Private Workout Logs

Hi Cory, I think there should be a way to make the training journals private only to members of the forum. I don't keep a journal here because I don't like the way anyone can look up my name and a various exercise and find all my information so easily... Would that be hard for you to add?

Patrick Smith said:

Hi Cory, I think there should be a way to make the training journals private only to members of the forum. I don't keep a journal here because I don't like the way anyone can look up my name and a various exercise and find all my information so easily... Would that be hard for you to add?

That's a fair concern. To be clear, are you asking that workout logs only appear to registered forum members, or only to those individuals you wanted to see it?

To be honest, I think both of those options would be fantastic; however, if only one is an option, then I think the most specific one is better.

Patrick Smith said:

To be honest, I think both of those options would be fantastic; however, if only one is an option, then I think the most specific one is better.

I don't intend to ever make something like that fully private as it goes against the concept of a community. It would also mean the moderators would have to spend time making sure the private content stays appropriate, which means less help they can give to everyone with training advice. The workout log forum has been changed, however, so now only registered members can view topics and posts in it.

Cory, I think that's a great modification!

Thanks, Cory!

It does seem that a website "Journal" system would be an improvement. There are websites that have a journal system similar to a personal profile min-blog. I'm pretty satisfied with the current system, though. I appreciate the quick modifications!

Patrick Smith said:

Thanks, Cory!

It does seem that a website "Journal" system would be an improvement. There are websites that have a journal system similar to a personal profile min-blog. I'm pretty satisfied with the current system, though. I appreciate the quick modifications!

This is something I considered, but it doesn't offer too much of an advantage over the current system. We'd be back to either needing moderators to spend time making sure the content stayed appropriate since it's not immediately public like a forum, or have a forum feed of all the workout logs which makes it essentially the same thing we already have.

I don't want to put any more on your plate, Cory. I know you're working hard on this among many other things; however, perhaps a post count requirement would insure that at least those who maintained a journal were at least legitimately members of the community, rather than being an advertiser (although it would be pointless to advertise in a private log). Then again, a real member may not have qualms about misusing the private plus invitation access inappropriately.

And isn't there a type of screening program that could detect if specific unpermitted words/phrases were posted or if excessive images were posted (this would ring a bell to me)? It seems odd that forum software like this didn't include some kind of auto-moderation that would screen out most of the work for you.

Filtering and auto-mod unfortunately isn't intelligent enough to rely on even with this platform. It's also fairly easy to circumvent. The larger question is how would this benefit the general community? If the logs become decentralized, it's much more difficult to simply browse through logs of other members. I see that as a valuable learning tool we'd lose.

The easiest solution seems to be that if privacy is an issue, simply don't post a bio and limit the log to purely workouts.

- Patrick, great idea.

- From now on the GB forum workout logs will be readable to registered forum users only. As anyone can register who takes the time to do so, this is not too onerous a requirement.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks again for implementing this. I will restart my log as soon as finals are over.

Have the workout logs been re-opened to the public? When I am not logged in I can still view them.

Looked to be a bug and should work properly now.

Thank you, wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.

Yeah, I noticed this as well. Thanks, Cory.