabled, people would send you email here on an online form - they don't see your email address...unless of course you then elect to reply to them yourself using your email account

like Anna said we take privacy seriously

D

Cardio

Perfect. Thanks for clarifying.