In some cities a lot of striders on the top list are Private. Maybe some Private striders are not even aware of the fact that they are Private? They see themselves in the list and some others (non-Private). Maybe some kind of notice text in an appropriate place when looking at a list of striders in a city. So only if you are a private strider, you see a little info “Note that you are private, so other striders won’t see your accomplishments”
Good idea. We have a little Messenger group for the CityStriders in my city, but obviously not those who are private.
1 Like
Definitely a good idea, just literally had to tell my other half she appeared as private, she had no idea.
2 Likes
I just took this screenshot of my privacy page. I think the language is clear enough to understand your page, name, streets, cities, lifemap, achievements, etc. are private.
That’s definitely fair, and I’m happy that I set that up in a way that’s clear.
A part of the issue is that many people don’t explore at all, to the extent that I’m pretty sure there are people who don’t know that a settings page exists at all. 
1 Like
That’s exactly my point! A lot of people have no clue about Settings. Hence my original suggestion
2 Likes
Exactly this, she had no idea it was there 
Making privacy settings more obvious throughout the site would also be beneficial to those who are aware of our privacy setting choices. Especially because those of us who value our privacy have all experienced social media platforms making updates and changing our privacy settings in the process.
Once I’ve made more progress I plan to change my privacy settings to ‘per activity’. But as a woman who frequents isolated areas and has been repeatedly followed by a creep in the past, I don’t want my life map or activities to be public.
I would feel much more comfortable changing my privacy settings to ‘per activity’ to appear on lists and leaderboards if there was obvious reassurance that my home address and frequent routes weren’t going to be made public and I would know straight away if my privacy settings had changed for any reason.
2 Likes
Great points - thanks for sharing!
Your post brings up some questions that have long been solved by the privacy settings in the site, but I hadn’t written up a detailed explanation. I just finished that up, so if you’d like to learn about how you can be fully private via that ‘per activity’ setting you can read through this post: All About Privacy
I suspect some remain private for competitive purposes.
Or privacy reasons. I remain private because lifemaps are heat maps–it’s too easy to find areas someone frequents.
2 Likes
The Privacy settings menu features a key icon, so I think I’ll go with a lock icon.
I can add it to your ‘card’ that’s on city pages…
And your profile page…
And each activity that’s private…
Hovering over the lock will display a “This account/activity is private” message.
Edit
kinda wondering if this is just going to increase support requests asking what the lock icon is for 
maybe I’ll opt for clearer messaging…
4 Likes
Perhaps make the lock clickable to a page explaining things in more detail?
That would have been possible for the user card, but not for the activity. Each activity card is one big link, and I can’t sanely put a link in a link.
I’ll leave the text/lock pair as-is for a while to see if I start getting questions.