Profiles
Hubzilla has unlimited profiles. You can use different profiles to show different ‘sides of yourself’ to different target groups. This is not the same as having different channels. Different channels allow for completely different information. You can have a channel for yourself, a channel for your sports team, a channel for your website or something else. A profile allows for fine-grained ‘’sides‘’ of each channel. Different profiles could be compared to different business cards of a person. Depending on the purpose, different information is given on each business card. For example, your standard public profile could read: ‘Hi, I'm Fred and I like to laugh’. You can show your close friends a profile that says ‘and I also like to throw dwarfs’.
You always have a profile that is referred to as your ‘standard’ or ‘public’ profile. This profile is always accessible to the general public and cannot be hidden (there may be rare exceptions on privately run or unaffiliated sites). You can and should limit the information you make available in your public profile. If you want your friends to be able to find you, it is helpful if you include the following information in your public profile...
- Your real name or at least a nickname that everyone knows
- A photo of you
- Your location on earth, at least at country level.
If you also want to meet people who share general interests with you, please take a moment to add some ‘keywords’ to your profile. For example, ‘music, linux, photography’ or something similar. You can add as many keywords as you like.
Select ‘Edit profiles’ from the menu on your Hubzilla site. You can edit an existing profile, change the profile photo, add things to a profile or create a new profile. You can also create a ‘clone’ of an existing profile if you only want to change a few things but don't want to re-enter all the information. To do this, click on the profile you want to clone and select ‘Clone this profile’.
In the list of your profiles, you can also select the contacts who can see a particular profile. Simply click on ‘Edit visibility’ next to the profile in question (only available for profiles that are not your default profile) and then click on specific connections to add them to or remove them from the group of people who can see this profile.
Once a profile has been selected, the person viewing your profile will see the private profile you have assigned. If the person is not authenticated, they will see your public profile. There is a setting that allows you to publish your profile in a directory and ensure that it can be found by others. You can change this setting on the ‘Settings’ page.
If you do not want others to find you without telling them your channel address, you can leave your profile unpublished.