Florence Devouard wrote:
In 2002, before the change of software, the ip
information was visible
even when users were identified under a pseudonyme. The information
could be visible when people were just moving the mouse's pointer over
the name of the user.
When the software was upgraded, this option disappeared and the ip data
of registered users became *private* data.
I would like to know if that disappearance was discussed at that time
and if it was on purpose that ip data of loggued in people became
*private* data.
I'm pretty sure there was a bug report from Lee Daniel Crocker in
SourceForge indicating that the behaviour was accidental and that he
intended to fix it by reimplementing the mouseover feature. He was shouted
down on that bug report, by Brion and various users. The expectation that
IP addresses are private data was already well established by that time. I
can't find the bug report now.
Once something is private, it's very hard to make it public again. There
was a similar outcry when I proposed making watchlists public. If
watchlists had been public from the outset, I doubt anyone would have even
requested that they be made private, and their usefulness would have been
pretty much the same.
-- Tim Starling