I'm curious to understand why it is that some members seem to have this section on their profile disabled? I have observed what seems to be a loose correlation between those that have this disabled and those that turn out to be, shall we say, less than reliable participants: sockpuppets of previously banned members, people with trollish tendencies, cranks, spammers and so forth.

Why is this feature optional and what reasons might there be for a member to want to have it disabled?

Edited August 8Aug 8 by exchemist

Can’t say for sure, but its existence might be due to (an interpretation of) privacy laws in existence somewhere. Internationally-used software has to comply with everybody’s requirements*. So if someone e.g. thought that this was some kind of personal data, there would have to be an option to protect against its dissemination. Again, I don't know this to be the case. It’s just a plausibility argument

*(We had to switch hosting this year because of one country’s arguably misguided law)

46 minutes ago, swansont said:

Can’t say for sure, but its existence might be due to (an interpretation of) privacy laws in existence somewhere. Internationally-used software has to comply with everybody’s requirements*. So if someone e.g. thought that this was some kind of personal data, there would have to be an option to protect against its dissemination. Again, I don't know this to be the case. It’s just a plausibility argument

*(We had to switch hosting this year because of one country’s arguably misguided law)

Yes I could understand that but, seeing as we all have handles to anonymise us, I'm not sure why a record of anonymous people visiting your profile, where you are also anonymous, would constitute any kind of privacy concern.

I see some well-respected members have selected this opt-out, so it's not just the problem people. Though I have yet to come across a problem person who has not selected this opt-out. Perhaps one of said well-respected members will see this thread and comment.

Well I don't know, as usual our politicians have f___ed up in their legal drafting.

I find some measure of information useful as I try to pitch my responses to the correct level for the poster concerned.

You may have seen me ask general innocuous quests for this purpose.

Personally I distinguish with legitimate organisations I choose to deal with and those toe rags who seem to thing I have nothing better to do than answer the phone calls.

But the thing that really get my goat are those who ring up and then demand that I prove my identity, but get really irate if I say "Well you rang me, what proof of who you are can you offer ?"

Edited August 8Aug 8 by studiot

9 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Yes I could understand that but, seeing as we all have handles to anonymise us, I'm not sure why a record of anonymous people visiting your profile, where you are also anonymous, would constitute any kind of privacy concern.

I think some things are driven by lawyers saying “Do it this way so we don’t get sued” and appealing to common sense doesn’t make for a strong argument in court.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Well I don't know, as usual our politicians have f___ed up in their legal drafting.

I find some measure of information useful as I try to pitch my responses to the correct level for the poster concerned.

You may have seen me ask general innocuous quests for this purpose.

Personally I distinguish with legitimate organisations I choose to deal with and those toe rags who seem to thing I have nothing better to do than answer the phone calls.

But the thing that really get my goat are those who ring up and then demand that I prove my identity, but get really irate if I say "Well you rang me, what proof of who you are can you offer ?"

The phone business is another matter but yes indeed. The scammers are about the only people who come through on my landline these days so I answer, not by giving my name, but giving an olde worlde style phone number answer, using an imaginary phone exchange I invented called Nightingale. So I answer the landline with "Nightingale 7624" [that's by way of illustration - it's not my actual number]. That foxes 'em. So then they have to ask me who I am, at which point I counter by demanding to know first who they are. So I have them returning my serve, rather than the other way round. The conversation spirals into the ground fairly quickly after that, as it is either some bogus organisation or else they claim to be a utility, e.g. BT or a bank, at which point I demand they confirm my account number to make sure they are speaking to the right account holder, which of course they don't have.

But it give us oldies a reflex suspicion of strangers, which is a pity.

Edited August 8Aug 8 by exchemist

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

I'm curious to understand why it is that some members seem to have this section on their profile disabled? I have observed what seems to be a loose correlation between those that have this disabled and those that turn out to be, shall we say, less than reliable participants: sockpuppets of previously banned members, people with trollish tendencies, cranks, spammers and so forth.

Why is this feature optional and what reasons might there be for a member to want to have it disabled?

Is that what you mean?

I rarely visit other people's profiles, and when I do, I do so without being logged in (so that no one could see that I was viewing their profile), and I had trouble finding such a profile. But what you see above is a legitimate user with > 250 rep points.

Maybe something went wrong during the database transfer?

If I were a moderator, I would be the best moderator on this forum. ;)

I would write a script that shows me who is a sockpuppet: they visit their previous banned profile while logged into their new account.

4 hours ago, Sensei said:

If I were a moderator, I would be the best moderator on this forum. ;)

Depends how much time you had to devote to the subject.

The admins here have several sites to attend to and, sad to say, SF is a minnow compared to some.

So it falls to all of us members to try to make it attractive enough to be able to keep going, if we want the that.

30 minutes ago, studiot said:

Depends how much time you had to devote to the subject.

The admins here have several sites to attend to and, sad to say, SF is a minnow compared to some.

So it falls to all of us members to try to make it attractive enough to be able to keep going, if we want the that.

And that draws a distinction between what moderators do and what admins do. Any behind-the-scenes tinkering with how the site runs is admin. Moderation is enforcing rules about posting and decisions related to that.

And there’s the maxim that anyone who actively wants to be a moderator is not qualified to be one.

5 hours ago, Sensei said:

Is that what you mean?

I rarely visit other people's profiles, and when I do, I do so without being logged in (so that no one could see that I was viewing their profile), and I had trouble finding such a profile. But what you see above is a legitimate user with > 250 rep points.

Maybe something went wrong during the database transfer?

If I were a moderator, I would be the best moderator on this forum. ;)

I would write a script that shows me who is a sockpuppet: they visit their previous banned profile while logged into their new account.

Yes that's what I mean. While there are some reputable members whose profile has it disabled, every single person who I have suspected of being a spammer, troll or sockpuppet has also had it disabled. So for me it is a bit of warning indication.

56 minutes ago, studiot said:

Depends how much time you had to devote to the subject.

I said: I would write a script, meaning I wouldn't have to do anything..

The scripts run in the background, launched every minute by cron.

You make a script, and then:

And then you write:

In the script, you check whether someone who was banned a moment ago (i.e., their nickname is in the database with the appropriate status) or you browse the contents of https://scienceforums.net/topic/29763-bannedsuspended-users/

visits his/her banned account, for absolute no reasons,

and if so, you send an email (to me, to inform me or you) about the suspicion that someone is a sockpuppet.

I just noticed a pattern in people who later become known as sockpuppets: they visit their old banned accounts with nostalgia.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

So it falls to all of us members to try to make it attractive enough to be able to keep going, if we want the that.

Well, I guess we're going in the opposite direction - banning people under ridiculous pretexts is the order of the day here..

Before someone “grows up” enough to have serious conversations, they are already banned, and only their second and third sockpuppet start talking sense... ;)

40 minutes ago, swansont said:

And there’s the maxim that anyone who actively wants to be a moderator is not qualified to be one.

...we can see that.. :)

I think you've confused this with the saying that those who do not want to be rulers are the most suitable for the position.

37 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Yes that's what I mean. While there are some reputable members whose profile has it disabled, every single person who I have suspected of being a spammer, troll or sockpuppet has also had it disabled. So for me it is a bit of warning indication.

It's more likely to be some kind of error in the code.

I see that the studiot's profile has it disabled..

Edited August 8Aug 8 by Sensei

28 minutes ago, Sensei said:

I see that the studiot's profile has it disabled..

Unlike you younger folks who so readily accept the latest bees knees in It long before it is needed and certainly well before any beta testing, I have seen so many 'new improved' washing powders ( sorry IT upgrades) come and go that it is boring to try to keep up.

It is a great effort on my part to get something as I want it and annoying to find it changed by upgrades almost every time I log in.

Once upon a time filled in lots of details here, but now I don't even know how to access these things, if it is still possible.

28 minutes ago, studiot said:

Unlike you younger folks who so readily accept the latest bees knees in It long before it is needed and certainly well before any beta testing, I have seen so many 'new improved' washing powders ( sorry IT upgrades) come and go that it is boring to try to keep up.

It is a great effort on my part to get something as I want it and annoying to find it changed by upgrades almost every time I log in.

Once upon a time filled in lots of details here, but now I don't even know how to access these things, if it is still possible.

I don't think this comment is directed at me. I didn't program this forum. If there is an option in version v1.0, and they later remove it in version v2.0, but at the same time they didn't reset it, and the code still uses these options, which cannot be modified, then it is the fault of the software designers. People are hired and fired in companies. The most knowledgeable people leave because they are not paid as much as they want, and the new ones have no idea what is in the old code.

If they didn't upgrade this software every so often, their work would basically be pointless, so they would be fired anyway. New employees wouldn't even have anyone to ask about what the code was all about. Getting to grips with someone else's code can take years.

10 minutes ago, Sensei said:

I don't think this comment is directed at me.

No indeed.

The second site I worked on (for the contractor) we had to supply the client with a calculator that had a square root button.

The first site no one had a calculator. I did all the lab testing and results by hand.

Since then I dont't think I have ever met an IT person who asks "What do you want or What do you need ?"

I have generally come across many who say "This is what you must have"

This latter attitude hardened as hardware gradually gave way to software.

1 hour ago, Sensei said:

Before someone “grows up” enough to have serious conversations, they are already banned, and only their second and third sockpuppet start talking sense... ;)

It has happened, but most of the time, no, the sockpuppets still talk nonsense.

5 hours ago, studiot said:

Since then I dont't think I have ever met an IT person who asks "What do you want or What do you need ?"

Because you don't understand the process...

The typical process is as follows:

- the end user says they need something, and the request is addressed to support (because a typical user has only access to it). It is called "bug report" or "feature request".

- support is reviewed by the manager, and if they decide that it makes sense/many people are asking for it, then it is forwarded to development.

Why would development ask you if you need anything?

Does the chef come and ask you if you need anything?

At most, the waiter will come, asks, and then do whatever he wants..

He can say that the cooks have already gone home or that the food has run out, etc.

There are special applications for managing such bug reports and feature requests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracking_system

Large corporations do not allow ordinary users to contact developers because they fear that they are HR people who will try to poach them by offering higher salaries, etc. So basically, software is now anonymous—you have no idea who made it by name.

5 hours ago, Sensei said:

Because you don't understand the process...

Rather you don't understand where I am coming from.

There is a grain of truth in what you are describing, and I respect that, but my experience has been of a far wider set of scenarios.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Rather you don't understand where I am coming from.

There is a grain of truth in what you are describing, and I respect that, but my experience has been of a far wider set of scenarios.

My experience was that IT systems in businesses evolved from custom-built versions in the 70s and 80s that were often disastrously expensive, due to trying to do too much and accommodate everyone, towards semi-standardised systems (for instance ERP systems like SAP) with a lot of knobs on that could be twiddled to fit, more or less, the needs of particular businesses but within a fixed overall scheme, to which the business had to adapt if it was not already following it. Quite a lot of businesses think they are unique, but a lot of that is balls. It's just that they have never properly analysed out how they work and compared themselves to others. But yes, the experience as a user (of SAP in my case) was we were effectively forced to use a new language for business processes and do things a certain way, demanded by the system. But it was, I have to admit, logical once you got your head round it.

SAP logical ?
That piece of crap is so counter-intuitive, if I don't use it for any period of time, I have to re-learn it from scratch.
Sometimes too many bells and whistles make things less useful.

Same with process suites like DeltaV ( especially cheaper versions of it ), but I used to love the old Siemens APACS.

28 minutes ago, MigL said:

SAP logical ?
That piece of crap is so counter-intuitive, if I don't use it for any period of time, I have to re-learn it from scratch.
Sometimes too many bells and whistles make things less useful.

Same with process suites like DeltaV ( especially cheaper versions of it ), but I used to love the old Siemens APACS.

Heh heh. So you too bear the scars.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

My experience was that IT systems in businesses evolved from custom-built versions in the 70s and 80s that were often disastrously expensive, due to trying to do too much and accommodate everyone, towards semi-standardised systems (for instance ERP systems like SAP) with a lot of knobs on that could be twiddled to fit, more or less, the needs of particular businesses but within a fixed overall scheme, to which the business had to adapt if it was not already following it.

32 minutes ago, MigL said:

SAP logical ?
That piece of crap is so counter-intuitive

3 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Heh heh. So you too bear the scars.

Often the issue isn’t the software, but instead the configuration choices and corporate culture into which they’re deployed (exchemist touched on this with his first comment).

First, the CFO tells a team they have only $100K to execute an implementation that should be budgeted at $600K, that they only get 8 months to do work which properly scoped should take 20, and that team further has only 3 people to manage it all when instead they should have 12.

Then that team is then blocked from following best practices and gets ignored when they pushback to explain how the configuration decisions being made are illogical and unsustainable mistakes. They get a placating pat on their heads as if they’re overly emotional children and told to go do it anyway.

The teams are told not to do what the end users wanted nor requested and instead must follow orders from executives who behave in a command and control manner, who don’t much care how their own personally prioritized pet requirements decimate the overall UX and force that same understaffed, underpayed, under-appreciated group of sysAdmins to spend their thankless days smashing square pegs through round holes all to appease their many competing masters demanding conflicting workflows and flawed outputs.

The soup gets spoiled because there are too many inexperienced know it all cooks in the kitchen and too few quality ingredients due to penny pinching shortsightedness, not because the oven is a POS or the pots and pans weren’t of sufficient quality. Don’t ask me how I know.

Edited August 9Aug 9 by iNow

Gosh was that iNow or AiNow speaking ?

😄

I note the examples offered by technical members seem to be about 'business' not technicalities.

In my experience accountants were the first to get decent calculators, then the first to get decent computers.

Going back to technicality has anyone else experience of AutoCad and early Windows ?

On 8/9/2025 at 11:24 AM, studiot said:

Going back to technicality has anyone else experience of AutoCad and early Windows ?

When Cad & AutoCad came out the licensing for using them was pretty restricted but I got to fool with them a bit at an architect friend's house. It was pretty amazing for the time but I doubt many millennials would be impressed.