I am not sure if anybody has said something about this before, so apologies if they have.

But doesn't anybody else have a problem with google indexing all of our posts now? And every single post we have EVER made being in the archive, which is also indexed in google?

Perhaps I am just being a little paranoid, but one of the things I used to like about totse was the fact you could post on the forums and they wouldn't be indexed in google, so somebody couldn't do a search and come up with everything you had posted from google. If anybody wanted to search the forums the search would have to originate from totse.com forum search engine.

There are a lot of problems with this.

People often post silly admissions to crimes in several forums on totse - bad ideas, bb, bltc, labtips, ect. and we all know that police do their investigations through a simple google search to try to find people involved, ect. in crimes. A lot of the time the people have no involvement, they are just trying to act 'cool' on the forums, nonetheless this just brings unnecessary heat to the boards.

You may say 'good, that means that only the guilty have something to worry about'... but that kind of mentality contradicts the freedoms of totse. It is like saying CCTV cameras aren't a problem if you are a normal, law abiding citizen.

For all the paranoid; if they delete their posts on totse it won't do any good, google has already indexed and cached their posts.

What about all the posts with personal details in them? Often things will not be picked up by a mod in time and somehow will slip through. In the past these posts would be gone in a few weeks so it didn't really matter, now they will stay in the archives forever.

What about legal implications for things that are posted? I could go in to a range of hypothetical situations that would result in legal problems for both totse and individual posters. I don't like the idea that there is now a permanent, searchable archive of this.

Totse is hardly a "safehaven for visionaries and paranoids" at the moment.

I wouldn't have a problem with this on any other forum but totse, I just don't think it is a very good idea for a forum of this nature, especially the archive of older posts.

Well, I just did a google search with a few random keywords relating to Totse, and it didn't come up with much (two threads total). Maybe I'm missing something?

I'm scared to google 'yoyobek' these days. If anyone has a great plan for destroying google, let me know,I'd love to help!

I dislike the idea as well, happily Euda means a lot of different things.

Oh god!

That's a good point. I had completely taken the old, un-Googlable system for granted.

Now, a Google search for my user name turns up my user profile and a thread of mine in TGO as the first two results...

I think this is definitely something that needs to be addressed. And quickly.

Please, Jeff, squash the spiders!

goolges yoyobek

Oh god!

Please, Jeff, squash the spiders!

Is it even possible to keep Google out in the future? The past is past, right? Getting rid of the old posts really isn't an option, I think. First, the old posts are functioning as our archives. Second, like Vizzini mentioned, all the posts have probably been cached already.

Of course, I'm completely computer illiterate; so I probably don't know what I'm talking about. All I know is that when I push buttons, things come up on the screen. Weee! :D

It is a problem. I have had various requests from posters wanting posts deleted. Often they've goolged and suddenly discovered that posts they thought long gone...

Especially with the nature of what is posted on S&A it is a cause for worry.

Is it even possible to keep Google out in the future? The past is past, right? Getting rid of the old posts really isn't an option, I think. First, the old posts are functioning as our archives. Second, like Vizzini mentioned, all the posts have probably been cached already.

Of course, I'm completely computer illiterate; so I probably don't know what I'm talking about. All I know is that when I push buttons, things come up on the screen. Weee! :DYes, it is possible to keep future posts from being indexed. There is a file that can be placed in a website directory called robots.txt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots.txt) that tells spiders whether or not they can crawl the site, and which directories they can and cannot search. So it is possible to keep them from coming back, but the pages that have already been indexed are indexed for good, unless Jeff asked the search engines to remove them.

I googled 'jackketch totse' and as a result there is now a warning annoucement heading S&A.

http://www.totse.com/community/announcement.php?f=152

Oh god oh god oh god!

No!


Fuck!

This is why I don't post too much about myself, and keep all things seperate :)

Can't be too safe.

This really sucks. i use jvm222 for EVERYTHING usually.

I noticed this a while ago. It is a little scary... I don't like having everything I type on record!

But it is a very public board.

Having said that, I can dig where the others are coming from.

But they can't index it if you type https right?

I've been looking at changing my user name for a few months now because of this, is it possible to get an admin to switch usernames on the same account (this one), or would I have to re-register entirely?
I still haven't decided if I want to or not, but just want to know if its possible.

Yeah, a lot of people use the same screen name on a lot of forums, some people would like the privacy of people not accidentally stumbling upon every post they have every made on totse.

A am sure a lot of the people that post in S&A wouldn't like their girlfriends/boyfriends/partners/friends seeing what they have written where they have in the past used totse as a safehaven where they could speak freely. I guess this can now only be achieved through re-registering a nick and posting 'anonymously', but this doesn't really undo any of the damage that has already been done. It becomes slightly ridiculous if we all have to separate different online identities because we don't want people looking up our nicks on google to see what comes up.

True it is a public forum, but that doesn't mean I would like the information accessible to everybody in the world, it means I want it accessible to everybody on totse.

People can hardly post "freely" when there are thoughts and reservations about who may possibly stumble upon it in the future.

Faithless and Totse = 4,500 hits

Good thing I lie a lot otherwise I'd be worried.

Hehe, mine doesn't come up with anything Totse-related when I just type "Demoiselle", but "Demoiselle totse" comes up with 2 results. Unless I include the omitted results. :(

Oh well. Yay for totse being the only place I use this name.

I googled yoyobek and all I got was search results for gay interracial porn :(?

For those of you under the false impression that google only comes up with two results:
click "other results from totse.com"

I understand we don't want such a powerful spider in here, but I'm far more concerned about information that we do not want in here, primarily personal data.

For example, if there were to be another Wintermute incident, those pictures would be up for the entire world to see.

*zones off for a moment, thinking about the vast amount of porn there surely must be on googles server*

Eh, it's pretty obvious we need to get a robots.txt in here!

You do realize that those pics are available online and have been for some time?

Hmmm, well I serached on ytmnd again and their wintermute ytmnds are all gone... Ohh well...

Zok said he was going to request that they delete them.

I think this needs to be sorted ASAP, I'm not too worried--although I've posted a lot of personal information over the years, but it doesn't worry me overly much--but I know several people who are very concerned about it and things they've posted in the past. Jeff had this in place last time so I'm sure he'd want to do it again, and Google would remove all the indexed posts if asked.

Google would probably report us as terrorists.

I've already got notse requesting I be banned for being teh 1337 uberFED.

That still cracks me up.

We have how many government employees as members, get cited in papers for how to be a DIY terrorists, and so on and some of the members still thinks this is an unknown anarchist island where reality can be kept out.

and some of the members still thinks this is an unknown anarchist island where reality can be kept out.

Y-y-y-yyy ou mean it isn't??!

*shocked silence*

Next you'll be claiming that sunlight isn't harmful.

I googled yoyobek and all I got was search results for gay interracial porn :(?

DAMNIT!
This shit has to die!!

Me too. At least the good members in my book (5.56 comes to mind immediately from W&C) backed me up. I was looking at an archive of one of those discussions.

Interesting: I was at the Internet Archive looking at Totse, and I remember you used to be able to at least get to the front page of the bulletin board on some of the dates archived. Now, all of them have been blocked by "robot.txt" (http://web.archive.org/web/20010801151625/http://www.totse.com/bin/bbs/Ultimate.cgi)

A result of this thread? Probably not, but I thought it was interesting.

anyone????

It's possible, and has been done before.

Thanks :)


I think I may have come up with a new name too :D

Thanks :)


I think I may have come up with a new name too :D
I did so with 'stormy' and have been debating switching back now that some previous hassles have ceased!

stay bad
~stormy

I googled my penis, it was a very small search!

stay bad
~stormy

I googled my penis, it was a very small search!

stay bad
~stormy

It's what you do with it that counts :)