Forgive me if this has been hashed out before, but in case it hasn't, I'm wondering what purpose is served by allowing people to hide their post history with a hidden profile? Having just encountered a post where someone is complaining about Tesla doing something legally dubious (in both the sense of unlikely and unlawful), and recalling from memory seeing several similar "bought another tesla... look at these problems" in a area of the forum often frequented by prospective rather than past buyers (in fact, my recollection dates from before I was an owner, thankfully I wasn't swayed by the problems reported), I tried checking the history to see if the posted I thought were from the same person were or weren't. Still don't know, because the person had their profile private/hidden.
I wrote two replies deleting each in turn, figured in the end it wasn't worth it to risk a pissing contest but I actually do worry that there's the potential of AstroTurf'ing going on in some of these "look what Tesla did to me" threads... maybe AstroTurf'ing is the wrong word because that's usual fake "wonderful review" posts, is it still AstroTurfing when it is negative or maybe AsphaltTurfing or something?
But ... maybe it would be easier for people to judge the naysayers motives for themselves if they could always see post history, and see if this is a one off problem from someone with a history of otherwise helpful and balanced posts, or someone who seems to be the world's unluckiest repeat Tesla customer?
Is it possible/useful perhaps to disable the ability for users to hide their post histories from being viewed by other members? Judging by join date alone doesn't seem to be sufficiently useful in a community where there seems to be a sense that at least some of the FUD is a deliberate, long-ongoing and coordinated effort.
Just wondering...
I wrote two replies deleting each in turn, figured in the end it wasn't worth it to risk a pissing contest but I actually do worry that there's the potential of AstroTurf'ing going on in some of these "look what Tesla did to me" threads... maybe AstroTurf'ing is the wrong word because that's usual fake "wonderful review" posts, is it still AstroTurfing when it is negative or maybe AsphaltTurfing or something?
But ... maybe it would be easier for people to judge the naysayers motives for themselves if they could always see post history, and see if this is a one off problem from someone with a history of otherwise helpful and balanced posts, or someone who seems to be the world's unluckiest repeat Tesla customer?
Is it possible/useful perhaps to disable the ability for users to hide their post histories from being viewed by other members? Judging by join date alone doesn't seem to be sufficiently useful in a community where there seems to be a sense that at least some of the FUD is a deliberate, long-ongoing and coordinated effort.
Just wondering...