Below is HealthUnlocked's release about planned changes that will enable you to restrict the audience of what you consider to be personal information. This change will replace the current temporary fix in which it is difficult to determine if a question or post is restricted to our community.
The important points to keep in mind are that:
If you restrict your question/post to your community
* your username will NOT be visible in search engine responses or RSS feeds.
* your profile picture/avatar will also be hidden
* only the first 247 characters of your question/post will be visible; thereafter it will be blurred out then truncated
(so make sure you keep the early part of your question/post free of any sensitive, identifying information)
Whether or not you restrict your question or post
* all of your question or post title can be found via search engines and be will visible via RSS feeds.
* a question mark icon will be included near the question “Who can view this post?” that anyone can click on to see an explanation of who can view that post or question.
As HU's email states: "Our recent member survey revealed that new members typically join because they found that they could see the answers to their questions on HealthUnlocked." and the proposed changes "helps individuals who are not yet members also find answers to their questions and join your community."
You will also find other tips on how to protect your privacy when using this site along with background information regarding this change in the above post here: healthunlocked.com/policies...
Health Unlocked's email on proposed privacy changes in full
We are releasing an improvement so that your community reaches more individuals and has more members.
Over the last couple of months, many asked us how to increase the visibility of their community to reach more individuals. Our recent member survey revealed that new members typically join because they found that they could see the answers to their questions on HealthUnlocked. With that in mind, over the next few days we're releasing an improvement to how questions and posts in your community can be seen. It's important to note though that as protecting members is a priority, we strictly regulate access to content and are doing this very carefully.
Before publishing a post or question we ask members whether they would like for it to be viewable by Everyone or by Members of this community only.
* Everyone means that the post/question along with the replies can be seen by both members of that community as well as visitors (whether they are HealthUnlocked members or not).
* Members of this community only means that the visibility of the post/question is strictly limited to just the title and the first 247 characters for anyone who is just a visitor (whether they are HealthUnlocked members or not) while only members of the community can see the full post/question and replies.
In both instances the post/question can be found through RSS feeds, on for example the websites of your charity and the NHS, as well as through search engines like Google. In the case of the latter though, its visibility is strictly limited so that visitors can understand the gist of that conversation without compromising the author’s privacy. This helps individuals who are not yet members also find answers to their questions and join your community.
While bringing you more visitors and members by increasing your community’s visibility is a priority, we also take the privacy of members very seriously, which is why we limit what can be seen when someone labels their post/question as for Members of this community only.
As part of this improvement we’re blurring out anything beyond the first 247 characters and hiding the author’s username and avatar. Additionally we’re adding a question mark icon near the question “Who can view this post?” that anyone can click on to see an explanation of who can view their post or question. (This question mark icon only appears on the post/question submission page. The padlock for private questions/posts remains)
Best regards,
Amedeo d’Amore
Marketing Executive
HealthUnlocked
