What is the reason people private or un-private their profiles?

[nfnp]

I often wonder why people hide their profile. I see some people will hide it, then unhide it, then hide it again. Some will show their profile but hide what games they play. A lot of these people often post in forums or are on leaderboards so I know they are not just people who want to play games and be left completely alone.

Honestly, whenever I see this the first thought that comes into my head is this profile belongs to a person that is either paranoid or extremely sensitive and scared what people will think when they see what games they play, or how many hours they spend playing or dont play.

With that said, I'm open to learning the reasons people do this. Enlighten me.

[MalikQayum]

it creates the illusion that they become anonymous but they really aren't. the question is why it matters to you why people are doing it? if it bothers you that much perhaps you shouldn't look at other peoples profiles anymore and just focus on yourself.

why people do stuff for whatever reason, does not have to be a valid reason, it can be as simple as because they can, they do it.

like why do you have a profile picture or that username? can you give me a reason to why you have that profile picture or username? why did you opt for a animated background instead of no background? you see my point? it is none of my business.

[Pigeon Pecking Keyboard]

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/828936718741324602/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/350540974003865916/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/558753804165107204/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/358415738183639415/

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/7/1500126447403478536/

[Tito Shivan]

Short answer: Because they want to.
Long answer: Because they want to.

Some people simply don't want to share certain stuff with the public, with no other reason behind.

Originally posted by MalikQayum:

it creates the illusion that they become anonymous but they really aren't.

It's not about anonymity. It's about privacy.

[Muppet among Puppets]

If steam had better settings for the profile, there would be less reason to have it private.

But now you become part of the library of other people....... or you have a private profile.

And the other reasons people name.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by peanut butter complexion:

With that said, I'm open to learning the reasons people do this. Enlighten me.

Because they want to. Only reason that is needed, honestly.

[SgtHorton]

For me the only reason to make my profile Public is if I would want to share with world informations about what games I play, but Im just not interested in opinions of other people so i keep it private. Today everything have some kind social media element, which is IMO crazy, it creates unhealthy addictions. I remember having Ps1 at my home, nobody but my one close friend knew what i was playing and I think it was magical.

Tl;dr Today social media is "opt out" bcos it helps to sell more games, but it should be completely optional thing. Thats why i actually like Epic Game Store, no profiles means no useless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and gamification.

[Radene]

I unprivate my games only when I wish to use Steam Calculator to get disappointed in myself.

[cinedine]

Because some people look for every bit of information to attack you, ridicule you, or try to descredit your point.
A certain User here for example has a real hard-on for me being German. Another one found a post about me being involved in a failed mod project fours years prior to an argument and used it to construct some narrative that I have a vested interest in Early Access being open to developer abuse.

I really don't people like this snooping around in my profile. Or even my friends list and their profiles.

[nullable]

Originally posted by peanut butter complexion:

Honestly, whenever I see this the first thought that comes into my head is this profile belongs to a person that is either paranoid or extremely sensitive and scared what people will think when they see what games they play, or how many hours they spend playing or dont play.

Whenever human beings are faced with incomplete data they tend to try and fill it in with what's ever convenient to them. It work well in some cases where the missing information is obvious or familiar. But human beings tend to think it works equally well all the time in all cases and the conclusions are all accurate. Not even close though...

An alternative question is why do people project so much weird nonsense into a profile being private? I see people do it all the time, especially when ax grinding is on the agenda. They look at a profile and get all huffy over it being private. Why do people worry about it? Is it just paranoia and fear of the unknown, and a desperate need to have a trivial way to identify scammers?

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Brockenstein:

Originally posted by peanut butter complexion:

Honestly, whenever I see this the first thought that comes into my head is this profile belongs to a person that is either paranoid or extremely sensitive and scared what people will think when they see what games they play, or how many hours they spend playing or dont play.

Whenever human beings are faced with incomplete data they tend to try and fill it in with what's ever convenient to them. It work well in some cases where the missing information is obvious or familiar. But human beings tend to think it works equally well all the time in all cases and the conclusions are all accurate. Not even close though...

An alternative question is why do people project so much weird nonsense into a profile being private? I see people do it all the time, especially when ax grinding is on the agenda. They look at a profile and get all huffy over it being private. Why do people worry about it? Is it just paranoia and fear of the unknown, and a desperate need to have a trivial way to identify scammers?

I always wonder what clients without profiles tell about their users then

[Γαῖα]

Originally posted by ;2650881941772031803:

well, i can only speak for myself there.

steam has issues with scammers, and creeps.

some people don't leave you alone, if you block them, they come back with other profiles, to comment on your profile, your screenshots,... and this goes endlessly. so sometimes you are forced to set it to private, until these people lose interest and bother someone else.



for the game part... well, depending on how many games you have, sooner or later you idle them for trading cards, that causes a lot of "playtime" and the "recently played" list grows very long, so i often hide the list until these playtime hours arent in recent playtime anymore.

a second reason was (before the point store ruined the market prices...) that it's important to hide the games you buy and idle / play from the activity, so others don't see what you buy and craft, to prevent the specific item prices to go down.

and hiding friendlist... well some people just do it for cosmetic reasons on their profile, others prevent stalking like that or just like to keep some privacy.

Agree with the last paragraph, poppycock on the second to last, switch of comments in the third and face your demons like a warrior for the first.

[Mad Scientist]

For Steam it's to avoid scammers.

Overall, because people choose what they want for privacy, with the obvious exception of data collection on social media regardless of your settings, unless you only use a VPN when using it and don't check in anywhere or say where you're going or are located at.

There's a level of paranoia that people question, but a good chunk of the people paranoid about social media and data collection are more correct than the general public would like to know.

The more open your account is, the more you're likely a target in general for scams/phishing, advertising, etc. With everything so politically charged lately, the more info you put out the easier it is to doxx you for those with evil intent that simply disagree with you on something you said, so that's also a consideration for many users as to only add people you know, not add hundreds of random people to your account(s).

[nfnp]

People are social enough to bother posting in the steam community sections and interacting with others about games and such yet are totally closed off in their profiles to the point you can't even see what games they like or play on a platform that's all about games. I think it should be mandatory to have your recent games played at a minimum if you want to interact or use the forums. Especially game forums where you have 5 people giving advice and you have no idea what is sound advice purely because you can't see if the person giving it has any game time.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by peanut butter complexion:

People are social enough to bother posting in the steam community sections and interacting with others about games and such yet are totally closed off in their profiles to the point you can't even see what games they like or play on a platform that's all about games. I think it should be mandatory to have your recent games played at a minimum if you want to interact or use the forums. Especially game forums where you have 5 people giving advice and you have no idea what is sound advice purely because you can't see if the person giving it has any game time.

Play time is overrated. There are plenty of games I played off-Steam, that shouldn't disqualify any advice I give on a game.

People using such metrics to disqualify others opinions is a major reason why people shield it.

It's irrelevant whether you can see the information on a profile. What matters is the substance that people bring. And just like in the offline life, people can easily interact with each other without having to know everything about each other.

I always find it odd that people invent "mandatory" stuff for online interactions.

[Paratech2008]

Some people don't feel their account info is anyone's business and don't want targeted by scammers who will go after people's inventories, first by looking at their accounts to determine if they're worth scamming...