Community Member When Viewing as Guest

I believe that is by design for "security/privacy" reasons. If you are a member (and prove that by logging in) you can see other member details, otherwise, you get the guest censored experience as you described.

This is not to say that I am a fan of this change at all. I find it very unwelcoming to any potential new members.

This was a change this week. On Monday it was normal. No pertinent information was given before unless you were logged in. Only the user name and if they had an ID picture loaded were shown to guests. If the picture was the issue, then just censor that. Why censor the username too? Seems like a big disservice to non-members who might look for a particular user name to read their specific posts.

I see the same thing as well when not signed in.  This is a screenshot from my iPhone and I am not logged in.  

If you’re on here looking for a certain member, then become one, either by signing up or in. Neither one is very tough to do. Why would you expect member benefits without being one? 

I never said I was looking for someone specific. I have been a member here for a long time and joined so I could post. I don't consider a poster's username and picture "member benefits" and apparently neither did OGR until sometime in the last couple of days. All I was pointing out was that a change was made and how that is a big inconvenience for those who have no desire to join when it comes to trying to keep track of posters they liked to read on a regular basis.

This is a new security measure, nothing more.

It's not a big deal to log in no matter where you are or what device you may be using, and once you are logged in, everything is the same as before. Non-members, or members  who are not logged in, will see only the generic "Community Member" icon.

If it's tough to navigate when seeing only the generic icon, then log in and the problem disappears.

For what it's worth, why would anybody "sign out" in the first place? I've been "signed in" for so many years, I can't remember, i.e. I NEVER "sign out".

@Hot Water posted:

For what it's worth, why would anybody "sign out" in the first place? I've been "signed in" for so many years, I can't remember, i.e. I NEVER "sign out".

Same here, Jack.

That applies to two PCs, a MAC and my Ipad. I'm always logged in an all devices.

I don't always log in. Sometimes Im not even on my own device so don't want to sign in period.

An avitar name protects any identity if the person chooses.  That's plenty.  I only see this as something that would have made pass on by and may if I'm not logging in... why bother?    

  It will also make the site appear more generic to a stranger.

I have to say, I get the privacy issue, but I'm not sure that hiding the screen names is all that useful.  As John says, one big downside is that looking from the outside you might wonder about what you see.

I don't have a dog in this fight as I know how to logon, so this is just an abstract opinion.

I only remotely understand why someone might not want to log in.  The using someone else's device as previously mentioned would be the best example, the other *might be those who read from work.  If reading from work is an issue, then you probably shouldn't be doing it anyway.

The part I don't understand about reading while not logged in is that the benefit of being logged in is the system tracks your progress.  If you don't log in, you end up rereading posts already seen when you do log in.  Time waster worse than not being able to tell who made the original post.

I think this is a really poor decision, for the following reasons:

• It makes the site incredibly impersonal and uninviting to non-members. These users include of course potential subscribers, but also people with a passing interest either from a link referred from a member, from a web search, or whatever. My first reaction when I saw this change was that it was glitched. Not a great first impression.
• There is no credible privacy or security issue with displaying an arbitrary user name and user customizable signature. The desired degree of anonymity is completely within each user's control. I know of no other web forum with such a policy. 
• It does a major disservice to sponsors. Removing names and sigs removes pretty much any appearance of credibility from a sponsor's posts. Suppose I search Google for ES44 and one of MrMuffin's posts comes up. Here's what it looks like:

So now as a reader, I'm left wondering - who is this guy? Is this post legit? Just some random dude selling something? Not confidence inspiring.

Here's is one of GunRunnerJohn's posts about his handy little lighting module:

No name, no sig with links to his store, etc. No credibility, and no way to go buy it even if I wanted to.

• Many users, myself included, have posted very in-depth and thorough material on a wide variety of topics. These posts, until now, have been able to stand on their own as articles accessible to a wider community outside just OGR. For example, I frequently share links to my articles with colleagues in the space industry, friends in the IT industry, other model railroaders who are not on OGR for whatever reason, as well as friends and family. Some of these posts have taken many hours over several weeks to prepare. They have now basically lost all value to anyone who isn't a registered user.
• I use LastPass for password management, so my password is long and random and not intended to be memorized. For just casual reading of the forum, I frequently browse from other devices without logging in. That process is now much more inconvenient.

And...

• It is broken as implemented anyway. User names still show up in quoted posts.

@thor73, spot on. Well said. Expresses many of my thoughts very well.

There are a variety of reasons folks log of and sign out.  This shouldn't even be a discussion.  As far as the generic feel of the forum when one is not logged in, I personally think it's a mistake as well.  While security is a priority, this just seems to make the "Best Place to Talk about O Gauge Trains" less welcoming.  While this seems a Crowdstack decision I hope that they will see it paints us less as a community and more of a faceless collection of "icons" and "community members" rather than the greatest place of O Gauge discussion there is when looking from an unregistered viewpoint.

I hope the folks at OGR are looking to reverse this change.

But ironically, some of the people complaining about the change have no Avatar anyways so only their Username is affected.

@MartyE posted:

  While security is a priority, this just seems to make the "Best Place to Talk about O Gauge Trains" unwelcoming.  While this seems a Crowdstack decision I hope that they will see it paints us less as a community and more of a faceless collection of "icons" and "community members" rather than the greatest place of O Gauge discussion there is when looking from an unregistered viewpoint.

Well, the folks that are just browsing and not members can't participate in the discussions anyway.  Back when I joined, I didn't join because of membership avatars or lack there of, I joined because of content even though I do very little in O.

Besides, there's a lot of folks here who don't have avatars, myself included.  I haven't detected any animosity because of my faceless countenance.

Rusty

@Rusty Traque posted:

Besides, there's a lot of folks here who don't have avatars, myself included.  I haven't detected any animosity because of my faceless countenance.

That's just because we couldn't say it to your face, you don't have one!

Sorry, that was just too easy to resist.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's just because we couldn't say it to your face, you don't have one!

Sorry, that was just too easy to resist.

I've been told I have a great face for telegraph...

Rusty

At least we can look at pictures full size even when viewing as a guest still.

Membership has its privileges.  Otherwise, why bother with membership.

There's another forum out there in internetland that duplicates many of the postings found here, yet you can't even view most of the photo's without membership.  And they also apparently don't require the avatar to be a photo of the actual member.

So, what's the big deal? 

I get the feeling this is boiling down to the OGR forum version of "let the public in at York" type of controversy.

Rusty

Rusty, you can't post if you aren't a member, and non-members obviously shouldn't be able to view user profiles. 

As I said before, this change doesn't affect me as I'm always logged in, but it might affect new users that would consider signing up and are turned off by the appearance.  Then again, it might just encourage them to register, it's not like it's a big deal.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Rusty, you can't post if you aren't a member, and non-members obviously shouldn't be able to view user profiles. 

As I said before, this change doesn't affect me as I'm always logged in, but it might affect new users that would consider signing up and are turned off by the appearance.  Then again, it might just encourage them to register, it's not like it's a big deal.

I agree John but I do think it was a more welcoming presentation to non members when they could see the community which is why I posted what I did, but again I'm not sure it's all that big of a thing.

between Thor73 and RustyTraque, I dont know whether to admit that Thor73 has great merit to his points.....cause I am still laughing at RustyTraque' telegraph joke.  I initially DISLIKED this change..........but after a few minutes of thought, it is a no brainer VG security step.....way to go OGR Admin!!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Rusty, you can't post if you aren't a member, and non-members obviously shouldn't be able to view user profiles. 

That's pretty much my point.  I don't have a problem with that.  Each forum is free to set up the terms of service as they they see fit.  As I've said: Membership has its privileges.  Otherwise why bother with membership?

Rusty

As I said before, this change doesn't affect me as I'm always logged in, but it might affect new users that would consider signing up and are turned off by the appearance.  Then again, it might just encourage them to register, it's not like it's a big deal.

 

Guys....we have talked about this and read your concerns....good points on both sides of this issue....  We think that the previous display of avatars, etc. is better than what was instituted in the last couple of days.  Crowdstack has given us a way to go back to the way the member's avatar were displayed...and we have done so effective immediately!

Your thoughts and suggestions were very much appreciated.

Alan