I don’t know why people are having trouble comprehending this. When anyone joins an online community, such as Fluther, they have an opportunity to look around, see what information is publicly available to members and non-members, and decide whether or not they are comfortable with having that information shared. Is this hard to understand? No. Okay.
So, I make a choice about participating here, based on that information. Then someone comes along, and compiles statistics on the members. Maybe they want to know how often people participate. Maybe they want to know how often specific people use the word “fuck” or the word “liberal” in their posts. Maybe they want to know how often specific people respond to other specific people. All of this information is public. I get that. I’m not an idiot.. But compiling and publishing statistics that describe a user’s behaviour, when there is nothing on the site that indicates your behaviour might in future be subject to scrutiny on another user’s whim, removes my ability to make an informed decision about whether or not to participate on that public forum.
Statistics describing any user’s behaviour on the site should not be published with names attached without those users’ permission. This is the kind of thing Terms of Agreement statements are for. This is their purpose.
The casually dismissive attitude on this thread disgusts me. I get that the thing wasn’t done with harmful intent, but it would be nice to at least see an apology or an “I see your point of view”. Thanks for nothing, collective.