Anonymous Submissions & Hidden Profiles
There are three types of “anonymous” settings in IdeaScale software. The settings are for the participant and moderator views of activity; administrators do have access to the user data and identities within the software.
Why Anonymity:
- Anonymity tools are meant for moderators, judges, and reviewers to give impartial evaluation and moderation of ideas and solutions submitted by participants.
- Anonymity allows users to comment or submit openly without any inhibitions, without fear of retribution, or to avoid experiencing real or perceived discrimination due to their age, gender, race, role in the organization, or other factors that could be biased.
There are three types of anonymity available in the communities:
- Hide My Identity: is enabled by administrators at the community level. This hides the profiles of participants in every campaign within a community.
- Participants can choose to hide their own identity when enabled.
- Admins can choose to enable this feature to force all participants to have a hidden identity.
- Force Absolute Anonymity: gives administrators complete control over the entire community and all users. When enabled, it hides the identities of all members, and users cannot opt-out of this feature like they can with the Hide my Identity option.
- Anonymous Submissions and Comments: are options set by admins at the community level and available to be switched on or off within campaigns.
- Users can choose to submit their ideas or comments anonymously if the setting is available.
- Admins can choose to Force Community wide Anonymity.
When using a type of anonymity, the user name will show as “Community Member.”
Hide My Identity
This option can be enabled from Community Settings >> Customization >> Customize Site Behavior. It gives the member control to choose if they want to hide their identity or not from Personal Settings >> Profile Information.
Note: that the checkbox for Hidden Identity will only be available if it is enabled by the admin. If it is not applicable, it means that the option is not enabled in the community.
With IdeaScale, users have the ability to hide their avatar picture, first name, and last name from other users (email address is always hidden by default).
Disabling this feature will remove all members' ability to hide their identities and reveal their names and avatars on all ideas, comments, votes, and community activities where they were previously hidden.
Force Community-Wide Anonymity
Can be enabled from Community Settings >> Customization >> Customize Site Behavior. This feature allows the admin control over the entire community and all users. Enabling it will hide all member's identities. A member cannot opt-out of it like the Hide my Identity feature. Disabling the feature will reveal the members' names/avatars on all ideas, comments, votes, and community activities again.
Help Article: Hiding Your Identity/Anonymous Posts
Below are examples of what various parts of the software will look like when Hide My Identity is enabled.
1. Submit Ideas: Idea submitter's name will be hidden.
2. Submit Comments: Commenter's name will be hidden.
3. Leaderboard: If members hide their identities, their names will not be seen on the Leaderboard.
4. Campaign Sponsor: The owner name of the campaign will be hidden if the campaign owner hides the identity.
5. Moderate an Idea: Moderators can evaluate the Ideas anonymously.
6. Submit Vote: Members can submit votes anonymously in the ideas.
7. Refine Idea: Members can answer and edit the answer to refinement questions anonymously.
8. Join a team: Members can join an Idea team anonymously.
9. Fund an Idea: Members can contribute some funds anonymously to an Idea.
10. Assess idea: Members can assess anonymously in an Idea.
Submitting Anonymously
Admins can enable this option to allow members to submit anonymously on the campaign level from Community Settings >> Campaigns >> Edit campaign >> Basic Information >> Privacy & Access. It can be set up independently on individual campaigns, giving the admin liberty to set it as required. 
It can be enabled for 2 actions:
1. Idea Submissions
2. Comments on Ideas
Once an idea is submitted anonymously, neither the idea owner nor anyone else can edit the idea to reveal the name of the idea submitter. However, if the "private idea submission" setting is turned off for that campaign, the submitter's name will be displayed. Such ideas and comments will also NOT be counted in the member's idea/comment statistics. The member's avatar picture, first name, and last name from other users (email address by default is always hidden) will be hidden.
For more information about private ideas click here.
For more information on Anonymous Ideas and Comment Submission view this help article.