Please show the date of the last public action of an account in the profile

Question

After the rather controversial decision of removing the last seen information, I would like to request having a "last action" field.

While discussing on Meta Stack Overflow, ayhan came up with what I think is a really good idea:

[...] I personally wouldn't mind a "last active" field which refers to my last public action (a post, a comment, a revision...)

I believe it to be a very good compromise because the last action a user has made is already public. One could open a profile, and rummage through posts, comments, votes, and see the last action, but it would take time.

So having it readily available would both save time for people moderating posts as well as respect the privacy concern of the users happy with the field disappearing.

To reiterate: this is not a request to add information that is not already available, simply to save time for the humans who use that information in the course of their moderation activities.

Answer 1

Finding out when a user was last active on the site, excluding passively reading and voting, takes two additional clicks to get to the profile's Activity page and then select "All Actions" (https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/243821/f%c3%a9lix-gagnon-grenier?tab=activity)

Step one: click on someone's profile

Step two: select their "Activity" tab:

Step three: select the "All Actions" tab on the activity tab:

Then look at the timestamp of the last action.

I don't see much need to summarize that activity in another spot. The solution is not to change the way the information is presented; it is to give us control over how much of our activity is public. I should be able to choose to keep my activity private or not without affecting someone else's privacy choices. That way people who value keeping their activity private over others being able to easily tell that they are still engaged with the site can do so.

Trying to find ways to restore the "last seen" statistic in some other form instead of pushing for improvements that will address the privacy concerns some users have expressed is in my opinion a wasted opportunity.