The complete anonymity guide
This document serves as a guide for Admins, Moderators, and Members of the community who wish to participate anonymously.
There are two types of anonymity available in the communities:
Hiding Identity
- Hide My Identity
- Force Community-wide Anonymity
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: The checkbox for Hidden Identity will be available only if it is enabled by the admin while Not Applicable denotes the option is not enabled in the community.
IdeaScale allows users to hide their avatar picture, first name, and last name from other users (email address by default is always hidden). Disabling the feature will revoke all members' ability to hide their identities and reveal their names/avatars on all ideas, comments, votes, and community activities that were hidden due to it.
Note: Disabling this feature does not affect ideas or comments submitted using Submit anonymously option.
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
Note: Disabling this feature does not affect ideas or comments submitted using Submit anonymously option.
For both Force Community-wide Anonymity and Hide My Identity when the admin exports data they will be able to see the identity of members. For example, with these features enabled if an admin exports the idea report they can see who submitted what idea. If you do not want users' identities to ever be exposed please use the private idea submissions feature.
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.