A discussion about disabling user tracking on a Discourse site has been initiated by elopio. The goal is to minimize the collection of user data, specifically “last seen,” “read topics,” “read posts,” and “reading time” on the admin/users/list/active page. Stephen explained that most of these metrics are inferred from Discourse features, such as read history, and are essential for a good user experience. However, elopio raised concerns about the invasiveness of these metrics, particularly “reading time,” and suggested providing more explanation in a tooltip.
Stephen clarified that “reading time” is calculated from read history, and elopio agreed that this might be the most invasive metric. Stephen suggested considering alternative discussion platforms if there are fundamental features that elopio dislikes, but elopio expressed a desire to stay with Discourse.
Hello!
I would like our site to track as little information from our users as possible. In particular, from the admin/users/list/active page I would like to not have data about last seen, read topics, read posts, and reading time.
Can I disable the collection of that data?
pura vida.
The data isn’t collected directly. Those numbers are inferred from discourse features such as where you last read to in a topic. If discourse doesn’t track what you read and how far you got through topics the user experience would be significantly degraded.
You can hide them using css, or remove them from the UI entirely by writing a plugin.
Hum, right… What about reading time? What feature justifies that one?
Also, I feel like it might be possible to obfuscate “last seen” in the database, but I might be missing something that requiries it.
AFAIK it’s calculated from your read history rather than directly recorded. I could be wrong though.
oh, interesting. So it calculates the time it takes to read a post, and then makes a somewhat accurate guess. I feel that’s the most invasive of all the numbers, so it might be good to explain it further in a tooltip or something.
Just a thought, but if there are fundamental features within discourse which you dislike have you considered alternate discussion platforms?
I love discourse. I have considered alternate discussion platforms, but I would like to stay on this one 