Privacy and blocking

You decide how visible you are in the Community. By default, other pros see your display name and a little context — your business name, your city, and your level — next to your messages. If you'd rather keep some of that to yourself, the privacy settings put you in control. You'll find them in the Community settings, reachable from the Community tab.

What shows next to your name

Three switches control your visibility:

• Show business name — whether your company name appears beside your messages.
• Show city — whether your city appears beside your messages.
• Privacy mode — the master switch. Turn this on and you go low-profile: your business, your city, and your level all disappear from view, and other pros can't start a direct message with you. You can still read and post in channels under just your display name.

Turn privacy mode off and your individual show-business / show-city choices take over again.

[!tip] Most pros leave business name and city on — it's how people remember "the guy from Phoenix who does heated floors." Privacy mode is there for when you'd rather just lurk and learn.

Controlling direct messages

If you don't want one-on-one messages at all, turn on privacy mode. While it's on, you won't appear in the people search, nobody can open a new conversation with you, and nobody can send you a new message — not even in a conversation you'd already started together. You can still read your past conversations, and you can still post in the channels (your name shows, but your business and city stay hidden). Flip privacy mode back off whenever you want to be reachable again.

Blocking someone

If you never want to hear from a particular person again, block them. Open the ⋯ menu on one of their messages and choose Block user, or use the Block button on their profile.

Once you block someone:

• You stop seeing each other's messages in the channels.
• Neither of you can start a direct message with the other, and any conversation you'd already had disappears from both of your lists.
• They're never told they've been blocked — to them it just looks like you're not reachable.

Blocking is always reversible. Community settings has a Blocked users list showing everyone you've blocked, each with an Unblock button that puts everything back the way it was.

Blocking is about you and one other person. To flag a message for the BidCraft team to review — spam, abuse, anything against the rules — use Report instead (below); the two do different jobs and you can use both.

Reporting a message

If someone posts something abusive, spammy, or off-limits, report it. Every message has a report action — use it and the BidCraft team gets a flag to review. Reporting is private; the other person isn't told who reported them.

The team can hide a message that crosses the line, and can mute or remove a member who keeps causing problems. Keeping the Community a place tile pros actually want to be is a shared job — flagging the rare bad apple helps everyone.

Next steps

• Welcome to the Community — what the Community is and how to jump in.
• Channels and direct messages — the difference between public and private conversations.