Profiles private or not

Hi all, just wanted some input from those of you who have been running dating sites, as im not sure what to do for the best here.

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At the moment im running this free underage mod, and what it does it make the profiles private, so only friends of that person can see.

http://www.boonex.com/unity/extensions/entry/Underage_Private_Profile_2008_06_25

A couple of members have commented though that they cant see inside a profile to let them decide if they would like to contact or befriend them, and have to befriend them first to see if they have anything in common with them and so on.  Of course this makes perfect sense to me, but there are some who dont want thier profile public, and unfortunaltly there isnt a facilty to let the members decide for themselfs. So what is the norm for a dating site, are the profiles private to other members or is it best to let the members have a look first.There's also another reason i do this too, and thats just in case i get a spammer in spamming peoples profile comments, as there doesnt seem to be anyway that i can delete profile comments from other members on other people profiles.

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regards

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tyke

I think it is best to let members have a look first. Sad to say using dolphin to run a dating site is a wrong choice although dolphin started of as a dating script but now they are more focus on community. If there is a script similar to www.megafriends.com it would be a perfect script to run a succesfull dating site.

I know what your saying, but my dating site is heavy on interaction, like a community forum, sharing music and chatting, dating is really secondary (friends with benifits if you like) I think your right about letting people have a look at profiles, but it does worry me that somebody could come along start saying stuff that isnt appropriate in the profile comments and i cant get rid of the comments. I think this is the only thing that is stopping me from opening the profiles up at the moment.

You can get rid of inappropriate comments by loging is as admin then view the profiles and click remove comment :)

Hey Tyke,

I think you should give your members not only the choice of profile privacy, but also the choice of how private their profile is going to be. DolphinMods has a mod (http://www.expertzzz.com/Downloadz/view/5288) that allows members to choose which parts of their profile is going to be completely private (viewable only to friends) and which parts are viewable to all members of your community. Check it out.