"GameGrep - Social Game News"

Keyword, Social. :0

What goes hand in hand with news articles on a website? commenting. Comments are a social aspect. What does comments and news posting lead to? people keeping track of things you post and becoming a fan/friend.

We're not trying to be a "Facebook" or "MySpace" but we want to give users a social interaction between friends and other users. You can read news anywhere, but, participating and socializing while you can read news as well, spices things up more.

Humans are social creatures; why not accommodate to that behavior?

quote Smoke N a Pancake

Sure it's nice but come on, do people really need to know how many Neofriends you have that don't have you as Neofriends in return? The whole thing seems completely irrelevant, really. Considering most Neofriends are from the Neoforums, I don't understand why it would be at Gamegrep and not in my.neoforum or part of our Neoseeker profiles.

If anything, that's something that should be under "private data" so you can see it but hide it from others.

GameGrep is often a "platform" for us to try ideas and features before migrating them to Neoseeker / Neoforums. We have some things up our sleeves

When we were redoing the profiles privacy did come up. However, we didn't see it as an immediate issue for this particular feature because it's just an ambiguous number. However, in the future if we decide to show your "fans" or who you're a fan of, that would be more cause to implement privacy features. Friends aren't something solely dedicated to Neoforums only. While the feature was "born" there it doesn't mean it's restricted to the Forums only.

While you may not see a need for it, that doesn't mean other people do not (there's always two sides to a coin). Personally, I think it's pretty cool and enjoy it being there. This feature wasn't my idea so it's not like I'm trying to defend it on a personal basis, I'm just speaking from the perspective as a user, myself. I'm actually curious to see who those 42 people are.

Could you divulge a bit more on the issue in regards to this? If there are any potential privacy issues they should be brought up so they can be addressed.

To note, though, you cannot compare an ambiguous number to something specific such as an email, PM, who your friends are, etc.

To put it in a different perspective.
A computer lab consisting of 10 students. I write on the front white board the following:
There are 10 students in total.
4 students are using a Mac.
5 students are using a PC.
1 student is listening to music.

Are there any privacy concerns at this point? Now we'll change up the scenario.

4 students are using a Mac, however John is reading an email from his mom about his grandmothers funeral.

5 students are using a PC, Lisa is looking at photos of her drunk friends Tom and Bob from last nights party on Susan's Facebook.

Oh, and that 1 student is listening to classical music..what a geek

Neoseeker is one of the most strictest sites you'll find that gives users the most control over what's shown. You lose every single bit of privacy on a site such as Facebook (they give out every bit of your information to any developer for which application you choose to install).

The "fans" concept seems to work quite well on sites such as Digg and Twitter, two of the largest sites on the web (the latter not so much but still very popular). Neither of the two give you the option to disable it, or, opt out from being counted.

Now, this isn't to say we refuse to do anything about this. Just that at the moment I cannot see any immediate privacy concerns regarding this number. Nothing you've mentioned so far has brought up any points about how this has invaded your privacy.

Any concerns with a users privacy will most definately be addressed, which, is why I've been actively participating in this thread and is something that I'll be bringing up with Red. But, we cannot discuss an issue that doesn't have any known stated concerns by the users. If you would rather PM me your concerns my inbox is always open.

quote Smoke N a Pancake

Considering we have privacy settings for almost anything else (post count, email, PM, etc. etc.) I don't see how this should be any different.

Those aren't privacy features. All those items are still visible in your profile. Those are there to allow for customisation how your messages look on neoforums.

This isn't a feature which should benefit anyone. It's simply a feature implemented for fun.

Why are there video games? it doesn't benefit any consumer. Because they are fun.
Why are there toys with Happy Meals? it doesn't benefit anyone. Because they are fun.
Why is there anime? or Code Geass? it doesn't benefit anyone.
Because it's amusing to watch, which, is because it's fun.