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Propose new functionalities for Decidim software

#DecidimRoadmap Designing Decidim together

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Open 2019-01-01 - 2030-12-31
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Hide picture, bio and personal url for blocked users, even for logged in users

Avatar: Pierre Mesure Pierre Mesure verified-badge
01/04/2022 13:04  

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I was checking our visit logs on Matomo the other day and realised that a lot of visitors simply load spam user profile pages from our platforms. Probably to increase the traffic on these profile pages in order to increase the popularity of the links they put there.

Initially, I thought blocking these users would also make these profile pages unavailable. But it turns out that no, they are still perfectly available, the only change is that the page displays "Blocked user" as the username...

EDIT: I just realised a big nuance:

  • user profiles are visible online, even for unregistered visitors
  • blocked user profiles are actually not, which is a much better compromise!

I still think hiding the content on their profile to other registered users would be better but the problem seems less serious than I thought.

See an example here on try.decidim.org (External link) (External link).

Describe the solution you'd like

Profile pages should at a minimum be stripped from their content when the user is blocked. For many of these users, that's the main reason to block them.

In practice, that means hiding:

  • their profile picture
  • their bio
  • the personal URL

Describe alternatives you've considered

An alternative could be to make the whole profile page impossible to reach. In that case, the user should be shown an error message, maybe something like "This user was blocked so their profile page is no longer available". In the case where they still have content on the platform, their username would be greyed out and non clickable.

Could this issue impact on users private data?
No

Funded by
Awaiting funding.

  • Filter results for category: Participant profile and configuration Participant profile and configuration
Endorsements count0
Hide picture, bio and personal url for blocked users, even for logged in users Comments 3

Reference: MDC-PROP-2022-04-16966
Version number 2 (of 2) see other versions
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Source: {"body":{"en":"<p><strong>Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.</strong></p><p>I was checking our visit logs on Matomo the other day and realised that a lot of visitors simply load spam user profile pages from our platforms. Probably to increase the traffic on these profile pages in order to increase the popularity of the links they put there.</p><p>Initially, I thought blocking these users would also make these profile pages unavailable. But it turns out that no, they are still perfectly available, the only change is that the page displays \"Blocked user\" as the username...</p><p><strong>EDIT: I just realised a big nuance:</strong></p><ul><li><strong>user profiles are visible online, even for unregistered visitors</strong></li><li><strong>blocked user profiles are actually not, which is a much better compromise!</strong></li></ul><p><strong>I still think hiding the content on their profile to other registered users would be better but the problem seems less serious than I thought.</strong></p><p>See an example here on <a href=\"https://try.decidim.org/profiles/joel/activity\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">try.decidim.org&nbsp;(External link)&nbsp;(External link)</a>.</p><p><strong>Describe the solution you'd like</strong></p><p>Profile pages should at a minimum be stripped from their content when the user is blocked. For many of these users, that's the main reason to block them.</p><p>In practice, that means hiding:</p><ul><li>their profile picture</li><li>their bio</li><li>the personal URL</li></ul><p><strong>Describe alternatives you've considered</strong><br></p><p>An alternative could be to make the whole profile page impossible to reach. In that case, the user should be shown an error message, maybe something like \"This user was blocked so their profile page is no longer available\". In the case where they still have content on the platform, their username would be greyed out and non clickable.</p><p><strong>Could this issue impact on users private data?</strong><br>No</p><p><strong>Funded by</strong><br>Awaiting funding.</p>"},"title":{"en":"Hide picture, bio and personal url for blocked users, even for logged in users"}}

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Conversation with Pierre Mesure
Avatar: Pierre Mesure Pierre Mesure verified-badge
01/04/2022 15:05
  • Get link Get link

Hi!

That's good to know! And I agree with your point, we need to be smart and address the problem as a whole to avoid side effects.

We have proposal and comment spam as well although I wouldn't say that this is a result of us preventing them from creating advertising profiles. Yesterday, one of our platform had a spam attack with about a hundred comments within a few hours. They came faster than we could moderate them. The only solution was to close the comments.

I think this improvement should be implemented as a part of a bigger effort. But if I block a user, it's often because they have inappropriate content in their profile so the expected behaviour should be to hide this content.

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