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Display & Avatar Settings

These settings control how anonymous posts look to other members.


Option key: default_gravatar_url (URL string)

The avatar image shown in place of the real member’s profile picture on anonymous posts. If no custom image is set, the plugin uses a Gravatar mystery-man image by default.

  1. Go to WB Plugins > Anonymous Activity > General.
  2. Scroll to the “Set Default Gravatar for Anonymous Posts” section.
  3. Click the + button to open the WordPress media uploader.
  4. Select an existing image or upload a new one.
  5. The preview updates immediately.
  6. Click Save Changes.

Click the trash icon next to the preview image. The field resets to the default Gravatar mystery-man URL. Save Changes to apply.

The anonymous avatar replaces the real avatar on:

  • Activity stream posts
  • Activity comments
  • Group activity posts
  • Forum topics and replies (when anonymous)
  • BuddyBoss notification panels (the plugin removes the real avatar from notification HTML)

On BuddyBoss Platform, the image gets an extra CSS class (bb-anonymous-gravatar) that BuddyBoss uses for avatar styling.


Option key: default_user_link (URL string, defaults to #)

The URL used in place of the real member’s profile URL on anonymous activity posts. Defaults to # so clicking the author name goes nowhere.

This value is not directly editable in the settings UI — it is set programmatically. Developers can override it using the bp_anonymous_activity_settings filter or by directly updating the option. See Hooks & Filters for details.


The plugin hooks into BuddyPress display filters to swap out author information at render time. No data in the activity table is permanently changed:

BuddyPress filter What gets replaced
bp_get_activity_action Author name text in the activity action string
bp_get_activity_avatar Author avatar HTML
bp_get_activity_user_link Author profile URL
bp_get_activity_action_pre_meta RTMedia secondary avatar (if RTMedia is active)

For forum posts, display is handled by the template system. The bbPress and BuddyBoss integrations set the _bbp_anonymous_name meta on posts to “Anonymous”, which feeds into bbPress’s own display logic.


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