Tidy up the Edit Profile page

[swaldman]

Title:
Tidy up the Edit Profile page

Area:
Edit Profile

Summary:
The Edit Profile page needs a tidy, especially when it comes to controlling who can see what.

Description:
I think that the Edit Profile page is needlessly confusing at present, especially for those not used to LJ-a-likes.
I think it could do with general thinking-through and cleaning up, but here are some specific things that I've noted. Let me know if I should resubmit them as separate suggestions.

* When I want to control who can see which bits on my profile, some things are set here and some are set over in Account Settings -> Privacy (under Contact Info Security and DW Private Messages). Some things are set in Account Settings but then overridden in Edit Profile! I don't know whether this is pure historical legacy, or whether it's because the stuff that's in Account Settings applies more widely than just the profile, but I think it's confusing.

* I can't exercise any control over who can see website URLs that I enter. This is already covered by another suggestion (http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/404239.html), I'm just mentioning it here for completeness.

* There is a line that reads "DW Private Messages: OBSOLETE: This option has been moved to Account Settings". Why is this here at all?

* There is no granular control over who can see IM usernames. The access level for all contact info (email, Yahoo, Etsy, Gtalk, Jabber, Skype, Twitter, etc etc etc) is set in Account Settings. I think it would be good to be able to control the visibility of each contact method individually.


None of this is important or urgent, but I think giving this page a clean-up at some stage would be a Good Thing :-)

Poll #11118 Tidy up the Edit Profile page

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 46

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
13 (28.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
2 (4.3%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
7 (15.2%)

(I have no opinion)
22 (47.8%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (4.3%)

Comments

[zvi]

Please make an additional argument for granular control over IM names. You've already got approximately a million decisions about what you do and don't allow on the profile, I think it's probably decision overload, honestly.

[swaldman]

I am happy for anybody to see my email address, but I am choosy about who I tell about my IM identities. I imagine that there are plenty of variations on this for various reasons.

I can see that it's extra options, but at the same time there is already a column of "who can see this" selections down most of the Edit Profile page, which stops before the IMs, so it would be consistent. (the IMs would need to be redesigned so that they weren't in two columns, but I guess that comes under "general cleanup")

[denise]

But is there a good reason to make it so that, say, AIM is locked to access list only but Skype is public, or can you get by with just "all chat services are locked" vs "all chat services are public"?

[swaldman]

For me personally,no.

[trixieleitz]

I guess if someone wants most of their identities locked but has one they want generally known, they could put it in their bio? A bit of a kluge, perhaps, but a possible reason for preferring the "all identities get the same security" paradigm.

[shameless2shoes]

I can think of one reason that you'd want AIM public, but Skype locked (I know this is the reverse order of the example): Skype has video chat, and is primarily used for video chatting. Aim is primarily used for text-based chatting. There are plenty of people I'll go from typing in comment threads to typing to in real time. The face thing, not so much.

That said, it's not a feature I would personally use, just bringing it up for the sake of argument.

[mokie]

I can think of one!

Say a person's DW account and MSN account are under pseudonyms, because this is the Internet and we love our delusions of anonymity. But for work reasons, his AIM account uses his real name.

Sure, he could make an AIM account for non-work things in the event that, at some point, someone from his access list wanted to contact him. And he'd need to use an IM program that let him access multiple AIM accounts at once from that point on.

But it'd be less hassle if he could simply go down his chat service list and specify public/private individually, so anything announcing his real name was access-list only.

[cheyinka]

I like that there's a "this is obsolete" message, for the people who would be looking for the option there; otherwise I don't really have an opinion on the specifics of your suggestion, except that streamlining it (especially in such a way that a given setting is set in one place and one place only) does sound really good.

[subluxate]

I'd also like to see the default box size for the actual bio info be a little bigger; my profile is long, so it'd be unrealistic for the entire thing to show, but maybe 5-10 lines longer would be nice.

[cesy]

I agree with the general idea of a clean-up, but I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting here, so can't really vote.

[swaldman]

I appreciate that difficulty; in hindsight,I should have submitted this as a few separate suggestions. Sorry!

[shameless2shoes]

This is exactly the thought I was trying to put into words.