Private Group?

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IcePonyGirl

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2021
Messages
2
Reason
DX FIBRO
Diagnosis
01/2000
Country
US
State
TN
Why is this forum not private? It shows up in google search if someone uses or knows your Profile name.
 
Hi IcePonyGirl,

I'm not part of the forum team, but think I can answer.

This is an anonymous forum - we can all choose any username we wish and reveal as little or as much about our identity as we want to. There's no need to share your username elsewhere, share facts that would reveal your identity, or use a username that others might recognise you by.

By keeping the forum public, it means that people struggling with fibromyalgia are able to find the conversations that are relevant to them when they search online. This makes the ideas, empathy, and wisdom shared here far more available to the people who need it most. Not all people will think to join a forum directly - but after coming here by chance, they may simply take away useful pieces of information, or decide to join and become a part of the conversation. Either way, they'll know that they're not alone.
 
As a moderator, I agree with everything Jemima said.
It is always inadvisable to put any personal information out on the internet, and if you use a username that in some way indicates who you are, that is also inadvisable. As Jemima says, it's important for this to be a public forum so as to help as many people as possible, which is our purpose.
 
But why are there so many bots on here? I just saw like 200 browsing the forums. Also, I agree user names should stay anonymous even on a public forums
 
But why are there so many bots on here? I just saw like 200 browsing the forums. Also, I agree user names should stay anonymous even on a public forums
The user names here are anonymous, because - unless we choose otherwise - they're not our real names! As you've chosen "Lemon", nobody can connect your account to your real identity.

All of us are followed everywhere we go online by bots - the difference is that on this site, we can see them. Every time we accept cookies when a web page loads or go on Social Media we ensure that we will be tracked (accepting trackers is in Facebook's user policy!) Also, keep in mind that several of the bots will be search engine crawlers - this is how Google, Bing, and other sites know what's out there - and without them, we wouldn't be able to find anything online!
 
What Jemima says is accurate. Those bots are everywhere y ou go. I have blockers on my computer that stop me from seeing them or any advertising, but I know they are still there.
And the username you have is anonymous. If you do not fill in information on your locality, real name, or other personal information in your Profile, and if you reveal nothing online that reveals who you are, then you are anonymous on this forum.

Of course, if the US government wanted to know who sunkacola is, they would find out in ten seconds, and I suspect the same is true for many other governments. Hackers can also trace your IP if they have that kind of skill, as we all know. But this is not a genuine worry or threat because it is highly unlikely that anyone would be interested in doing that, so I don't think about it.
 
Pseudonymous is probably correcter/correctest.... 🤓
Big data collection can make profiles of these pseudonyms and use them, while artificial intelligence can extrapolate and interpret them deeper. I don't use g$$gl€, but it uses me.
AI is becoming a mighty tool, we only experience the tip of the iceberg (yeah, some icebergs are growing)....
I'm scared of the negative uses I know are already possible/used. Influencing politics/elections is one, already used all the time.
Negative use of health information of people could be used to influence insurance coverage or job chances. Even pseudonymously AI could influence insurance costs or what kinds of treatment is worth paying for or what kind of fibromites generally can manage which kind of work, stuff like that anyway.
So the mailing lists in the 90s & 00s were much more private. But extremely cumbersome and ineffective.
So as @Jemima says not only do forums help us members, they help a lot more external people reading them.
That way this is contributing to the positive use of big data collection, sharing what works best at grass roots.
Only studies based on AI will probably in 10-20y help crack tough nuts like fibro. Praps using what we are writing here now.
Comparing forums: Some are technically able to let you decide if your post is private or public, depending on the topic.
That kind of technical ability makes them more expensive, meaning more funding, financial pressure - who'll pay?
Comparing forums to other media: AI can make much more out of the often un-pseudonymous social media.
So that's where people should be much more careful than they are. Not just for Big Data, just for easy searches.
I only let on what I work as or what gender my grandchild has in private mails, probably a futile attempt to hide...
But apart from that I keep away from g$$gl€ etc. as much as possible, because that makes them able to connect my pseudonymous forum-profile (I can't avoid that) to my searches which can connect to my machines and me personally (I can).
I also make sure no one I don't trust gets hold of my profile name, altho it'd be easy to find me as a "Ger-man in New York".
But I'm not actually scared of real people, it's the big machines...
So anyone who's read this far: Now you know why I talk about anonymous search engines,
better European ones like startmail, than American ones like duckduckgo (and anonymous browsers like TOR).
And @IcePonyGirl: If you use the search engine you're talking about yourself, maybe think again, if that's an issue... 😏😎
 
That’s exactly what I said @Lemon when I joined! I was like why are they there all over a fibro forum, and there were hundreds! (sometimes less) I don’t even look anymore, I just ignore them 💛🍋💛
 
I sometimes forget @IcePonyGirl (well a lot) that the forum’s not private (it’s the same with another forum I’m on) but the more we discuss on that one the better (but I still forget) it’s like being in a bubble and your writing things and the big people outside are reading your stuff too 😊 ✨💜✨
 
Auriel, you might try getting an ad blocker installed on your computer to see if that will help.
There are a free ones you can download from the internet. I hate seeing any advertising at all, and probably would not even use the internet if I had to see ads all the time, so I always use an ad blocker. Might be worth a try.
 
ad blocker installed ... There are a free ones you can download from the internet.
Quick & easy is installing it as a browser extension/add-on, e.g. browser menu: Add-ons & Themes: "Recommendations".
 
Thanks sunkacola that might be a definite plan for the future 👍🏻 😁
 
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