Should search display non searchable profiles if they are contacts?

I’m not sure if this is a bug or intended behavior, but currently when searching by name the search does not display profiles of people who selected not to be searchable (in profile settings), even if they are contacts of us. Since we already added them and “know” their names (the names of all contacts are visible to us) I think it would make sense to be able to search for them by name, e.g for quickly getting to their stream. What do you think?


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I thought I already opened an issue about that, I completely agree this should be fixed.

Agreed. That has been confusing me for ages….

I really wish the “allow to search” would be default active instead of disabled… it’s confusing for new users that they need to go to settings for people to find them. Had so many people I know join the network and then be confused that they cannot be found. :stuck_out_tongue:

Or maybe just we could have it on the getting started page so new users actually know they need to change it. Now they have no idea.

I didn’t realise it was disabled by default. I’d certainly be happy with it being enabled by default, preferably with an explanation what this means in ‘getting started’.

Perhaps I should add something about this to the ‘getting started’ tutorials if it has been causing confusion.

I set up a test user on 0.301 and it was searchable by default.

@itai oh that is interesting - I tried it now on my pod and sure as hell, it IS enabled by default. When did this change? :stuck_out_tongue:

Opened an issue about that.

I’m not sure I agree with this. If someone says they don’t want to be searchable, then they don’t want to be searchable and we shouldn’t go against that unless there is a compelling need to over-ride it.

If there is ever a case for making people searchable (and I’m not convinced there is), it should only be in the case in which that person has placed you into one of their aspects. If you have placed them into one of your aspects but they have not reciprocated, then, even though they are one of your ‘contacts’, they have done nothing to indicate that they want any interaction with you, so their wish not to be searchable should be respected.

Anyway, why the need to find someone via the search field whom you’ve already found? Surely you just open your contacts page.

Sorry I thought there is an agreement that this indeed was bug, I raised it here first and since there was no objection I went on to open the issue.

On the subject, I think there is no purpose in limiting the UI so that an action that can performed one (“legal”) way cannot be done in an easier way. If someone wanted not be found by his name this “failed” already at the time that we added him. We know the names and diaspora IDs of all contacts. As you say one could just use the contacts page but what purpose does it serve to limit it to this way only? It will be just confusing for the users, not being able to find some of their contacts by search.

If we want to limit the visibility of a name to contacts too this should be on a different discussion / new feature but right now I see no point in excluding the search from working though info we already have.

Then are you suggesting we remove the user option to ‘Allow for people to search for you within Diaspora’ in the settings? Because from what you’re proposing, turning this setting off so that you are not searchable becomes absolutely meaningless.

The option prevents the general public (i.e non-contacts) from finding you on the network by your name. This is to prevent people who know you by name from finding your diaspora profile. If they found it some other way it is pointless to keep blocking the search by name for them because they have the link to your profile / can access you from contacts page if they added you. So keeping the search blocked will not help anymore for privacy. On the other hand, it will confuse many users with legitimate contacts.

I think a better definition of the issue is to say that the search by name should be able to search through all the names visible to us (currently, all contacts and searchable profiles). Most users would expect it to work this way.
Then, if we want to add an option to limit visibility of names to contacts the search should respect it. Since there is no such option at the moment, I would consider this behavior to be a bug. In any case, the current behavior does not help privacy because of what I wrote above.