if people on site, this site, can finger my information but my friend, from her computer this very morning googled my name and had access to my registration form. Why?

I googled my real name and the only thing about mamaphonic that came up was the names you go by forum. It is the only place here I put my full and real name. Course my authors den site came up, articles I wrote for ritro, my mindsay blog, my PTA affiliation.

My guess is it all depends on how much of your true info you put up on your public profile which matters.

Veronica

This is a public site and in this format I am unable to find a way to systematically block search bots from crawling this site. There is also no "private" option in this format. On the old site we also chose not to use the private function.

Additionally, I think everyone should be warned, not all search bots respect "do not search" commands even when they can be built into the css/html, though google's and most other major search engines do respect it. As this is a public space, you should be aware that once it has been online, there may very well be ways to look it up again, even if it's been erased (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php is one such place & I know it has at least one mirror -- nothing more recent than six months is posted, but that's mostly due to their backlog). Google cache does the same thing, though with less backlog, I believe. I've seen snippets of protected forum school conversations I've had in google, though trying to view the full thing takes me to a log in screen (I can't remember what happened when I went to check out the cache of the private forum, I should check on that...).

The only privacy we can guarantee you is that we will not sell the information you provided at registration. Your email is entirely private to you (although, if necessary, the administration can look at your full registration -- ie, email -- but frankly we've not needed to and so haven't unless approached with a question requiring that we look at your record on your behalf).

What you choose to post here is, for better or worse, in a public space. And you retain copyright on what you post (read other sites' copyright policies carefully if you post -- I've heard of some sites claiming copyrights to contributor's posts!). If you are uncomfortable with the information on the registration page, you can make up an alias for yourself. We don't require anything but a name (it doesn't even have to be yours) and an email address (which is visible only to you) to register. Anything beyond that is entirely up to you. And I believe you can change your name without changing your email address. I think there's something weird with changing your email, but I don't know what it is/would be... I will try to contact our server provider (much more familiar with drupal than I am) to see if there is some way that we can apply a "do not crawl" to the user info pages, but until you hear otherwise they're crawlable. I have no idea what the answer will be.

I google the various forms of myself to see what comes up every three months or so. I treat all internet spaces, even "private" spaces as essentially public. One of the first things I learned online. Protect yourself. It's a good thing to do.

--S

"In the beginning there was the book, and the book inspired and angered others to write books, and when the people could no longer cope with all the books they had created, they begat libraries, and the Lord said, "I don't know what else we can do."

Yeah, I feel you on this. Last yr I had to just stop writing 300 words for a while because my stuff was just too private and would have seriously invaded someone else's privacy too.
Yet that's the kind of thing I really need to write about. And I want to do it here.

Am wondering if it would be ok to come up w/ alternative user names that would be obvious to those here, but not so searchable......
and if I was to do that - what would be a way to tweak my own username for example, to make it obviously me to you all, but not linked to foolsgold in a search engine? Who understands search engines and how they work? Can you help us?

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -RW Emerson
http://www.mamagathering.org -it's for You, mama.

Maybe the fact that posts on this public board are public and found by search engines could be stressed or made clearer in the registration process, so that everyone is aware of it from jump and not later surprised?

I keep a private off-line written journal for stuff I don't want anyone else to read, I find that helpful.

Oh yeah! some sites have a log-in feature so that certain areas of the site or board you need a password to access. So like, say I post something in the private area and someone googles my name, Trula Breckenridge, a link might come up for what I wrote but when the person clicks on it, they get a log-in screen. They would have to join the site and post say, 100 separate posts for, say, a span fo 3 months or whatever before they can jhave access to the private areas. Is that a feature available with this system?

Mama Specific Productions
trula.org

Is there any way to make this site non-searchable by search engines?

yeah, this is one of the reasons many zinesters get PO boxes, and many will go just by their first name and the name of their zine - like i would be "jenna tenderfoot."

you know what they say - never put anything online that you wouldn't want (for example) your mother, your co-workers, etc. to read.

obviously mamaphonic can't control what comes up on google. only you can control what you decide to post online, here and elsewhere. i believe that as of now, the controls are set so that you can edit your comments, but i think i remember that you can't edit (or delete) your posts if you are the one originating a thread.

this is a good reminder to everyone to remain aware of how public this board is!

----------
Tenderfoot: a compilation zine about firsts ~
www.tenderfootzine.com

How about if you made an "alias" you know - a username. adn then it would be more personal. You could be free to write and share stuff.

I often regret I put my real name up here - but one thing, when you goggle China, well their is whole country about that, and me myself can't be found within all the hits.