Permissionsin$Projectnamearemorecompletethanyoumaybeusedto. Thisallowsustodefinemorefinegradedrelationshipsthantheblackandwhite"this person is my friend, so they can do everything" or "this person is not my friend, so they can't do anything" permissions you may find elsewhere.
Therearealargenumberofindividualpermissions.Thesecontroleverythingfromtheabilitytoviewyourstreamtotheabilitytochatwithyou.Everypermissionhasalimit.Thescopeofthesepermissionsvariesfrom"Only me" to "Everybody on the internet" - though some scopes may not be available for some permissions. The limit applies to any published thing you create which has no privacy or access control. For example if you publish a photo and didn't select a specific audience with permission to view it, we apply the limit. These limits apply to everything within that permission rule, so you cannot apply a limit to one photo. The limit applies to all your photos. If all your photos are visible to everybody on the internet and you reduce the limit only to friends, [b]all[/b] of your photos will now be visible only to friends.
AccessControlisthepreferredmethodofmanagingprivacyin[i]most[/i]cases,ratherthanusingpermissionlimits.Thiscreateslistsofeitherconnectionsorprivacygroups(orboth)andusestheaccesslisttodecideifapermissionisallowed.Anaccesslistisattachedtoeverythingyoupublish.Unlikepermissionlimits,ifyouchangetheaccesscontrollistonasinglephoto,itdoesn'taffectanyofyourotherphotos.Youcanuseprivacygroupsanda"default access control list"tocreateandautomatethemanagementofaccesscontrolliststoprovideanylevelofprivacyyoudesireonanythingyoupublish.
Wehighlyrecommendthatyouusethe"typical social network"settingswhenyoucreateyourfirstchannel,asitallowsotherstocommunicatewithyouandhelpyououtifyouhavedifficulty.Youwillfindthatthesesettingsallowyouasmuchprivacyasyoudesire-whenyoudesireit; but also allow you to communicate in public if you choose to. You are free to use much more private settings once you have learned your way around.
[*=Anybodyauthenticated]Thisissimilarto"anybody in this network"exceptthatitcanincludeanybodywhocanauthenticatebyanymeans-andtherefore[i]may[/i]includevisitorsfromothernetworks.
[*=Canviewmy"public" stream and posts. ] This permision determines who can view your channel "stream" that is, the non-private posts that appear on the "home" tab when you're logged in.
[*=Canviewmy"public" channel profile. ] This permission determines who can view your channel's profile. This refers to the "about" tab
[*=Canviewmy"public" photo albums. ] This permission determines who can view your photo albums. Individual photographs may still be posted to a more private audience.
[*=Canviewmy"public" address book. ] This permission determines who can view your contacts. These are the connections displayed in the "View connections" section.
[*=Cansendmetheirchannelstreamandposts.]Thispermissiondetermineswhosepostsyouwillview.Ifyourchannelisapersonalchannel(ie,youasaperson),youwouldprobablywanttosetthisto"anyone in my address book" at a minimum. A personal notes channel would probably want to choose "nobody except myself". Setting this to "Anybody in the network" will show you posts from complete strangers, which is a good form of discovery.
[*=Cancommentonmyposts.]Thispermissiondetermineswhocancommentonpostsyoucreate.Normally,youwouldwantthistomatchyour"can view my public stream and posts" permission
Ifyouhavesetanyofthesepermissionsto"only those I specifically allow", you may specify indivudal permissions on the connnection edit screen.
[b]Affinity[/b]
Theconnectioneditscreenoffersaslidertoselectadegreeoffriendshipwiththeconnnection(thistoolisenabledthroughthe"Extra Features" tab of your Settings page). Think of this as a measure of how much you like or dislike them. 1 is for people you like, whose posts you want to see all the time. 99 is for people you don't care for, and whose posts you might only wish to look at occasionally. Once you've assigned a value here, you can use the affinity tool on the matrix page to filter content based on this number.