Well there are those that add people to beg and other annoying things so a private profile may help with that, also you can make private only to non friends wich makes more sense, but it does look fishy to see a private profile. But tottaly their right, it's an obvious featuere I supose.
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Well it is bad for some :). Just like me, many people don't like to have their activities public. The only reasons why i have not made my account private are steamgifts, steamcompanion and trading. So, you know, being social "online" is bad ;).
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Some just want to be left alone ... I used to have a private profile myself.
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+1,i have it on private just so other people wont add me. I used to get all other kinds of junk friend requests and then just switched to private
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Why you people mix your personal life with steam?
i havnt figured it out mostly girls always keep their profile private look like steam profile is their life page
its just noobness in my opinion >>>>...
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It's not bullshit, it's a generalization. You might not like it, but most people I personally have seen set their profiles private have bogus achievements to game time ratios or are cheaters/hackers. Very rarely do I know if it's the first for sure since their profile is private, but I have seen it on forums where people call them out on it and they set their profile to private. I have rarely seen anyone set their profile to private otherwise, but I know they're out there.
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Cg has a private profile. And I highly doubt that he is a cheater/scammer/whatever. :P
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That's maybe because being the head of SG and all, he might have gotten much unwanted attention. The admins mostly keep the comment box open in case of any problem (mostly it's people who act like PLSPLSPLS UNSUSPEND ME PLIS [and there was a really hilarious comment fight between Jade and some butthurt guy]), other than that, I don't know. Also, admins get millions(figurative) of friendship requests, and a private profile certainly has a factor in deciding the number of requests one gets (it does look intimidating somehow)
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That's actually what I was trying to point out. ^^
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I'm usually moper wary of someone with a long alias list because that's usually the scammer's MO. They keep changing name either impersonating others or just trying to look different than they did on their last scam.
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My guess is casual gamers who just want to log in for a bit and play their games in peace, without being bothered by chat and random requests.
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Becase they don't want to be bothered, because other people/scammers/whatever see they have a lots of games/playhours in certain games/lots of items/etc and maybe they can scam you/hack you/whatever.
I only accept invites from people I know for sure and they know me either.
Private profiles doesn't mean that person has something to hide. On the contrary. They want to stay hidden...
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THIS -_-
If I know that a certain person I know is starting to get nosy again, I change my profile from Steam users only to friends or friends of friends only.
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Some people just tend to use Steam platform for gaming instead of having any social interaction with others or the community. I see nothing wrong with that.
You don't owe your privacy to anyone
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I really couldn't care less who looks at my profile, or the reasons people keep theirs private. I find the responses here interesting though.
You keep it private because social interaction in real life is more important than on Steam? These two things have nothing to do with eachother. Almost sounds like you're overcompensating for something. I'm going to guess that you spend a lot of your free time on Steam, playing games, instead of being more productive and you're a little ashamed of it. So keeping your profile private just keeps the facade going.
You keep it private because you're afraid of being stalked? Just who are you, why are you so important and why does the universe revolve around you?
The only real reasons that I'm seeing are that you own a lot of games/inventory items and you're tired of people adding you and begging for stuff... and/or you've legitimately had issues with stalkers/harassment in the past and are doing it for your own safety. Pretty much everything else is paranoia, shame and/or overcompensation. Which is absolutely fine, how you conduct yourself online is your own business, but tell it like it is. Don't act like you're just "above" having a public profile.
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Exactly, couldn't agree more. Taking it too seriously is bad for the heart.
Also, if you're afraid of getting hacked, chances are your profile is already secure and you don't trust any links people give you, other than that, there's no way people can harm you.
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But why having reasons at all? What if tomorrow i just feel like setting my profile to private? I don't care about scammers, beggars or whatever. I think this is a case of deeply overanalysing an occurence when there is no need to do so. For example, sometimes i just do stuff that aren't driven by anything and they don't necessarily convey any sort of message.
There are no "right" or "wrong" reasons here
Your last bit of post sounds like you're judging people and having nothing for them except assumptions
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Let me just clarify that deep down, I don't really care what any of you do. I am analyzing (perhaps overanalyzing) why people do it because that is the topic of discussion. A question was asked, and since I don't have a private profile (and don't intend to), I am speculating as to why people would.
If you just "do stuff" for no rhyme or reason, then there's no analysis to be done. This doesn't apply to you. That being said, between me and you, I don't believe that people just do stuff for no reason whatsoever. EVERYTHING has a reason behind it, short of an accident because of something you overlooked or didn't see (ie. a crack in a sidewalk that you trip on). If you go to McDonald's for a burger, it might be because you're hungry. If you get your haircut, it might be because you don't like how your hair looks or don't think it's manageable the way it is. If you go to a nightclub with your friends, it might be because you enjoy spending time with your friends and/or because you like to dance.
If you just flip your Steam profile to private for no reason whatsoever, then you're just really flippin' bored lol.
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I dont support that theory but we're just two sides now having a difference of opinions without anything solid to back them up. You would be surprised how many events in our lives (some barely noticable, some significant) are a product of random occurences where we just happen to be in the picture. I don't believe that everything has a purpose and leads somewhere, we're most likely just clusters of molecules trying to wriggle our way through this semi-coherent mess without even knowing what's on the finish line. Same goes for most of our actions in life.
(on a sidenote, i can't believe this started as a topic regarding private profiles and somehow i ended up talking about this now)
But putting that aside, there seems to be a general consensus whenever this topic is brought up that people with private profiles either have
1.) something to hide
2.) tend to be scammers/up to no good
3.) either paranoid or displaying some other sort of mild chemical imbalance
And of course, all other assumptions tend to be slight variations of those three listed above. I just don't take any of those as definite
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To me that's like letting a murderer (extreme example, but humor me) off the hook because "we're most likely just clusters of molecules trying to wriggle our way through this semi-coherent mess without even knowing what's on the finish line". No, what they did, they did for a reason, most like a horribly awful one. You know?
A "product of random occurences where we just happen to be in the picture", would constitute an accident IMO, which I did count as an exception in my explanation.
And I agree that my answer to this topic probably falls into one of the three you listed or some variation of those. And I agree that's an assumption on my part. :-)
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i never get invites from scammers or other unwanted people
why should i make more informations public that necessary?
whats the benefit of a public profile?
i have no need for social interactions with random people or "friends" i do not know
steam ist just a tool for buying/managing my games, works fine with private profile
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All those are perfectly solid reasons, and I'd do the same, except for SteamGifts needs it public or could ban my ass. Also I think giveaway-ers could want to check if you did activated your recently won game, and if private they cant, thus maybe they report you just in case.
Doesn't SG needs it to sync your lib? is a pain to remember to change to public every thursday and then back to private, just for 1 site, for like 30 seconds, each time.. Sigh..
And yeah, tired of fake acc/possible scammers sending invites. Those private and without messages get insta-delete.
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once a week sg requires a sync and if you forget it, you get the "please sync" message instead of seeing the ga. switch to steam, set public, press sync, wait 30s or so, then go private again.
since sg pulls a copy of your library (list of all games) every sync, it can easily detect, if you did not activate a game. so you get neither banned nor reported.
sg does only require the sync, you do not have to maintain a public profile all the time.
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Sometimes i put my profile to Private, when i'm playing DOTA 2. the profile in steam and in the game. Sometimes i put it to friends only. Don't want random (most of the time noobs sneaking around.) i meant noobs bcuz they see us playing and start sending friends request...
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I was just wondering, apart from the scammers who don't want you too see their trade bans, or that their libraries are empty, why do people set their profiles to private ? I mean it's not a social website where you want to hide your pictures from people you don't know, but the opposite :3
EDIT: I forgot that trade bans can't be hidden :p
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