I don't know if anyone is aware of this, but the stuff we are sharing here is showing up on places like Google Search engines.

I went to Google and typed; cad drafter boredom and some of my posts to this forum showed up.

I don't think too much of that.

I posted an awful lot of really personal stuff on other types of forums, marriage, adult children of alcoholics and others that I am hoping will stay private.

God, some of the things about my wife... I could be in trouble

ernie

If you feel that your posts are too sensitive for the public forums, maybe you'll consider speaking to a moderator of one of the private forums instead of posting publically?

The public forums are just that: public. You can read ADDF posts without being a registered member; you simply cannot reply.

Google searches will turn up nearly anything if you search long enough. Sorry if this upset you.

I looked into it and I would contact the Adminstrator , a name in red.

or see if the super moderators can help you out or get ahold of Andrew... The supermods are in orange or a yellow color.

I agree with you on privacy in the forum.

User Names/IDs:
* Please be very careful about choosing your ADD Forums Username. Your user name will show up in all posts you make in the public ADD Forums areas. Your username will also appear in search engines like Google.

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15844&highlight=choose+user


This is plainly stated in the forum guidelines. Please reread them by clicking the link under my signature.

Here is the information on our Private Forums (http://www.addforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=241).

They are password protected and do not show up on google.

Yep, anything you put out in the public internet shows up on ANY search engine. That's why I don't post e-mail addresses anywhere or give any correct personal information unless I know the site is private and not available to anyone except me and the site admin.

It's great that this forum comes up in searches...that's how I found it 3 years ago.

You would be amazed how easy it is to steal someone's identity when they have made public only little bits of their personal info. I love and hate the internet. I love it for the obvious reasons. I hate it because it makes it easier for scumbags to prey on the kind and makes it harder for the rest of the world to catch and eat them. :rolleyes:

I found out that when you look at the bottom of a post, it says how many are "viewing this thread." The guests are likely coming from search engines, or unregistered readers, or logged-out users. It's easy to forget that this is not IM! :-) I hope you get your posts worked out okay, it's an aweful feeling to think they may not be okay.

I can see both sides of the coin here, on the one hand, we do post quite a bit that is personal. But on the other hand, these are also part of our journey to get where we are now and the fact that it is possible to find this forum via Google is great because that is how I found it. I agree with Crazy~Feet in that if one is posting something that you don't want the outside world to see, the private forums are probably the way to go. Either way, the whole idea of the forum I guess is for us to be able to share things we have learned on our journey that have helped us & that others may be able to use. I know that I feel much better about my experience in the limited time I have been here because I feel I am among people who understand just how freakin' hard life has been before getting the diagnosis:)

Well, we have 17,000 members. So even if it was only password protected and slurp spiders allowed...you're still very much public.

I posted an awful lot of really personal stuff on other types of forums, marriage, adult children of alcoholics and others that I am hoping will stay private.

God, some of the things about my wife... I could be in trouble

If it's really bad I'd suggest having a talk to Dave who runs ADDF. Maybe buy him a gift to make it worth his while. Essentially it's possible to edit/hide some of the posts so they don't appear at all.

Trouble is, now that it's out there - it's out there. Check out the wayback machine (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.addforums.com/), which keeps a record of everything that was said on ADDF going back to 2002! This is a story of woe that many many many people have experienced like yourself.

This is something I learnt early on, and have largely avoided issues by using an alias, and never mentioning too much about myself that I don't want anonymous people to know.

I started off being much more careful. I got comfortable, complacent. Sometimes I catch myself and say "oops. TMI".

That "wayback Machine" is neat. 111 members. My how Dave's baby has grown.

It's interesting how it's grown isn't it?

Is there a way we can find all of our OWN posts, in a list?

(Not just the first two/three lines, like when i click on my USERNAME.)

Sometimes I write a page or so, on a topic and think later: i'd like copy of my Posts for my journalling.

Have you gone to your profile and clicked on "View All Posts By..."? You will have to click each post separately, but it will reveal all posts you have made. You can then copy/paste that list and store it on a doc somewhere, maybe?

I'm not overly worried at this stage as there's really nothing that can be held against me.

Selena:)