Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 51 of 3212

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Hi Sue,

Thank you for sharing your experience administering yahoo groups! The
downside of google indexing just handn't occurred to me. I viewed the
fact that google crawled public archives as pure perk, but I can see
how if someone wasn't aware of this it could be a nasty surprise. 

I have to admit, though, apart from merely attracting search engine
traffic, I do like using the group as an extension of the website,
linking to relevant posts where appropriate, letting people see
non-bogus testimonials, etc. without having to commit themselves. I
think a public forum gives a welcome impression of openness after all
these dripping with greed commercial sites. I hope everyone who posted
this group so far is aware that their posts are public and indexed by
google (not that anything particularly compromising has been posted).

From a publicity point of view, I'm sure you're right. I might be able
to get more people to sign up by making membership a requirement to
lurk. But I like personally like to see what I'm getting before I sign
up for anything. So on the "do unto others" principle, it's what 
I'd
prefer to do with this group. If signups hit a wall, maybe I'll have
to rethink this, but they're still (slowly, admittedly) creeping up. 

[So attention lurkers who aren't signing up: please do! You can set it
to "no email" or "daily digest" if you're afraid of being 
bombarded.]

I'll have to mull this over a bit. If anyone has strong feelings on
this matter, please share them (or email me privately). For the time
being, I'll just add a reminder that "this group is public and posts
will be indexed by google" to the groups home page. Also, I set the
group to "no attachments," so there's no danger of unflattering 
bikini
shots being uploaded. I'd done this originally just because I don't
like getting big attachments but this is a better reason.

Thanks again, Sue! 

Reinhard

--- In , "SueW" <gswidemark@c...> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am very impressed with your list and website and your ideas 
> because they are founded on good science and actually follow a 
> school of thought known as "HAES" ("Health at Every Size"). 
Yours 
> appears to be a program which emphasizes health rather than looking 

> like cyndy crawford or (whomever the latest male heart throb is).
> 
> (and I so agree with your stand on artifical sweeteners!! YAH!!!)
> 
> Although I am posting without being a member (and I will remedy that 

> situation - by officially joining - in a moment), I wanted to share 

> something about public archives.
> 
> I own several Yahoogroups and probably for much the same reasons you 

> have, I had set the archives on my lists to public so that anyone 

> could lurk and read and hopefully pick up good info.
> 
> However, I've ended up over the years, changing that to setting the 

> archives of most of the groups to members only and here's why.
> 
> Google does indeed crawl the archives of any yahoogroup which does 

> not have private archives and so if anyone has shared intimate 
> details about themselves, that now becomes public knowledge. This 

> was called to my attention to one of the members of a group for 
> those wishing to be fit, over the age of 40. She had uploaded a 
> photo of herself in a bikini and asked our advice about how to deal 

> with what she conceived as some serious problems in her physique. 

> She also included some more personal issues in her life etc and was 

> shocked to the core when all that info came up on Google. (So was I 

> shocked, frankly!) I immediately set the archives of that group to 

> private but this particular member never has felt comfortable 
> posting much more than a "hi" again.
> 
> I bring this up because any type of support group is going to, as 

> one of the services, provide a shoulder to cry on.
> 
> Another list where I had the archives set to public, I found that 

> people were reading but not joining. This doesn't seem a big problem 

> except that when people are assessing which group to join (and Yahoo 

> has thousands), they DO look at the total membership and if too 
> small, assume that maybe that group doesn't have much to offer - 
> they may not stay around long around to try reading messages, when 

> in fact, that list may have a lot more members than are listed in 

> the 'total membership'. This is why I set the archives of a highly 

> read list private.
> 
> I think I still have one of my several lists set to public archives 
-
> it's basically a health info announcement list but typically have 

> found that private archives has many advantages. I hope you don't 

> mind my sharing this here.
> 
> take care,
> Sue
> 
> --- In , "beautiful_idiot" 
> <beautiful_idiot@y...> wrote:
> > Not that there was much here to see, but I just figured out that 

> even
> > that was invisible because I hadn't set the archives to "public." 

> Well
> > that's fixed now. So lurk and post away.
> > 
> > Now that they can see it, I'm going to harass the few people I 

> know are
> > interested in this site to post and get some magnet content going. 

> I
> > think yahoo groups get indexed by google, so every post makes 

> nosdiet
> > a wider target. Judging by the logs, mentions of celebrity names 

> are
> > very effective. Especially the notoriously anorexic in conjunction
> > with the word "diet." Cynical ploy? No, life saver! :) 

> > 
> > So what should you post, you bored or harassed? If you're on 
the
> > nosdiet, or have been, or are considering it, or loath the whole
> > concept, let us hear about it. I promise I won't mod you out, 

> unless
> > you start espousing nazism or peddling penis enlargments.
> > 
> > Ideas for publicizing the diet are also welcome. "Stocky", CHD 

> ridden
> > Atkins makes hundreds of millions on his scam, I'd at least like 
to
> > get noticed.