Hiding your profile...why?

[jimbot]

Hi folks,

I always wonder what the reason is for hiding your profile information when you can not have any info in there at all.

When I view a poster that has a hidden profile, I tend to be suspicious that they may be a paid poster working on the behalf of one of the primary campaigns.

Honest question...what other legitimate reasons might there be for hiding your profile?

Thanks,

--JT

[cooolandrew]

1. Suspect what you wish this is bush's america I aint putting stuff up, sorry.

[jimbot]

3. But you can still not enter anything in your profile...

But the point is, you don't have to put anything up, it only shows the date you joined if thats all you choose to show.

By hiding the date that you joined, especially during a campaign season, it seems to raise hackles...some of the folks have been long time posters and I know that there are other reasons.

--JT

[maximusveritas]

2. I had mine hidden becuase I didn't know what was in there

Now that I know there's nothing given away, I don't have it hidden anymore.

I do think it's dumb to be suspicious of people who have hidden profiles when you know there's nothing in them.

[jimbot]

4. Great example.

Aha, that is a great example. The suspicion is from seeing folks that had like a thousand posts that joined less than a month ago, all of a sudden, en masse, choose to hide their profiles while strongly advocating for one candidate and mercilessly attacking the other...hence the suspicion.

--JT

[maximusveritas]

8. So you think they're trying to hide when they joined?

I didn't think of that, but I suppose that's possible. It wouldn't neccesarily have to be paid people, but just trolls in general.

[Pathwalker]

5. I was stalked by a poster on DU, who used my profile

to somehow figure out where I live, and threatened to come to my home and "deal with me". He also e-mailed me all kinds of crap at my personal e-mail acct., until I turned him in to the site. They threatened legal action, so he finally stopped. During that time, I disabled my profile, and I will never place my personal info anywhere.

[jimbot]

6. Scary stuff

So if I can summarize, the reasons for hiding are:

1. You just don't want to have ANY information, including your "joined" date available.
2. You weren't aware of the setting.
3. You actually have personal information on your profile and want that available in some protected form to others on your "friends" list.
4. You are a paid poster trying to conceal your join date.

--JT

[Pathwalker]

10. I have been here a very long time, Why should I care

what people want to know about me? And if anyone's paying me to do anything on earth, including posting here - I have YET to receive a paycheck! :rofl: I am just a past middle-aged, disabled housewife - a NOBODY!, and I don't post my information because I DON'T WANT TO BE STALKED AGAIN! I am not the only person here who has been stalked. Geesh! Not everything is a damned conspiracy! :eyes:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

12. Oh my god! That's so scary!

Well that does it, no personal information will go on mine either.

[Whisp]

7. why would you hide something you don't have to type in?

huh?

the reason I don'thave a profile is that I never look at anyone else's, so I don't get the import of it. Its a great feature if you want to use it as some mini resume thing, but not wanting to bother with filling out the forms does not make someone immediately suspect of anything.

[themaguffin]

9. If you want profiles go to MyFacebook and similar crap.

I didn't even pay attention to such a thing until someone posted a similarly assinine post recently. I could give a shit less about people's profiles on this board or any other type of forum.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

11. Some of us are involved in local politics and don't want to be identified.

I help out numerous local candidates in a public way and because of the tendency to attach guilt by association, some of my posts could bring harm to them.

[Eurobabe]

13. Trolls, GOP plants, multiple accounts on DU

:shrug:

[HughMoran]

14. I don't get it and I feel the same way

Newbies with hidden profiles are trolls by default IMO - sorry if that offends anyone.