The only posts I could find on this subject were old so I have made a new post on the issue. I have a member who has been doing some extensive testing on the site and although he has set all his options to "Public" it still requires a login to view his profile.
Way to Replicate:
visit polyfidelity.org.au/socialize.html
find post gogro has a new avatar - should be near the top
click on the link and it brings up a "need to login first message
Expected results:
Clicking the link should take you to gogro's profile as it is set to "Public"

Hi,

This issue caused by menu "User Menu (item id 581)" and "My Profile (item id 591)", please you make that menu for public, it will be fine then.

thank you!

Just checked and the user has everything set for public but still getting:-
Notice
You cannot see this profile due to privacy settings.

Hi Shane,

The default profile access was for members only, i reset it to public and should work fine now.. please check again.

thank you!

All Good - now that should not affect any other members who have their privacy set to members only or friends only?

Hi,

Reset privacy will effect all current privacy members, if you wanna reset it again, simply go to Jomsocial backend->configurations->Privacy.

thank you!

But If I do that will it not then override the settings that the member wanted made public in the first place?

We were discussing it and are trying to understand why the site should have to be set to public by default to enable members to make their profile public - for example if the default site setting was "Members" surely the settings of a members profile should override the site default on a case by case basis?

Hi Shane,

If you click reset, the current user privacy will be overriden and will be replaced with the new one after you click reset...

And yes, if you reset all users to public and user want change it again to members, the user can do it from edit preferences

I hope it will help :)

Yes I get that but I think a more detailed explanation of how the permissions work is in order.
I still cannot grasp why the "Public" setting by an individual will not override the site default of "Members" . To me that is the way the permissions should work, not the other way around as it is now where "Members" or "Friends" will only override "Public". A person should have the choice of making their profile public, not have to read a big instruction page on how to make their profile private (which is what I have had to do) as there is only likely a few people who would want to make their profile public, which can't be done with the current permissions setup.

I am not sure how better I can explain it.

Hi Shane,

So do you mean you wanna disable some privacy options? I mean you only to show public only and remove the rest options?

To do is you need hack this file components/com_community/libraries/privacy.php, find this code

if( empty( $access) )
		{
			$access[ 'public' ]		= true;
			$access[ 'members' ]	= true;
			$access[ 'friends' ]	= true;
			$access[ 'self' ]		= true;
		}

No - that is not what I am asking.

The question is why will a setting of "Public" not override the site default of "Members"?

To my way of thinking the idea of permissions is that a member should be able to set their permissions to whatever they want, regardless of the default setting in the back-end, but at the moment the only way to achieve this is to have the site default as Public which obviously isn't desirable for privacy of the average user who would not even be bothered to check their privacy settings.

In the long run I'm the one who has to explain to members why the settings are the way they are., when they don't make sense to me.

Hi,

Maybe you need explain with video or some images to explain your issue, I still dont understand what is it @_@

Let me explain better,
- Admin set default privacy to public
- new user registered, and they will get privacy public as default
- and then that new user changed that privacy to members
- and if admin want reset the members privacy to public again you can do it from backend
- and then the members privacy will be back to public, but that members still can change again to members

I hope it will help