Why should you have the right to ignore the people who keep this site running as it is? If they want to get in touch with you, they will on any site.

Your profile has to be visible, unless you don't want to be on any of the leaderboards.

Some good points in there though however.

You should have the ability to ignore messages at any point from everyone (with the exception of moderators and admin.)

Possibly have your about me to private for only your friends you have added on here? I've never been a massive fan of this, but it wouldn't do any harm to be honest.

Many mods are 'friends' with me in here. This doesnt give them the special right to say 'hi' at any time with no exceptions.
I am playing a game, they pm, i get put off by them. Simple.

If i mod wants to contact me he/she could do it on an offline message!

The profiles have to be visible to mods admins etc. But no, i have every right not to let someone know exaclty when im playing a game or not, when i log out etc etc. Privacy! It's not about the results alone in here...




Edited at 18:20 Sun 25/12/11 (GMT)

Well as a medium, possibly have a message for all moderators and admin when opening a PM window with someone, something like this

"This user has all messages disabled, only contact them for the purposes of moderating enquires"

Something like that.

Very wise, agreed

Profiles, Forums, and Rankings pages should be invisible to unregistered users. This shouldn't be an option, it should just be how it is. They should have no access to any member related feature.

For the forums, I think having the main page visible is fine, but make it so when a guest clicks on a thread, it blocks them, telling them they need to register before they can view it. This is standard for any forum.

I agree with everything you've said here Fuzzy. I actually can't believe how poor the privacy options here are, not to also mention basic security measures, (the two points I made above being part of this, but also the fact that there is no CAPTCHA system here, which is just completely bizarre).

This is going a bit off-topic now mind.
As for the OP, I disagree completely.

I only ever private message you to say nice run when you bang a 10+ in! Generally you aren't going to be playing just after finishing your run so I know it won't distract you . Adamstein

Getting a message while playing isn't the end of the world. As a mod anyone can pm me, including guests, at any point. If i'm the only mod on this can be quite a regular thing, and yes it makes me miss shots if the timing is bad. Life goes on though, its only a game.

Rankings should be visible to anyone, they contain no personal information.
As for your profile, setting it so only members can see it is pointless. If someone really wants to see it they will just take 30s to make an account. Same goes for the forum. If there is something you don't want just anybody to be able to know, dont post it on a forum.

The point is, you are not required to put any personal information anywhere that is visible to the general public, so there is no issue in terms of data protection under the data protection act 1998 as far as I can see. I'm happy to be proven wrong though.

1st part: I've noitced, nice of you.

2nd part: I really dont get why you're pointing out it's not the end of the world, and that it's a game. Both true, obviously.
So lets stop discussing site improvements, ye?

The part in bold. LET THEM make an account then! Thats nick's purpose anyhow!

Have u ever thought that some people have relatives that they DO NOT want their children, husbands etc to be playing here as much? These players need extra privacy! Nobody is allowed to check on you so easily, and to know the exact dates and times u're playing a game.

Im fed up with being ignored with things ive suggested over a year ago, officially, and, while nick had agreed with these suggestions. With all respect to mods and admins, not any work has been done in this direction and that shows lack of interest and respect to site's users.

typo

Edited at 22:35 Sun 25/12/11 (GMT)

@Adam
Alright, maybe the rankings page isn't a big deal.
Profiles should be invisible to unregistered members though. It's not pointless at all. As you say, it only takes 30 seconds to make an account, so if they are desperate to see someone's profile, then they should register.

You say "If there is something you don't want just anybody to be able to know, dont post it on a forum." When people post on forums, they don't tend to take caution over every single sentence they type. That's just human nature.. Everybody posts stuff that they may later regret at one point or another. Which is why making threads invisible to guests is standard on every single other forum I've ever been on, and I've been using forums for years and years now.

You'd be surprised at how much information people can gather from archived forum posts. You should research the term "Doxing".
Which brings me on to the profile pages point.
You say "you are not required to put any personal information anywhere that is visible to the general public", that is true, however it is encouraged when you sign up that you do enter personal information. People less cautious wouldn't think twice about putting personal information up, even in their About Me section.

If I was an unfriendly user, who wanted to cause you problems, then Doxing would be easy as pie. They'd go to your profile, pick out whatever info is there, then fish through your posts, and pick out more info.

2bcontinued

After half an hour, they could quite easily have your date of birth, your name, the city you live in, the names of your family members, your email addresses (old and new)...
They could then use that information to "Revert" (google it), your email provider account, and have access to all of your online accounts, and possibly all of your families online accounts.

I know this because I've seen it happen to tons and tons of people. Setting the profile and registration page to private could prevent such things happening. When a member registers, their IP is logged, so catching anyone doing such things is easier.

This also brings me onto the CAPTCHA point for the login.
Google "Brute forcing", and you'll see why having a CAPTCHA is 100%, absolutely necessary.

bang on jack ! You cant even imagine the amount od abuse and theats i have got just because i'm so known for my caroming, or because i tend to beat people a lot....im fed up with all these, and the site doesnt let me do anything about it too.
People finding me on FB through here, just from certain infos, and on FB they could do a lot of damage, believe me!

The site doesn't let you do anything fuzzy? Try the send complaint button, that's what it's there for. . If someone is being abusive or threatening you then send the report on them and admin will deal with it. Either that or don't be so good!

I can't claim to understand a lot of what you say Jack, my computer knowledge is significantly less than yours. Hopefully Nick or Spinner will see this because I'm sure they will understand. It may be that changes are needed.

Just to point out though, bullet point 1 of the privacy policy that every member has agreed to:

"We only collect personally identifiable information that you voluntarily and knowingly provide us, with the exception of IP address, used for monitoring of multiusing"

What was the score when you played fuzzy in UK v ROW damien? .

thats the only thing u can recall. one sole parenthesis

Go see my results page now, against damee!

you actually have some results

Very few people bother with Brute Force attacks anymore, as captcha's are so easy to overcome these days. Nothing compares to simply having a good password and changing it regularly.

Right, speed read over this and a few good points.

Sure, no need for non-members to be able to see profiles, but to get around the "just make an account" thing, then hide them for newbies as well. It takes a while for a non-interested player to rack up the necessary games.

Also, there is no substitute for simply not revealing your details. Choose a username not linked to you in any way, and other information is voluntary.

Finally the ignore option/mods chatting. This is a valid point, and maybe a change could be made where mods get a message to say you are ignoring PM's and only to contact you on "official" business, to issue a warning or whatever.

Spinner is open-minded. Spinner rocks. Period.

Newbies and non-members should be able to see rankings' page. It's good for the site, but not individuals' profile pages, details, forum posts, games played, history etc

Edited at 14:07 Tue 27/12/11 (GMT)

I would possibly change the forum thing to "all the forums are accessible once posting rights are applied for and granted", with the exception of game announcements and game queries. Game announcements can only be posted in by admin anyway, and game queries is important because new players may be able to find answers to questions there. If they can't do that, it will likely result in more requests through contact us that could be answered by game queries.