Dystopia Land discussion

Not much. While private profile hides your personal information and a direct access to your profile, all other information that you put on GR will be visible.

Examples:

When you write something in My Writing it is visible in all public writings and everyone can read it.

Your reviews are visible in the community section.

Your shelves and lists are visible on the books/lists pages.

Unfortunately Ellie, nothing on the internet is private. At the risk of sounding paranoid, if you want something to be private you shouldn't put it on the internet.

It only takes a minor glitch in the system to mess-up privacy settings.

Beau wrote: "Unfortunately Ellie, nothing on the internet is private. At the risk of sounding paranoid, if you want something to be private you shouldn't put it on the internet."

Oh no you didn't just give me that lecture! :D

You are misunderstanding me (or I haven't explained well), this is not a complaint but a warning toward the users on GR that have their profile set on private. From what I have noticed almost 90% of the people have no idea HOW Goodreads works. In fact I have no idea why someone would set their profile private, but having that option will mislead people into thinking that what they put on their profile becomes private. No it is not.

I get you now. (Sorry, I've heard so many horror stories from colleagues complaining that "private" conversations and photos were somehow leaked). But yes, it kind of defeats the purpose of joining a social media site if you are going to hide from everyone.

Beau wrote: "I get you now. (Sorry, I've heard so many horror stories from colleagues complaining that "private" conversations and photos were somehow leaked). But yes, it kind of defeats the purpose of joining..."

Not a problem, I have no problem with the lack of privacy on GR, but I can't stand google, the lack of privacy, the way it forces you to have a google + account and the fact that it keeps sharing stuff on it even if you don't use it.

I would hope that people have seen private profiles and understand what it does (and does not do). I think some do it because they have a few people they really don't want to see their activity.

That's my reasoning. I know that anything I post and such is public, but people would have to know and go looking for it. I'm only making a step harder for them.

Chris wrote: "I would hope that people have seen private profiles and understand what it does (and does not do). I think some do it because they have a few people they really don't want to see their activity.

That's my reasoning. I know that anything I post and such is public, but people would have to know and go looking for it. I'm only making a step harder for them. "

Of course, one should have the choice to have a private profile. I know I wouldn't make my FB profile public. However I think a lot of people would be surprised to realize that the private mode here doesn't hide everything.

Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "Chris wrote: "I would hope that people have seen private profiles and understand what it does (and does not do). I think some do it because they have a few people they really don't want to see thei..."

Maybe it's because I understand computers a bit better than John Q. Citizen, but it seems obvious to me. Sometimes I underestimate what what others know because they seem obvious to me.

The things you describe that are not hidden are not things "on your profile". Reviews are with the book, posts are with the forum, etc....

I don't have a private profile here, but I know what you mean on the privacy settings not hiding everything. As they're tried to explain in feedback, though, I get why they don't want private reviews and how they can't work with how the system is set up.

Never post something online or send an email or a tweet or whatever that you aren't ok with the whole world seeing. What protects most of us is that no one really cares enough to dig into your profile.