"Private Posts" allow users to communicate much more freely and openly, with a form of privacy, between trusted Friends and Acquaintances.
[b]Posts marked as "Visible to Circle/Friends", can only be Seen and Accessed by those in the poster's Circle and Friends Lists.[/b]
Once a post has been created as "Private" (Circle/Friends), it cannot be converted into Public (Everyone) thereafter (for privacy reasons, to the existing commenters).
We hope that you will be able to enjoy and make good use of this and other new features we have worked hard on and released for you all!
Hi everyone, Just want to give an update on how this new Privacy Setting is doing. As far as we can see, we've had an increase on the number of daily posts on Similar Worlds, and part of the difference being related to the Private Posts. The average number of daily Public Posts hasn't changed. People seem to be posting more, now that Private Posts is an option.
[i](Private Posts were introduced on the 26th March)[/i]
@HannahSky I once reported an incite to suicide that they took months to get around to. A reduction in reportability isn't as big a disadvantage as you might think
@ImperialAerosolKidFromEP I've seen a lot of post reports looked at pretty quickly once reported or we don't get a notice at all. Not sure why exactly.
@HannahSky I was thinking the same thing, I imagine that this website doesn't have a lot of employees to monitor content and up to know depended a lot on our complaints to spot inappropriate content but now they will either have to hire more people specifically to monitor the content of private groups or else a lot of inappropriate content will go unchecked. its a dangerous move. one good thing about it is Trump supporters and bible fanatics can now talk between themselves.
Finally time to post some nudes and spicy sex stories for my dear friends
SW-User
How will you know if the pedo creeps aren't making posts privately just for their friends. They may as well create their clan adding each other to share stuff and won't be reported.
Had a think about it, still can't see how this will improve SW. Surely replying to posts is how we make friends here? It's a bit like going into a pub and being told to sit in a quiet corner because you're an outsider and no one wants you hearing their conversations. Worst idea ever.
@DontLikeMondays You're talking like if everyone has moved to Private Posts, trying to "prove a point". Our stats are just as we predicted - nothing changed in relation to Public posts (same amount), and people are just posting more, now that they have a choice to choose Private if they want. We don't see any drop in the number of Public posts.
@Nuno it seems many have. Those of us that flit about with almost every one but arent part of the popular cliques are just gonna see less and less and feel pushed out even more.
@Nuno Well my feed has almost ground to a halt, all I'm getting is alerts for posts i replied to yesterday and a new post every 10 mins or so, hardly busy enough to keep me occupied. Your brainchild will be the end up of this site, thank me for the warning as the curtain closes👍
Ok I’ve been mulling this over a little bit. So we have block, mute, ignore, posts for our circles, filters for everything but excluding certain topics...essentially things to divide us, to promote isolation....now can we have some things that unite us? I feel like moral is low and everybody is feeding off of that. We need things that promote laughter and good feelings and places or areas where people can look for the things that they came here for be it writing poetry, mushroom picking or sex talk or whatever ailments they want to talk about. I don’t know how hard it would be to have buttons to click for areas or something. Maybe the get games up that some people were looking forward to. Not trying to complain but just thinking of some positive things for the site so somehow we can stop loosing fantastic people. Ok...I’m off my soap box and thanks for listening!
@CestManan Thank you! I’m hoping maybe some positive things will improve the morale around here even if it’s just one small thing at a time. I don’t want anymore people leaving out of frustration from the site. There’s no other site like this if it goes to crap :(
I dont like this, it will exclude a lot of people i like from seeing their post unless i go around and friend them all...and i dont like a large friend list..it can bring a lot of users feed to a crawl.. bad idea
@Andrew But It prevents potentially making future friends and or connection with that person though if you have the same issues/likes/dislikes as them... and thats how you make a lot of connections on here.. i never would have met my best friend on here if she made her private post actually private
@Tminus6453 My thoughts exactly, this has split the site in half and limited the potential of making a relevant circle of friends, killed it for any newcomers.
Why? What's wrong with everyone seeing posts? Those with a small circle of friends could potentially have a very slow or dead feed, the beginning of the end for many people. I think it would have been more beneficial to allow us to cut ourselves off from certain groups, such as politics or religion instead of encouraging a clique mentality.
@Loretta78 Haha! I had eight but removed three due to them not acknowledging my replies. I have a feeling I'll be finding a new pastime when I'm bored 🤣
I would give it a chance to anyone who feels unsure about the feature. A lot of times people always jump at saying they dislike it so fast. Take the verification feature for example, that is still around and everyone freaked out about that, but things went back to normal when everyone calmed down. Not everyone uses it lol🤗
@SinlessOnslaught Better than two people having bad days. I mean you can always share your troubles, but sometimes it leads to fights instead of finding ways to work through it. Thank god I don't get angry, even when I do I have to really try hard. I'm bad day proof mr.sinny.
This is probably a great addition to those who have strong groups of friends and want to share personal stories. Overall, I see it as more isolating because it's just an extension of excluding more and more people. People like me will eventually bore of not seeing enough posts.
@SW-User So this is not similar worlds. It is a divided world. My friends are the best ones here. Yet I also recognize the words of others who are not part of my circle nor followers. I will not choose to limit my postings-rare that they are- to my circle. The road of life contains many sideroads. One chooses the roads to explore and to learn. Not limits. Freedom. And love to you, Aido.
Thank you for your efforts to enhance our user experience. I think it's a great feature overall. I'm glad you added it.
But one negative that I can see already is people shit talking about other users in large private groups design to exclude the users they want to shit talk about. It will be used as way to get around ToS violations.
Also, sexual predators will create private groups to network, trade illicit content, and do whatever else it is they do.
Just like any other good thing, it will be abused. I hope SW has devised a method to detect and suppress abuses of the feature in the form of ToS violations and illegal activity.
@quitwhendone First off I think it’s good to have a place you can go, where you can gripe about someone and vent to others. This is actually a good method of not being an angry person and lashing out. People are always pissed at people so hopefully it’ll make it more peaceful on public posts. Hell I love my family but still need to vent about them. Most psychiatrists would say this is a good source to help vent frustrations, almost like a letter method but with someone actually listening. You can also share your opinion or experiences without people tearing you apart because you simply think differently than them.
I have mixed feelings about this. At the moment, if i were to post dissing another member its clearly against TOS. so, are we guarenteed this private posts will be prone to the same rules? Otherwise, i do think it will likely be used to slag others off and obviously, its not goingbto be flagged or reported.
Personally not a fan, but I won't be overly critical because I'm not running a site which many others can enjoy. I guess I'll have to add some people to see posts now 😤
I reckon if I used the friends circle only option no one would notice since I rarely get large responses to anything I ask....but it doesn’t exactly allow for the meeting of new people which rather defeats the purpose of a forum.
@SW-User Will you make use of the feature or will your posts remain public?
SW-User
@quitwhendone always public. I enjoy knowing different people responses and if I want privacy I contact them directly, with the groups some people may feel left out and with no friends,don't like the idea that those groups could be used to spread gossip making the site toxic.
@SW-User I understand but that is already done. There are already groups of SW users on other platforms. These groups are specifically designed to exclude other users.
I've been going a few rounds on whether or not to comment on this, and been discussing it with a friend. I'll do the easy route and just copy & paste what I said to this friend (removing any potentially identifying stuff).
[quote]I've been debating whether I'm gonna bother replying to that thread or not.
I'm torn about it. In theory it is a good idea and a feature many sites already employ with success. But it does have its potential pitfalls, and with the state SW is in I think it will multiply these bad sides.
And once again I find myself just disappointed seeing some of the admin response. Again, it's a good feature in theory, but people made legitimate arguments on how it can be abused. The admin response was that such abuse is against TOS and that it will reduce exposure. As if it being against TOS is gonna stop people abusing it, pigs can fly, money literally grows on trees and I can sing opera.
It'll be easier for people to mass-share pedophilic and similarly awful and outlawed content without being caught. Part of the reason people get caught here at all IS the fact that they have to expose their views/contents to the public to expand their group. This makes it much easier to just keep it within a limited group while operating on this site, without anyone reporting them.
And then there is the matter of people who post crap about others here, especially after blocking them. On one side this content has less exposure to the public so that is in a way a good thing, but on the other the moderation of this site is - like with pedophilic content - reliant on people spotting and reporting it en masse. Now it'll be allowed to slowly grow and fester within groups of people. If someone is already a friend of the person posting such content, they are much more likely to pretend they didn't see it rather than report it, so it ends up staying.
Of course, these potential pitfalls are present in every social site that has such a feature, but at the same time SW seems to be a site that is a lot more loaded with these kinds of issues already (compared to most other sites I've been on), hence why - while I like the idea in itself - I think it is a bad idea for SW.
There's also a fairly low activity level already in the public areas, and this will lower it further. This will further reduce interactivity between users, increase the cliquishness that is already rampant, and make it even harder for people to connect through coincidence (which seems to be the common way to get to know people here).[/quote]
[quote]And stealing pictures from one user and using an alt to share it with another group. Just all the bad things. Technically you can still do equivalent things now too, but it requires going through hoops and extra steps that might not always make it worth it; like getting to know people here then relegating to another site, or just sending it manually as private messages to everyone on your friends list one-by-one. They just made it tons easier to just do it right here.
[REDACTED]
I still think it's a good feature in concept, but that it will end up making things much worse so long as they haven't made a bigger push towards solving the other, huge problems this site is facing.[/quote]
EDIT: Oh, and another thing. Making it easier to create anti-person circles. The "hey, we don't like that user, let's all of us mass report them now!"
So SW is becoming more of a messenger chat than a forum.
I can see both sides though -
The good is that the cliques can fight or suck up amongst themselves in private without annoying the rest of us with their drama. Some people don't respond to anyone not in their clique anyways.
The bad of course is the feed will be a lot slower in some people's cases.
What about the SW police though? The ones who feel the need to report every little infraction? Won't they be twitching knowing they cannot see certain things? Who will they tattle on now?
@Redstar But it's not just those people who will use it, regular, decent users have cut themselves off from half of the site because of this stupid, ridiculous new gimmick.
Everyone is different, and everyone has different level of sensitivity. I think several people would love to only post writings just for their circle. Other people will simply remain or keep posting for everyone.
I’m both blocked by others and have blocked a few shocking lude commentary or very angry lewd behavior— so I will probably keep most posts public anyway.
I had one person rant rudely and angrily AT my posts. Because I don’t ask questions. (I transferred from EP and used SW as EP. my style and choices were more of a journal here. I’ve begun asking questions... but I mostly journal to vent. So I’m waiting for a “journal” dear diary option for public— private.
Overall, this is an improvement and shows that you are thinking of the emotional welfare of others on this site.
I doubt I'll be using this.. And I do believe this will slow a good number of people's feeds down, including my own.
Here is why.
A good number of people have refused to add me dispite being friends for years. I added them yet the reverse just isn't likely. So when they post I will not see those posts.
Now if this worked on my circle for their post then there wouldn't be a problem.
Yet by what you have said it's based on the posters circle. So I just won't see it.
Now going on to what you have said that "people will still post publicly".
You are correct some will still post publicly. Yet there is only so much time people are willing to spend posting. Most actually reply, including myself. So those that have not added me and post privately, I just won't see their posts. Hence slowing my feed down.
I have no need for privacy anyway. My lifes story is practically on here with the exception of some details that I believe everyone here has hidden, like current name and address.
FYI if this does slow people's feeds down there just isn't a reason for people to remain here.
You are taking a very huge risk that it won't slow people's feeds down!
@DeWayfarer You shouldn't have to do that. And someone could follow you when you're not on the site, then they get to read your private posts before you have to chance to stop them.
