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Comments on Should we have "Last seen" times?

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Should we have "Last seen" times?

+8
−4

Tracking when each user last logged in or last was active may be onerous but such information can be helpful in various ways, such as in deciding when to return to a post.

Edit

At least for the time being, the top entry in a user's Activity Table is for me an adequate alternative to a "Last seen" time.

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+4
−2

I would be inclined to argue against keeping track of "last seen" times; and even more so against publicly dispaying it.

From simply a legal perspective, there's the issue of the GDPR's requirement for data minimization. (See for example the GDPR, article 5 paragraphs 1(b), 1(c).) While one could argue that keeping some kind of "seen when" data for some reasonable amount of time serves a legitimate purpose for not-publicly-accessible logs, it seems more dubious that publicly displaying that data serves a legitimate purpose.

From an individual user's perspective, there's the issue that publicly displaying (and yes, to signed-in users only still counts as public when anyone can get an account with no significant barriers to access) the time when a user was last seen on the site constitutes an information leak about the person associated with that user account. Yes, it's a small leak, but it's still something that should be weighed against the benefit. If the benefit of what's being proposed is small, then IMO even a small information leak can be a significant mark against that proposal.

You mention the case of "deciding when to return to a post" as a benefit of displaying a "last seen" time. I don't really see the benefit here; certainly I tend to mainly keep track of what's going on on the front page, and visit posts that I'm interested in; if there's nothing going on, and I'm not particularly interested in the subject, then there's likely little reason for me to visit a post, whether or not the user who posted it has been "seen" (for some definition thereof) since some particular point in time. I fail to see how determining which user posted something, then check their profile, would improve the "decide whether to visit a post" workflow.

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2 comment threads

Unreasonable privacy? (1 comment)
General comments (3 comments)
General comments
pnuts‭ wrote over 4 years ago

If only "last active" the information is already provided, just could be tedious to find. For example, your A above is timed (36 minutes ago, at present).

Canina‭ wrote over 4 years ago

@pnuts Actively interacting with the site (for example, by posting content) is not the same thing as passively consuming content (even when logged in) and performing anonymous-to-others activities such as up/down voting on posts.

pnuts‭ wrote over 4 years ago · edited over 4 years ago

Obviously. I did write "OR last was active". SE claims ~20M users and I have not noticed a single objection to their "Last seen" times. When to revert is useful for (a) changing votes (b) deleting surplus Comments and (c) accelerating As, etc.