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From Edit Profile & Settings, we have below information

Hide Communities

Choose which communities will appear in the Communities and Top Network Posts sections of your profile

Hiding a community means other users will not see it in your Communities list or Top Network Posts. It does not, however, mean your activity is private.

So it is clearly mentioned

Hiding a community means other users will not see it in your Communities list or Top Network Posts.

But, I could see the top network posts are taken from hidden communities for ex: I have marked 'Christianity' as a hidden community in my profile. But, the top posts has a question taken from Christianity community "Which tribe did Paul belong to?"

Top posts of Raju

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  • shouldiblamecaching.com ?
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 2:13
  • 5
    @NathanTuggy, I don't think it's caching issue. Community has been hidden for long period of time. Browser has been restarted(clears everything) several times.
    – Raju
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 2:56
  • 1
    How long, though? Some of the server-side caches are on the order of hours or even days.
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 3:08
  • 2
    Well, the feature means hiding it only in the profile page on specific sites, not in the network profile itself, and it's working just fine. Not a bug in my opinion, but still something that better be done.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 8:40
  • 1
    If there is link to fetch hidden community details (from profile itself), then It is defeating the actual purpose of hiding communities.
    – Raju
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 13:24
  • @zondo this is kind of fixed, there is no longer a link to the network profile if the user chose to hide the site. If all sites are hidden, it means there is no way to see that user's network profile.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 12:45
  • @ShadowWizard, Network profile link removed from default view, but if we edit the url, we can see any user's hidden communities →http://stackexchange.com/users/{replaceUserID}/.
    – Raju
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 13:19
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    @Raju we need to know that user's ID for this. It's not any ID from any of the sites.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 13:28
  • @ShadowWizard, Good point. But, MetaStackExchange accounts are not immune for this. This site has root link to every other sites.
    – Raju
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 13:33
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    @ShadowWizard: Unheilig has a post in the top tab from her Buddhism account even though that account is not listed in the accounts tab
    – zondo
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 13:35
  • @zondo I know, never said the original bug here was fixed. If someone happens to arrive to a user's network profile, the "top posts" will indeed reveal hidden communities. My point is, that now it is possible to make it really hard to find that network profile. Not really a full fix, but something towards it.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 13:38
  • 3
    @ShadowWizard: Well, I'm paying 50 rep to get someone to fix it completely.
    – zondo
    Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 13:40
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    A year later and I am still seeing this problem. It has nothing to do with caching @NathanTuggy. Top posts from hidden communities are just not excluded, but they should be.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 15:40
  • 1
    I just confirmed this is still happening, so that's a really long-lived cache. Your network profile shows top posts from two communities that you have hidden.
    – Monica Cellio
    Commented May 23, 2017 at 15:19
  • 2
    See also: Question still appears in my top network posts even after having it disassociated from my account
    – Stevoisiak
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 18:51

2 Answers 2

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The third post on my network profile's top question list is currently What is a less controversial name for the clothing item known as a "wife-beater" in the United States?, and I have no way of hiding it from potential employers.

Top network questions

Having the phrase "wife-beater" listed front and center on my Network Profile doesn't necessarily leave a good impression when sending out job applications. I've removed my Stack Exchange profile from my resume in order to hide it from potential employers.

I've considered dissociating the question from my account, but as user568458 points out, the post would still be displayed due to a separate issue.

While I'm not ashamed of my top network posts, when one of them is brought up during a job interview, not being able to hide them becomes a liability to my career.

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  • 3
    I was going to suggest that as an undesirable extreme workaround you could beg a moderator / dev to dissociate the post from your account. But it turns out even that doesn't work because of another separate bug... I've also got this problem with an embarrassing-looking post and I'm just lucky that I wasn't looking for a job while it was top of my network posts list
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 20:12
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    Are you assuming that hiring managers can't read or understand even a sentence-worth of context? It would never occur to me to be worried about that question.
    – TRiG
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 20:37
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    If a potential employer took issue with that question I would not want them to be my employer. Your point is valid, but the example is not...
    – Cai
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 20:40
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    It's about first impressions though, isn't it? A typical recruiter is at the first stage wading through dozens of applications, often skim-reading for anything that stands out. If they're looking for a way to thin down a long list of very similar candidates, they might see that and think "Well, that looks unprofessional", especially if they're not very familiar with how the SE network works
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Commented Jul 15, 2017 at 7:51
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Well, there seems to be some confusion over "Top Network Posts", which is referring specifically to the "Communities" and "Top Network Posts" sections on the left side of your profile:

enter image description here

That is, this setting affects what others see when they look at your site profiles, but it is not related to the network profile top posts list.

In your example, by removing Christianity from that list, other users will not see Christianity listed in your site profile nor will they see any posts you've made there under your "Top Network Posts" section.

So, this feature is actually working correctly and as described, it just wasn't designed to do what you thought it was (and I agree, such a feature would be nice, and the wording could probably be a little clearer -- this is a feature request that I stand behind, but it is not a as tagged).

For what it's worth, I can confirm that it does indeed work correctly on my user profile. Here is my current list:

enter image description here

And here it is with Super User hidden, the posts do not appear:

enter image description here

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  • 4
    This is not correct. The whole problem is that OTHER users DO see questions from hidden communities. I've tested this by logging out of my account and I can still see top-posts in my network profile from communities that I have hidden.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 23:54
  • @TotZam I know. I misinterpreted the post in my original version. I've stripped down and clarified this. The sole issue was misinterpretation of the description. "Communities" and "Top Network Posts" are sections on your site profile. The description doesn't mention the network profile top posts section. So this could certainly be a good feature request, but it is not a bug.
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 23:56
  • "nor will they see any posts you've made there under your "Top Network Posts" section" - Yes they do. That is the exact bug.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 23, 2017 at 23:59
  • @TotZam That's not actually what was described (stackexchange.com/users/6017184/raju is not a site profile), but in any case we can test it to confirm real quick. Which communities do you have hidden right now?
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:00
  • I have lifehacks hidden but if you go to my network profile you see this question listed under top questions.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:03
  • @TotZam Yeah. And so, it's not listed on the left side of your user profile. That is the "Top Network Posts" section being referred to in the "hide communities" description, and it is working correctly. The hide communities description makes no claims to hide it in the network profile. Hence, not a bug.
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:06
  • @TotZam (Now, it's a crappy feature, but it's not a bug. It's silly that it doesn't hide them there, and hide communities is a less-than-useful feature given how easy it is to get from a user profile to a network profile ["View More Network Posts" right there on the list], but it is doing precisely what it says it does; unfortunately it is not doing anything more than that. So you might want to make an FR asking for "Hide Communities" to be extended to the network profile.)
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:06
  • 2
    Both top network posts sections should match. The should not be two separate entities. If you hide a community, it disappears from the side bar in addition to the list of communities in the network profile. The only difference is that the side bar is a list of question + answers mixed together. The only reason my question is not showing up on the side bar is because when you put my top questions and answers together, the hidden question does not make the top 5.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:11
  • @TotZam Totally agree that making them match would be a reasonable new feature. As for testing: Hide UX, then come to chat real quick. I just verified on my own profile that that was working correctly.
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:12
  • 1
    Good testing idea. The UX top posts did disappear from the side bar, yet they are still showing in the top network posts section on the network profile. Communities disappear form both sections and I would expect posts to do the same, so I would consider this a bug.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:18
  • 1
    @TotZam I can see "bug". I guess it depends on how strictly you interpret the OP. I'm going for super strict, but the current behavior is so absurd that I suppose "bug" is a reasonable view, too. In any case I totally agree that it should be different, no question about that. This is clearly a case of mismatched expectations of a feature, due to the current feature being almost absurdly inadequate.
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:22
  • 1
    @JasonC, recently, I have enabled Christianity. Just for the sake of this question, I am hiding it again. Otherwise, whenever some one verifies my network profile, the question will make no sense(or it may mislead).
    – Raju
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:37
  • @Raju Would you mind if I tried editing your post into a feature request and rewording it slightly?
    – Jason C
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:41
  • @JasonC, Please go ahead and edit it.
    – Raju
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:42
  • 2
    @JasonC I think one problem here is that you are viewing the two top network post sections as complete separate entities, while I consider the one piece of data displayed in two places. I still consider this a bug that they do not match and would argue that it should not be changed to a feature request.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 0:56

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