Can't change avatar? « Hellobee Boards

Can't change avatar?

By shavettes Apr 23, 2012

** < UPDATE > **
All a misunderstanding -- gravatar is the culprit of the auto-photo.

Mr. Bee has kindly offered to add some help text which I think is a fine idea

Thanks Mr. Bee!!

** </ Update >**

After sending a couple of emails to hellobee, I still have no response, so I'm posting here in hopes that they'll notice.

I have worked on the design and development of internet sites for over a decade. I'm not claiming to know it all, but I know a fair bit about privacy rights and standards. I'm really disappointed that hellobee, a site that at times contains sensitive information, has opted to publish information without consent. Specifically -- to pull my profile photo out of my gmail account without asking permission, and then not allow me to change it. (WTF?)

It just so happens that I know people IRL who are on this site, howdy hellobee friends. (How do you think I heard about it?) They've raved to me about how great it is, and how I'll find all sorts of helpful advice, and moving stories here.

Thus far, I don't dare post anything because .... well, my photo's right THERE, and any personal details I decide to share will be essentially public knowledge to my entourage.

Unfortunate, don't you think?

Perhaps Hellobee staff didn't get my previous emails? Because I'm publicly posting this letter, I'm going to *have* to create an anonymous email, and rejoin hellobee in order to benefit from its boards and members. I'm still debating if I want to do this b/c, well, I'm a tad p-o'd

To be clear, this post is not about bashing hellobee, I know your hearts are in the right place. My intent is to draw your attention to a very serious problem that you should move to the very top of your hot-fix list.

I'd appreciate it if Hellobee would:

1) Respond please. This is a major issue considering your content, and though you may be very happy with the userbase you've developed, you're perhaps unaware of how many potential users you're turning away because of this privacy problem. It's just bad practice and I've got a bee in my bonnet (pardon the pun) over it b/c I just hate to see a great website go bad.

2) Fix it. Just because users have a photo on their facebook, gmail or other social media accounts, it does *NOT* give you permission to swipe and publish it. Not by a long shot.

I really hope you'll take this letter to heart and understand that it's not written in a mean-spirited way, but from a concerned and disappointed user-experience perspective.

Thanks for your consideration,
Shan

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Tags: privacy , internet fail

19 comments

shavettes
pea / 7 posts

Apr 23, 2012

Actually... I have no idea *where* they pulled that photo from. Just realized it's not my gmail photo. Nor is it facebook. Nor any thing else I know of and I certainly didn't pick a photo from 6yrs ago to be my profile image... wow.

Hellobee, you officially have me stumped! Not sure if this helps your IT staff, but apparently it's not gmail or FB pulling the photo.
SugarplumsMom
bananas / 9227 posts

Apr 23, 2012

The photo is from a database you've previously uploaded onto a separate site. I forget what it's called, but I'll post the link as soon as I find it. HelloBee isn't the only forum that accesses that site, I found many other sites that do it. BUT it's a picture you've uploaded yourself, perhaps years ago.

It's happened to me a few times and I'm always frantic when it magically pops up. I'd totally forgotten mine as well and it took awhile to find the source.
SugarplumsMom
bananas / 9227 posts

Apr 23, 2012

Here's the site: http://www.gravatar.com/
shavettes
pea / 7 posts

Apr 23, 2012

Thanks Crumbs... now if Hellobee would rectify by either:

1) Adding warning text to the site during the registration process informing the user about this, and where the profile image can be changed

or

2) adding functionality to allow for avatar mgmt (ideal solution)

I'd quit my B*tchin'.
shavettes
pea / 7 posts

Apr 23, 2012

Crumbs -- thanks for the link! Just removed my profile photo.

I stand by my initial comment that pulling profile images automagically is a poor practice for a site like this.

Gravatar being a generalized profile image provider is an even worse choice than no profile image b/c you're assuming on your users' behalf, that they want the same profile photo here (where you talking about pregnancy, conception and all kinds of other issues), as they would on some other website.

I'm not going to necessarily want to be recognized here, where as I wouldn't give a crap on some site where I'm reviewing a movie or something. It's not the same context, and extra sensitivity of users' rights is required.
gracecat
clementine / 878 posts

Apr 23, 2012

I thought it accessed my google account too, so I changed my hellobee account email address to another email and now my google picture doesn't show up on hello bee.

However I also noticed that if you type in my username which I use here on this website in a google search one of the first few results shows some posts I made to hellobee boards and my profile under hellobee basically telling everyone on google that I am pregnant. This is preventing me from contributing freely on the boards here, I wish it was different.
Arden
honeydew / 7589 posts

Apr 23, 2012

This isn't the fault of hellobee. They use Gravatar profile pictures, as do MANY websites (including wordpress) automatically. If you would like to change it, you can do it through Gravatar, which is a Google company, therefore probably why it pulled the photo from your gmail.
Please don't attack hellobee for a normal handling of profile pictures that a lot of websites use, you can change it at anytime.
Had you simply clicked on the Help section, there are many posts where questions are clearly answered about profile pictures and Gravatar. If anything, this is google's fault, not hellobee's.
This is a new website, and I'm sure the gravatar option is a stand-in option while they create a new option. We're still in beta, I believe, so you should expect a few bugs and use the help or suggestion forum to suggest a change.
pastemoo
cantaloupe / 6146 posts

Apr 23, 2012

I think hellobee shows you how to change your gravatar--there's a post about it if you search for it.
Good luck--and sorry to start out your hellobee experience with a bitter taste--hope you like and it and feel more welcomed now that your avatar is fixed.
Arden
honeydew / 7589 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@mrbee, @mrsbee, you can explain this more clearly than I. I'm still a fairly new member, but I feel I'm a part of this community so it does bother me when hellobee is accused of something they didn't do. It was just a misunderstanding, and I hope everything works out.
winniebee
hostess / wonderful grape / 20803 posts

Apr 23, 2012

Mr. Bee has been made aware of this and is responding! Thanks for your patience!
mrbee
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts

Apr 23, 2012

Hello there. I guess it's a good thing my son woke up early this morning.

We are definitely not swiping or publishing photos from anyone's facebook, gmail or other social media accounts! (?!?!?!!)

As mentioned by several above, we are using the Gravatars system for our avatars - the same one that's being used by WordPress and a number of other sites. I used Gravatars because I am just one person, and I didn't have time to build a full-fledged avatar system before we launched Hellobee.

There are some other avatar systems out there, but we haven't been happy with their performance on other sites. So we'll definitely be building our own at some point.

In the meantime, I'll look into adding some text to the interface letting people know where their avatar comes from, and how to change it.

@Gcake1105: We offer one username change to all of our users, so that you can hide from Google and others! You can read about it (and request one!) here:
http://help.hellobee.com/board/username
mrbee
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@Arden: You got it almost 100% right! The only extra info I'd clarify is that Gravatar is owned by the same company that makes WordPress... not by the big G (Google).

More info on that one here:
http://blog.gravatar.com/2007/10/18/automattic-gravatar/
shavettes
pea / 7 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@Arden & Pastmoo -- Yup, clearly a misunderstanding, and I'm very happy to be wrong about hellobee climbin' in my windows and snatchin' my photos up.

@MrBee -- thanks for the solution, I think this will definitely cut down on confusion. I appreciate the time you've taken to explain the issue to me.

I'm a good example of your usecase... someone who is busy as all get out and doesn't want to take the time to pour over help pages to find out why I can't disable an avatar I didn't choose to display in the first place. I'll write an email to tell you I'm confused, but not spend more time than that to figure out why your site is confusing me

In the mean time I'm going to change the title of this post and add an update at the top to clarify.

While we're on the topic, you may want to reconsider other information required for registration that is personal in nature and displayed for all to see. Not everyone wants to announce they're TTC, or Pregnant on a public forum! That's private information, and we should have the option of choosing to display it or not publicly.

IMHO better to err on the side of too much information and more warning for users about what will be public or private.

Thanks to all who helped
mrbee
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@shavettes: You don't have to fill out if you are TTC or Pregnant during registration? It is totally optional information.

The only two fields that are required are Username and Email. They are both marked with an asterisk, and below the fields we mention that asterisked fields are required:

* THESE ITEMS ARE REQUIRED.

I will work on the registration process to make it more clear. But wanted to clarify that this is another misunderstanding. We would never require something like TTC status! We only require an email and username.
Arden
honeydew / 7589 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@shavettes: In regard to the TTC status, I could be wrong but I think you have the option so simply not select an option. On the other hand, if you're on this site, you are clearing somewhere near TTC, so it's rather silly to be paranoid about someone seeing your ttc status. Just create an alias username, if you are that worried about privacy. This website is a bit of a giveaway after all, a baby/parenting site.
mrbee
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@Arden: Yah, you don't have to fill out any fields other than Username and Email.
shavettes
pea / 7 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@Arden & MRBee

Regardless, I believe the form should explicitly let people know that if they fill it out, the entire world can see that information, member or not.

Not everyone, scratch that *NO ONE* reads the privacy policy realistically. Sharing information with members vs. non-members are two very different things.

When I created my account, I assumed (make your ass-jokes here), that the information on my profile wasn't going to be entirely public. Another use case for you Mr.Bee

I stand by my prev. statement: Users should be able to choose if their profile is made public because of the sensitive nature of its contents on these kinds of sites. If you can't provide that functionality, a warning message should inform the user that -- hey buddy/m'aam, whatever you post here is going on the intertubes for non-members as well!

If you're not aware that your profile is available to non-members, you might not take steps to keep your identity private is the point I'm getting at. I'm just touchy about privacy in this day and age where everything seems to be up for grabs.

And with that -- I'll stop (constructively) criticizing HelloBee, b/c I really do think it's a great platform and I'm grateful for it's contents.

MrBee, you're doing a good job, don't let my haggling give you the impression I don't like the site, OK?
shavettes
pea / 7 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@mrbee: I scrolled down and thought that everything under the "these items are required" text, meant that those items were required -- didn't see the asterisk above!
mrbee
admin / wonderful grape / 20724 posts

Apr 23, 2012

@shavettes: I'm sorry if we gave the impression that the profile would display differently for members and non-members. Let me know if there was some particular language that gave that impression, and I can work to address it.

In the meantime, I will work to clarify in the registration process that most of the fields are optional, and that they are published to your profile page.

<< If you're not aware that your profile is available to non-members, you might not take steps to keep your identity private is the point I'm getting at. >>

We definitely urge all Hellobee members to take steps to keep your identity private! Towards that end, we have programmed a name change feature and allow all members to request one username change. Please take advantage of this if your username can somehow be tied to your real-life identity!

http://help.hellobee.com/board/username

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