I am not a representative of itch.io nor do I have knowledge of the admins’ design philosophy. But I have some strong suspicions:
- Part of the reason is that the setting don’t let us hide our list of most recent forum posts (that is all that the “community profile” is, really) is, that such a list could also be created by using an internet search engine. All of your posts are out in the open anyway, so nobody is getting anything they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. This way it’s just less inconvenient for regular people.
- From a personal perspective, I have found that page to be a great tool for us users. It can tell you if somebody has been unbearable all the time or if they just have a problem with the situation at hand. Having the date of registration being visible also can aid us in determining whether or not somebody just created a sock puppet account to write that inappropriate reply. Other uses are available, but these might be the most useful ones for the general public.
That being said, I feel your concerns and if I could everything ever about me as invisible and unsearchable as humanly possible, I… might. But on the other hand I’m writing what I write for people to read it. The only way to not have a community profile is to never post anything (the link button on the page won’t show up until you’ve made your first post, btw.) My guess would be that you mainly seek more privacy because of the soulless beasts that roam the internet, like Google. The community boards and comment sections are there for the people - not for companies like Google to slither their disgusting tentacles all over. But even if community profiles (and maybe even certain forums) were to be seen by registered users only, those companies (like anybody else) could just register an account and everything would be like it was before. The only real solution here is to make no posts at all - and that’s hardly desirable.
With that being said, I’m pretty sure there’s a technical solution to make the button go away with HTML. Clicking your avatar still takes users to your community profile, though.
P.S.: Ah! Sorry. I have been literally avoiding being dragged into another room to write this response, so I forgot to mention it: Utilizing your community profile has helped me to determine that you, dear g43riel, are… Well, for lack of a better work “A force of good”. And it wasn’t even that hard to find out. :) Thank you for that.