365 Project can be a very intimate project and over the years many people have asked me to make their projects private or only accessible to a group of close friends.
Today I'm really pleased to say that I have come good on my promise to bring this feature to the site and all Ace members now have the ability to restrict their photos out of public view.
There is a full FAQ about the new privacy settings available to answer any questions you have, or continue reading for a brief overview of what is now possible.
Photo Privacy
Each of your photos will now have an option to be either "Publicly visible" or "Restricted" and only visible to approved followers. This allows you to safely post photos knowing that only your approved followers will be able to see them.
Profile Privacy
In addition to controlling who can access your photos, there is a similar option for who is able to see your Profile page, list of Favorite photos and your Follower / Following list.
Who can see my restricted photos?
You choose who can see your restricted photos through your follower list, allowing them to either see all of your photos or just the publicly available photos (it defaults to publicly available only).
Caveats
As with any system that imposes restrictions, there is a little more work to be done.
If you do choose to restrict your photos you will need to pre-approve trusted followers to be able to view your private photos, you do this through your list of followers. See the support section for more information.
Private photos will not be eligible to be found on the Browse pages of the site, such as the popular page, "tag" pages "day" pages "new faces" pages or the Top 20 Chart in the blog. This is for obvious reasons of privacy and respecting the photographers wishes.
Whilst not the most glamorous of features this will hopefully open up 365 Project to members that were otherwise put off by an all public album, as well as allowing you to share more personal details with your followers should you wish, without the associated risks of displaying that information publicly.
I hope you enjoy this new feature and I would be very grateful to get your feedback on this.
Please remember this is a new feature and there may be a few teething problems to begin with, if you notice anything unusual please email me at ross@365project.org
@scrivna great option for ACE members. I know some members had the occasional issue with some creepy people, so this may keep them on the site.
I just noticed that amongst all the other details listed for our photos, and I scratched my head, wondering if it had always been there and I never saw it before.
Yay, I'm not crazy. ;-)
And THANK YOU. I'll go check it out.
For my part, I have an open trust of everyone who's joined this project, and I could make a case for an intermediate privacy level of "Members only". And I have to admit that I hope most people won't block out their photos. Part of what I love about the project is seeing people's full months as a whole—especially when they've done a monochrome, rainbow, or other theme-specific month.... so it may be a little jarring to see patchwork calendars. But that's just my opinion.
Thanks again for all you do, Ross.