Random id in general. Like here. Some one asked one question to Star and they replied. Now i have seen many people censoring id of that random person. Sometimes they censor their own id also. They take ss. Edit it and post it here. I didn't find any logic behind that censoring.
Random IDs/handles are usually allowed unless the handle falls under some exceptional situations such as the member is deliberately trying to promote a handle here.
Sharing own or other forum members social IDs/handle on our forums is disallowed
as a part of our forum guidelines. That is the reason members erase the handle and post it as screenshots.
Someone is following that rule it doesn't mean we also need to follow it.
Just to clarify. These guidelines are totally based on our own forum moderation situations and not derived from Reddit/Quora etc. We haven't even checked or were aware that those other platforms also have such rules in place. But I feel those platforms might have faced similar situations as us to enforce such guidelines.
But you can always find that original account like in 2 minutes in twitter. Isn't it futile if you think?
I don't think so. Members may still find these handles by doing the manual search as you said, I agree but still they aren't allowed to be shared on our forums as a part of our forum guidelines. Due to our censorship, at least they can't visit members social handle with a single click through the forum posts.
I personally don't find any logic behind it.
I didn't find any logic behind that censoring.
The logic behind this is to stop members from discovering each other via other platforms. But I understand something we find very logical may not necessarily sound logical to you considering your different requirements.
Speaking more on this. We have received some serious and unfortunate incidents in the past, where members abused each other on other platforms due to forum issues.
Giving you an example of why we imposed such a rule:
Suppose there is a member X who dislikes posting patterns/behavior of another member Y. And, he has managed to discover the social media account of member Y. Later X abuses Y via the other social medium but since both of them know each other through our forums, at the end member Y complaints the forum administration and sometimes even blame us for the mishappenings.
Since the platform is different we couldn't offer the member any support. But think if the same would happen inside this forum, we would straight warn or ban the other member and stop it.
To prevent such abuse we have tried to put some regulations in place that is serving our communities in a very well manner.
I find it very futile and waste of time to censor those ids. If i have to share anything, then i need to take ss. Then download some photo edit app. Then edit. Then post. That's a lot of hassle and time consuming. It will discourage me to post any such general information. Like official news from verified ids.
Most of the Android (and iOS) smartphones these days comes with built-in image editor that can erase or blur parts in the picture. That trims down some of the steps you have mentioned. Still, if you find it discouraging or very difficult to impossible please feel free not to share those types of content. Some other member who is comfortable with such minor editings will share the same.
Honestly speaking, I think I get why you are trying to portray the censorship as an "issue". It is not about information sharing difficulties. If things were that difficult, other members would also have brought this to our attention much before considering how long this rule has been in the place. In fact, you have hardly faced any such difficulties in the past I can say by going through your posts because you have never posted erased/edited handle screenshots.
I guess what made you complain about this is probably that the issue you personally faced when you wanted another member's contact through our platform. Just to remind you, a month back you had asked another member's WhatsApp/Telegram number. We stopped you from doing that. And, not-so-coincidentally, that member has only liked
your initial post.
I don't usually care to provide such long explanations on our rules considering how straightforward and simple they are already to understand but I did this time to help you clear some misconceptions about the censorship. I hope this helps.