Posts by AnnOMaly

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

What utter nonsense.

You didn't think the matter was 'utter nonsense' two years ago. You offered an apology and acknowledged there was a 'very slight risk' which prompted you to remove the country identifiers. Or didn't you mean any of what you said back then?

You already describe the real problem - people posting too much personally identifying information in their posts.

I don't believe anyone who has genuine and serious concerns about hiding their identity goes round posting things that reveal who they are.

As has already been pointed out, if members had been given notice, upon joining, that their country would be publicly displayed, those from smaller countries would likely have modified what they revealed about themselves. It's one thing for a poster to out themselves by being careless. It's another thing entirely for a forum to willfully display a piece of personal information that a poster wishes to remain private.

I have been on numerous forums over the past 15 years - both pro-JW and JW-critical. NOT ONE has required me and other registered users to publicly display location or country. It has usually been an opt-in system like on the old JWD.

I share EdenOne's anxiety - not just for myself, but for him and others from small countries who trusted this place and thought they could keep certain information about themselves confidential.

I would be less concerned if the flags were not going to be applied to everyone's posts retrospectively.

If you are determined not to give posters the choice and have country identifiers displayed by default, can you only attach them to future posts and give due warning so that some of us will know not to post here any more under our current names? Can you at least accommodate us that way?

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

Another thought, following from Kate's, Scully's and EdenOne's posts.

On the previous JWD/N formats, if you wanted to check through a member's (our your own) posting history, you were presented with a dizzying list, page after page, of all the threads they (you) posted on, and then you had search through the pages of each thread to find the post or poster you're looking for. Very time-consuming and laborious. Off-putting for a malicious data-gatherer. I have personal experience of a very nasty piece of work who, 2 or 3 years ago, used this forum to try and get something on me and failed, partly because it was too much work to trawl through countless threads spanning over several years.

This new and improved site has made viewing posting histories so much easier. All a poster's posts are found for you! Nothing wrong with that as this is what some other forum searches do anyway and it's useful. But this also means it's far easier than before for snoopers to quickly read through all your posts. Lots less work for them. Force-adding a country flag on each post, especially one representing smaller countries or tracing a person's travel route, will be a bonus jackpot for any trouble-makers intent on flushing out still-in JWs.

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

^ LOL! I'm game.

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

Scully
I opted out of showing the flag on my profile in previous forum formats. I also opted out of showing my gender, although I've freely disclosed information that makes both my gender and country of residence clear.
I prefer to opt out of disclosing that information on my profile. If someone wants to attempt to identify me, they can bloody well work for it, by reading through all of my 13,000+ posts, rather than having it automatically served to them on my profile.

Damn right!

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

No, Simon was smoothing things over after some jerkwad made a big issue of a non-issue - literally trying to equate showing the country someone was from as being the exact same as pointing the world to someone's full name and facebook profile containing all their friends and family that they were really "an apostate".
It wasn't based on reasonable concerns, it was just some excuse to make another issue about something by someone determined to be a dick. All this crap and then I discover that it was YOU behind it all. That YOU were emailing everyone you could to recruit people to make an issue of things.

Huh? You knew all along that I had concerns. I PMed you the first time. I knew Cedars was protective of his location at the time (this was before the AAWA/FB privacy breach and when the tide of JWN opinion really turned against him) so I forewarned him and I shared my alarm with him. After both of us complained to you, the matter was quickly resolved without any fanfare, debate or fuss. You apologized in the thread I linked to and acknowledged the small risk of somebody being outed due to having country identifiers.

I PMed and later emailed you the second time the flags appeared, which I only discovered last month. Only when you apparently had changed your attitude and dissed my concerns (I pleaded with you to reconsider) did I decide to seek out others who had also expressed their wish not to reveal their country. Perhaps you would take seriously the objections of a few members rather than those of a lone voice. You removed the country identifiers again - much to my and the other posters' relief. I thought your sense of compassion and empathy had been stirred and the matter was now resolved.

Now you have raised the issue for public discussion. I and others, including others I never contacted about this, have expressed strong objections to being 'force-flagged.'

Were your sentiments and apology of two years ago just an act, just empty words to 'smooth things over.' You didn't really mean any of it?!

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

Kate, the old ones who may choose to leave will still have been 'force-flagged,' and any potential repercussions will remain; any damage will have been done.

As Simon commented 2 years ago after the first time the country identifier problem came to light:

[EdenOne] And yes, of course, to reveal the geographical location of a poster is just as serious. Especially if that country is a small country with only a few congregations, where basically every JW knows every other JW.
[Simon] I want to answer this in more detail:
While the overwhelming majority of posters are from large countries and regions that cover a large physical area or population (e.g. US states) I take privacy very seriously and obviously rectified things immediately and apologise for it happening. It was due to me combining two code modules: part from the current site which let people set the region and country in their profile and part from an anti-spammer module which identified regions and countries from an IP address - at some point I referenced the 'wrong' region/country pair to update a profile and didn't notice because all the ones I randomly checked just happened to have their location already set anyway (which matched).
The reason for not 'announcing' it was to not draw attention in case of a very slight risk that someone could possibly be identified from it even though I don't think it's likely, if even possible (it would neecd other information to be exposed as well). Unfortunately, Cedars seems to feel it is a risk worth taking by highlighting it.
I've been busy building in some other features to help protect people's identities further and ensure this site continues to be a safe place for already-out or questioning-JWs to visit. [underlining mine]

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/250655/have-just-been-disinvited-my-brothers-wedding-thanks-aawa?page=3

Simon recognized that there was a very slight risk of somebody being outed by the country identifiers and that, because he took posters' privacy very seriously, the issue was quickly resolved, the flags removed and an apology given.

It would be nice to see a return to the same level of care and concern about individual posters' privacy expressed two years ago. The risks may be 'very slight,' but if a force-added country flag contributes to just ONE person being outed, then there has been a dereliction of duty by this forum to do its utmost to protect members' identities. It's one thing for a poster to out themselves by being careless. It's another for a forum to willfully display a piece of personal information that a poster wishes to remain private.

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

I spoke to future posts in my previous comments, but I do not know if it is a fact that previous posts will be flagged with a country. Does the geolocator look for where you were and where you are when it adds the country flag to your posts?

Yes. All the flags that appeared the last two times I saw them on this site were on every user's post back to year dot.

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

As for bjork, the point is that the flag tells a snooping elder from iceland who of the thousands of people are worth examining in details.

100s of people. There are currently only 7 congregations in Iceland ...

Heck Ann - you are using the same avatar on at least 5 different websites - if I could be arsed I bet I could track you down just from your avatar....

Besty, you already know where I'm from :-P

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

WMF - Nobody holds a gun to a poster's head, true. But the poster can CHOOSE which personal information to disclose and which personal information to keep private. Nobody needs to know their reasons for choosing one way or another.

By having country flags on display by default, Simon is taking away the CHOICE from the poster and potentially contributing to the exposure of active and fading JWs from smaller countries.

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

AnnOMaly

... who recognizing they live in a small country are more circumspect with posting significant personally identifiable information.

People from small countries would have been more circumspect with posting certain identifiable information if they already knew in advance that their small country would be out there on public view. There was no indication upon joining that one day a significant piece of identifying information that they chose to keep private would actually be shared.