Warning about our privacy

to the bco-admin:

Thanks again for replying.  You have now posted twice directed to me basically about the lack of funding and employees and you have not even acknowledged my question:

"Celia088, I'm sorry but I guess that was exactly my point.  We just don't have the people to respond to each and every post.  That is going to make folks feel "unheard" at times and that makes me sad.  I wish it could be different.  We try our best to make this a safe and comfortable place and when it fails in those respects it isn't due to a lack of us caring.  We are all involved in this organization because we care about making a difference and, in many cases, because we are personally affected by breast cancer."

What my issue and question to the admin was, is this: 

Once the admin has been alerted to a troll post on the boards, why does the admin remove only the words in the original post and NOT remove the troll poster's name from the database and also remove the entire thread with its inappropriate title, which happens to be the name of the troll's annoying and offensive website?

I think leaving all that propaganda on the boards is not a good idea and we posters are trying to avoid having newbies clicking the troll websites and getting confused. 

It also makes it very easy for the troll to continually propagandize us all. They never get entirely deleted, so this is effective for them.

Ok, I am VERY APPRECIATIVE of the clear explanation as to why our profiles are viewable to unregistered users. Even though this poor horse is already on the ground and gasping for air, I can't help myself. Why is it necessary for Google to index USERS when it's the MESSAGES and information contained therein that would seem most useful to someone searching for answers to bc questions.

Somebody get me a shovel so I can give this poor pony a proper burial. ) 

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but to put the code in for the search engines not to pick up any words in particular (like a user name) just cannot be done--I know you can put code in for search engines not to pick up anything at all from a page/site, but I don't think you can pick and choose.  You can promote certain key words with mega tags, etc., but I have never heard of being able to leave a particular field that clearly appears on pages, such as user names, out of search engines and web crawlers.

I don't think BCO "submits" any user names to search engines--I believe the search engines and "web crawlers" pick up any and all of everything that is written on the pages that are public.  That is how spammers harvest e-mail addresses.

Even if you have a website and never submit anything to google or any other search engine, they will them up if you don't have the "no search" code written in.

Okay, I wasn't going to add any more comments to this discussion - I've said what I want to say - but I just can't stay quiet over the comment from the administrators about why our profiles are public:

"The reason we have included public profile information to unregistered users is so Google and other search engines can reach this information.  By allowing search engines to find this public profile information we increase our rankings in the search engines, we increase our reach and (hopefully) can help more women affected by breast cancer."

In other words, the more info that BCO allows Google to access, the higher the ranking of BCO and therefore the greater the likelihood that someone will key in some word and this site will pop up near the top of the list.  If someone keys in the word "Grade 5 teacher" and someone has that in their profile, then Bingo!, we have a hit and a potential new viewer to this site.  The more viewers, the more clicks on this site, the greater the perceived popularity of this site, and the greater the ability to get funding.  I think that's how it works.  I think I've got.

I have to admit that I sure feel violated and used.  I understood that the process I described above was exactly the reason why all our posts are public and so easily searchable on Google, but to realize that our profiles are being intentionally left public so that they can be used in the same way.... it almost has me speechless.

OneBadBoob, you're right that our profiles aren't "submitted" by BCO, but from their explanation, they are choosing to keep our profiles public in order to get more Google hits, whereas they could make our profiles private.  That's the problem. 

Having said that, Jerri, I don't think that the spam you are receiving is because of this site.  I have all cookies pop up for approval on my system.  I choose which cookies I allow through, and I let through very few.   BC.org is allowed through, and I receive no spam.  However, when I click on other BC sites, if a cookie notice comes up, I automatically reject it.  So it could be that you've gone to other BC sites, or it could be that if you clicked on links left by some of the trolls - that might be the cause of the spam.  I've gone to some of the troll sites; they definitely send cookies but I always block them.  I could be wrong, but I know that I don't receive BC spam even though BCO is one of the few BC organizations that I do allow to leave cookies on my system.  So I'm thinking it's not them.  I hope I'm right.

This is simply not true. I administer a university board, and have an html tag so Google search engines (and others) can find us. It is absolutely NOT necessary to make names, details of posts, or any other identifying information regarding members available to non-members in order for the site to attract hits.

Best to all,

Annie

What I get from this board, and I really don't give a fig who knows anything, what are they going to do with the details of my cancer? Or anything else about me when they don't know who I am?

Hi Shirlann,

I'm out of country, and have discovered a lump. I'm going to travel to another country to have it diagnosed. My children who are at home in the USA don't know I'm struggling with the possibility of BC. They know the pseudonym I often use for forums, or even to sign emails. I do NOT want my children to find out I might have BC (or to find out I do have it, should it be confirmed) from some website that doesn't respect my privacy. I want to be the person to tell them, in my own way, at the right time. My children do surf the web, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if one or both came across my pseudonym and read my posts. 

Because of that problem, I've had to change my pseudonym and delete one important post that could easily have identified me - not only to my kids, but to others in my community and at my job.

I want to be in charge of the information about me that ends up in public circulation. It's that easy.

Best,

Annie