I want profile hidden.

[FauBaRR]

Is it possible to hide my profile so that other players can't see that I'm online or when I'm playing? There's a user who keeps bothering me all the time and I want to hide myself on BGA. How do I do that?

[Meeplelowda]

Is it possible to hide my profile so that other players can't see that I'm online or when I'm playing? There's a user who keeps bothering me all the time and I want to hide myself on BGA. How do I do that?

How are exactly are they bothering you? The answer to this determines what you can do about it. First off, if they are sending offensive messages you should report them through their profile.

Have you given this person a red thumb? They won't be able to see which tables you're currently at (real-time or turn-based) if you do. They also won't be able to message you, at least not through the regular messaging. You'd have to separately block them in the forums if they reach out here.

[FauBaRR]

Is it possible to hide my profile so that other players can't see that I'm online or when I'm playing? There's a user who keeps bothering me all the time and I want to hide myself on BGA. How do I do that?

How are exactly are they bothering you? The answer to this determines what you can do about it. First off, if they are sending offensive messages you should report them through their profile.

Have you given this person a red thumb? They won't be able to see which tables you're currently at (real-time or turn-based) if you do. They also won't be able to message you, at least not through the regular messaging. You'd have to separately block them in the forums if they reach out here.

It wasn't exactly something that bothered me during the game, but what bothers me is this person constantly following me on BGA while I'm online playing or simply have it on. Isn't there a way to hide my presence without using that red thumbs-up button?

[Silene]

If you don't want to give red thumbs down maybe consider telling them it's bothering you. If that doesn't change their behavior, you should really give red thumb.

[Meeplelowda]

It wasn't exactly something that bothered me during the game, but what bothers me is this person constantly following me on BGA while I'm online playing or simply have it on. Isn't there a way to hide my presence without using that red thumbs-up button?

The most upvoted site suggestion is "Better Privacy: Hide Game History, Online Status, and only Mutual Friends" currently with 2788 votes. The only part that they have ever implemented was requiring "friending" someone to be mutual (and I think they only did it to comply with regulation when they made special accounts for young minors). You used to be able to add someone to your friends list without them accepting.

Now I'm wondering...how is this person "following" you even if you aren't in a game and you are just online. In order to do that they would specifically have to go to your profile to see if you're around, which seems a little obsessive. Are they on your friends list? If so....why?

[Mathew5000]

I can think of lots of reasons you might want to be friends with someone on BGA, but not want them to know every time you're online. For example, people you work with. OP said, "There's a user who keeps bothering me all the time" and of couse if this user is acting in a harrassing or inappropriate way, then a report should be made to BGA support. But the word "bother" can also mean, maybe that user wants to chat or play a certain game, while OP wants to do something else.

There have been lots of complaints about the game-log messages whenever one of your friends comes online or offline ( https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=29258 ). In my view it's totally reasonable to ask for a "stealth mode" where you're online and able to play games, but other users (including your friends) won't know you're online.

[Meeplelowda]

I can think of lots of reasons you might want to be friends with someone on BGA, but not want them to know every time you're online. For example, people you work with. OP said, "There's a user who keeps bothering me all the time" and of couse if this user is acting in a harrassing or inappropriate way, then a report should be made to BGA support. But the word "bother" can also mean, maybe that user wants to chat or play a certain game, while OP wants to do something else.

There have been lots of complaints about the game-log messages whenever one of your friends comes online or offline ( https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=29258 ). In my view it's totally reasonable to ask for a "stealth mode" where you're online and able to play games, but other users (including your friends) won't know you're online.

I wasn't asking why have friends if you don't want them to see you. I was asking why continue to be friends with this specific person who is "bothering" them?

I've upvoted every single incognito mode suggestion that I've come across, and I'll vote for more if you have links to some I missed. But I'm not holding my breath because my hypothesis is that BGA only made one modest privacy change because they were seemingly forced to be compliant with regulations for accounts for children under the age of 15. If it weren't for that, I'd bet real money they would never have done anything.

[FauBaRR]

I can think of lots of reasons you might want to be friends with someone on BGA, but not want them to know every time you're online. For example, people you work with. OP said, "There's a user who keeps bothering me all the time" and of couse if this user is acting in a harrassing or inappropriate way, then a report should be made to BGA support. But the word "bother" can also mean, maybe that user wants to chat or play a certain game, while OP wants to do something else.

There have been lots of complaints about the game-log messages whenever one of your friends comes online or offline ( https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=29258 ). In my view it's totally reasonable to ask for a "stealth mode" where you're online and able to play games, but other users (including your friends) won't know you're online.

I wasn't asking why have friends if you don't want them to see you. I was asking why continue to be friends with this specific person who is "bothering" them?

I've upvoted every single incognito mode suggestion that I've come across, and I'll vote for more if you have links to some I missed. But I'm not holding my breath because my hypothesis is that BGA only made one modest privacy change because they were seemingly forced to be compliant with regulations for accounts for children under the age of 15. If it weren't for that, I'd bet real money they would never have done anything.

Yes, and I'm even paying to have something that I can enjoy on the site in a private area and only see when I'm playing, because there are users I prefer to stay away from the conversation with, unless I want to.

[tbhp]

This is a gaming website that includes competitive modes. I believe this is why profiles can't be totally hidden, like they may on some other websites.

If you were taking part in real life sports competitions, you wouldn't find it normal if some people's competitive results were for some reason not publicly available to check, right? It would be considered against the principles of full transparency that fair competition should involve.

You can hide some things on here. You can hide your age, gender, nationality and other private information. But you can't take part in competition without your games being publicly registered and linked to a profile.

(Note: this is regarding the "game history" part. I believe requests for an incognito mode are valid and aren't necessarily in contradiction with competitive fairness)

[Meeplelowda]

This is a gaming website that includes competitive modes. I believe this is why profiles can't be totally hidden, like they may on some other websites.

If you were taking part in real life sports competitions, you wouldn't find it normal if some people's competitive results were for some reason not publicly available to check, right? It would be considered against the principles of full transparency that fair competition should involve.

You can hide some things on here. You can hide your age, gender, nationality and other private information. But you can't take part in competition without your games being publicly registered and linked to a profile.

That's not what the OP asked for. This is what OP asked for:

Is it possible to hide my profile so that other players can't see that I'm online or when I'm playing?

Could they have stated it more precisely? Perhaps. But you just took "hide my profile" out of context and ignored the part that states the goal of what they want to achieve by hiding their profile. BGA could easily allow you to hide online status from friends and still leave stats public if they wanted to.

I imagine that just to be reflexively contrarian you're now going to contrive some edge case for why people need to know your online status to preserve competition, too.