Sarah of the Smart Bitches posted a forwarded email of a post from a private yahoo group yesterday to their blog. Their blog, their right, their rulz…
Personally I have issue with reposting anything from a private list that isn’t open to anyone to join. And plan to ramble on at length about that in a bit… but first my question.
It has been stated twice now you can google anything posted to a private yahoo group and find it in the google cache. No really… sarah even agreed and restated it:
:: snip ::
As was already pointed out, as far as I am concerned, if you post something to a YahooGroup you might as well make it public because it IS ACCESSIBLE via Google’s cache. Moderated group or not, it’s accessible by any random person on the internet.
:: snip ::
Posted by SB Sarah on 05/17 at 07:12 AM
Now my first response was bullshit. And the next was… really? hmm cool… Dude I have tried. I spent about an hour this morning and not a private cached did I see. So help a duckie out here because I am so willing to rethink my statement. And if anyone with google and a link can get it – sorry that isn’t private.
I have tried names that posted, sigs, quotes, links… not a post was able to crack. I know just about everyone knows of a private yahoo list they would lurve to stick their nose in… go try it.
I want proof. Post it or email it redwyne @ redwyne . com and it has to be locked – private – must be something you have to be invited into group. Not a author newletter you can sign up too.
If you are just clueless and not nary a yahoogroup to try, feel free to email me. I have tons of suggestions.
Well pinch my toes and call me a jelly donut – when I googled myself some messages from one of the Yahoo lists I’m on did pop up. That said, it was only that one list out of the 14 I’m on and I haven’t been a member all that long. I mean, there’s this one list I’ve been on for well over 6 years now and none of those messages popped. So who knows? Also there was no need for me to use the cache link – that list that popped must be set up to have an open directory.
I did get other hits for listservs I was on many moons ago – but those were not on Yahoo and were set up at universities (I believe). Boring librarian lists mostly – and nothing remotely scandalous.
hmmm and they are private lists?
oh wait I know your name… brb *g*
I’m on a couple of private yahoogroups (one related to parenting) and there is nothing that comes up. I am thinking private lists there is no cache and public ones there are.
Sybil:
We’ve already e-mailed, but what Jane said. I suspect she’s right.
I know there’s a way to change the settings in a yahoo group so that the messages can only be read by members. I believe the default setting is to make them visible to nonmembers, so it has to be actively changed.
Yep — a private list is still going to be private. If it’s public, it’ll come up in Google.
This morning, I did exactly the same thing, Sybil. I can’t manage to find private yahoo groups accessible.
I mean, they may be hackable or whatever, but I don’t really count that as accessible. (Does this mean you shouldn’t be careful about what you write? No.)
I am kinda bummed that SBS posted this email. Stupid reaction on my part. As you say, their rules and all. But, still. (Is this where I should say I’ve had no dealings whatsoever with a certain pub?)
Ah well.
When I think about the things I’ve shared on group lists, I kind of cringe. Like when I was breast feeding and on this list for pumping, I shared all sorts of personal things that I would be horrified to have out in the open just because they were so personal to my body and what crazy things were going on so I hope those yahoo groups are not google-able.
It depends on the definition of “private” — many people call a list private when it’s members-only and you have to be approved by the list owner. Those lists, however, are still visible in the list directory and those can sometimes have posts come up via Google.
You can also have truly private lists — these lists are not listed in the directory and they have a “go away” signal to indexing robots (such as Google). In theory, you shouldn’t be able to see those posts or even find that the group exists.
It used to be that you could really find anything by googling. Since then, people figured out about robots and making blogs and groups unsearchable, so it might be the case now.
Well I am currently on three… and have been and would guess am arch’ed on another three.
Out of all six of those some as old as 5 to 8 years ago… I couldn’t find a post. Two of those lists I created, one I know I never made anti-robot. I have never posted under another name. And basically have the same email.
Now I haven’t been through EVERY page googling my name. But I have yet to find one post. Six groups – over 1000’s of posts… no make that 8 if we count scullyfic which is now emuse. 9 adding in spring training.
Could it be done? Maybe… and I could hit it at some point. But I don’t think so. Nor do I think you could google the post in question or someone would have already posted that.