This feature request has been partially implemented, solving the issue of needing to be friends to view if a selected user is online. (assuming they don’t have their joins on) However, I still believe that there are some improvements that can be made for both connection and privacy, such as adding Trusted Connections to the list of values to select from, or adding a Studio Status for anyone to view what game you’re working on (how does it even work right now, can friends see what game you’re making by default? is it based on who can see what experience you’re in?). I’ve updated the table below to be much more concise and highlighted the implemented features, with the old table still visible below it for those interested (it’s… pretty messy).
A while ago, the change was announced that non-friends who view your profile will not be able to see your last online/online status; as opposed to a manual offline mode. This was done to protect user’s privacy, but no choice was given to the user.
I believe that it would be better to separate these into settings, at least for >13 users, which would make everybody involved happy. Keep in mind this is just my proposed solution to the problem and may be flawed in some areas. Feel free to message me if you have any ideas or if I messed something up.
| Setting | Possible Values | Behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Online Status | Every setting from “Who can join me in experiences?” + Trusted Connections | Allows others to see if you are online. If possible, avatars that change while this setting is disabled should not appear on the website, only in-game. Overrides Experience Status. |
| Experience Status | Every setting from “Who can join me in experiences?” + Trusted Connections | Allows others to see what experience you’re currently in. Overridden by Online Status. |
| Studio Status | Every setting from “Who can join me in experiences?” + Trusted Connections | Allows others to see what game you’re creating in studio. |
| Last Online | Every setting from “Who can join me in experiences?” + Trusted Connections | Allows others to see when you were last online. Can be used in extensions. If Online Status is disabled while this setting is enabled, it displays the time since you disabled the setting. |
| Friend Viewing | Every setting from “Who can join me in experiences?” + Trusted Connections | Configures who is allowed to view your friend list, mutual friends, and total amount of friends. |
Old Table
| Who Can See When I Am Online? | Who Can See If I Am In An Experience? | Who can see when I am in Studio? | Who can see when I was Last Online? |
|---|---|---|---|
| (any setting from “Who can join me in experiences?”, hopefully, we can make a list of people in the future) | ditto | ditto | ditto |
| (Overrides the “Who can join me in experiences?” setting, if this is set to no-one, for example, this will prevent anyone from joining you without changing the “Who can join me in experiences?” setting. | Seperate from the “Who Can See When I Am Online?” setting. People will be able to see you online when you are in-game but not otherwise. Ditto, overrides the join setting. | If enabled, there will be an option to show what game you’re creating, preferably separate from this option (In case someone wants to, for example, show they are in studio to everyone, but what they’re working on to friends.) (e.g Who can see what game I’m making?). Also useful since studio loves to override the in-experience status. | If “Who Can See When I Am Online?” is set to something the user cannot see, it will display when that setting was last set to something they can see. For example, when set to No One, it will display when it was last set to Everyone. |
If these were changed into settings, it would benefit people who don’t want this information visible, as they can turn it off (and also, as it is visible to friends by default, some people don’t want that), and it would benefit people who do want this information visible, meaning nobody’s privacy is invaded. Some notable use-cases for wanting this information to be visible in this topic. TL;DR trading, finding developers, archiving information on old/inactive accounts
If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my development experience as I’d be able to see if non-friended developers were actually active on the website.