NEW! Public/Private Profiles

**Admin** · 17th May 2008, 10:10 PM

Every Shebeener now has a publicly viewable Profile page. This page includes information provided by the member, either during the registration process or later on via the My Account control panel.

There are a number of ways to view a member's profile. Whenever you see a member's name, clicking on it will usually take you to view their profile page. The members list allows you to browse all registered members, and quickly click through to public profiles.

When logged in, you can also view your own public profile by clicking on the My Profile link in the page header:

The public profile lists information about the member under the 'About Me' tab. It also includes statistical information, such as the number of posts they have made and their registration date. This information is shown under the 'Statistics' tab.

Other information includes a list of Friends, their profile picture (if set by the member), and a list of members who have recently visited the profile page. A list of the members' Albumsand social Group memberships are also shown.

Visitor messages on the public profile page are publicly viewable messages posted on member profile pages. To post a message, click on the 'Visitor messages' tab, and use the form at the top of the section.

You will only be able to use certain formatting in these messages, as described underneath the edit box. This message will be viewable by all visitors to this profile, including guest users and search engine robots if the administrator has allowed this. To communicate privately with a member, send a Private Message instead.

Visitor messages can be edited or deleted by site moderators or the member who owns the profile. If you see a visitor message that is not appropriate, you can alert the moderators by clicking on the 'Report' link.

The 'View Conversation' link allows you to view all visitor messages between the member and the owner of the profile.

**Comrade007** · 18th May 2008, 07:56 AM

Appreciate all your efforts, Shebeen. This is a really nice new feature and I hope peeps will take it up enthusiastically. Gets my vote!!

**Galaxy** · 21st May 2008, 04:59 PM

This is very good - now I can share my photos with my friends and faimly all over the world in a private photo gallery AND have a private message board AND let my people know what's going on in our country. Very cool Shebeen!!!!

**Admin** · 27th May 2008, 12:51 PM

Shebeeners - a word of caution about the social networking features and tools on our site, as well as all other social networking sites.

The Internet is awash with stories of people who had their private lives affected negatively because they revealed too much information about themselves on sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, et.. The fact is that there are people out there who are looking for information that they can use for criminal purposes.

The general rule you should adopt when building your profile page and interacting with others in our Shebeen is this: Don't reveal anythning about yourself you wouldn't want the world to know!

That includes private telephone numbers, dates of birth, etc, etc... Having said that, it is possible to protect important parts of your profile, like the messaging system and photo albums from public view and open it up only to friends. Some fellow Shebeeners are already doing this. Most other information on profile pages is also pretty harmless.

Please let us know immediately if you get strange requests from guests or registered users, and you suspect someone is behaving oddly or you feel someone is harassing you or trawling for private information.

I take your privacy extremely serious and will do anything to protect it. You should all feel safe in our Shebeen.

Thanks!
Shebeen