Hi I am new to this site. many of you have already welcomed me and i appreciate that greatly. You all made me feel real comfortable, enough so that i went in and posted my personal history for you all to get to know about me. The problem, last week i bid on a truck on ebay, some how the truck add got deleted before it was over. any how i got a new message from this site saying a friend from here left me a message. it was the person selling the truck. I was curious how she found me on here and so i googled my screen name and it took me to every posting i have wrote on this sight. without signing in or anything. Im not sure how comfortable i feel now opening up on here. I would love to be able to discuss intimate details about my health and surgery and swap stories with everyone but now i feel kind of violated. I suppose its my own falt that i used the same screename but i felt it is easier for me and other people to get a hold of me. any one have any ideas my surgery is on the 18 and i sure need the benefits of the support from this site

Nurse,
Hang in here. I know Kaye will be along, or you could PM her about this. I'm sure we would all like to know how this could happen.
Congrats on your upcoming WLS.

Actually, I'm PMing Kaye. After I posted this, I googled myself & there I was. The first link went to my profile...picture...where I live...how old I am....

Hello Nurse and Jeanie ---- Thanks for posting this question.

On our Benefits of Registration page you will see that we have two levels of membership.
The first group, Members, is a free membership and with limited access to the public forums. The forums are listed and include: Welcome Neighbors, Introductions, Bulletin Board. The Town Square - LivingAfterWLS Knowledge Center including the forums WLS Chat; Power Tools for LivingAfterWLS; Diet, Nutrition & Supplements; Exercise & Fitness; Pre-Ops & Newbies; Men & Weight Loss surgery; Obesity, Health and Wellness. And access to The Picket Fence: LivingAfterWLS Social Center including the forums: Picket Fence, Celebration Page and Community Kitchen. These forums are visible to guests, lurkers and search engines. It is necessary that some of our forums are available to search engines because it is searches that lead new members to our community.

As a Member you will see other forums, but not have access to them. These are available to Premier Citizens who pay a minimal subscription fee. These forums are closed to guests and search engines and Members. They generally cover more sensitive topics and therefore kept private. In addition, the blogs and galleries are invisible to search engines and guests and a benefit of the Premier Citizen subscription is having this secure environment for blogging and sharing photos.

It is a fine line to straddle: protecting the privacy of the Neighborhood, while at the same time taking advantage of the search engines that lead people to our community. The majority of weight loss surgery forums on the internet are fully open to search engines; this is one of the few WLS Communities that has several areas closed to search engines and is not polluted with advertising.

Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns.

Thanks,
Kaye

Kaye,

Thanks for getting back so quickly. But, what I found linked to my profile, which had my picture, where I live, DOB, posts, friends (which allowed access to my friends' profiles, etc). I had no idea this would be available to others. I did understand about the posts and that they might be available, but not my personal info. This makes me very uncomfortable.

Jeanie

Jeanie - If you log out of the Neighborhood and then click the google link to your profile you will get this message:

The error returned was:

Sorry, but you do not have permission to use this feature. If you are not logged in, you may do so using the form below if available.

I just logged out, and attempted to pull up my profile, which did come up before...but Kaye is correct. Logged out, it gave me that error message...

Whew...makes me feel safer expressing myself in the neighborhood...thanks for being on top of it Kaye!

We do tests (daily) on all levels of Membership and logged out just strolling around as guests to make sure that the secure areas are secure and the open areas are open. I encourage all of you to log-out once in a while to refresh your memory regarding which areas are public and which are closed to Premier Citizens and Foundation Members. Marianna -- thanks for doing the "log-out" test!

I will talk to the TechTeam tomorrow and see if we can get an icon to indicate public vs. private areas. This may serve as a reminder when we are posting. It has always been my priority to keep the Neighborhood safe; the conflict comes in our ability to grow and help others who are seeking support. I dare say the majority of people who find their way here come by way of search engines.

Technology! I posted & it disappeared.

Thanks, Kaye. I see now that only members will get to my profile via the Google link. We are indeed safe in the neighborhood. I had several minutes of stress. So, now I will have to go back & upload my album pics. I got rid of everything too personal when I panicked. LOL

Thanks Kaye for keeping us safe in the neighborhood. I didn't know all this.
Pat

I googled my screen name....I use this one in several other forums also. My personal information was available in these other forums and full posts from there and here. I understand the posts ( I think ). I just didn't realize this was so accessible (not cumputer savy here). I learned to be much more concervative in personal information on my posts (anywhere) and to not elaborate on the personal information.

I understand the restrictions here now....hopefully will make the necessary changes to protect myself better.

Stephanie

Stephanie,
Did you try getting into your info here when you weren't logged in? I was amazed that I couldn't get anything here when I was logged out. Of course that was after I got worried & erased my blog, deleted my album, and removed personal info from my profile! Had to go back in and fix all that once I knew we're safe here. LOL

Thanks for being fast with responce. sorry I havent responded yet had my surgery on monday and just got my comp hooked back up. thanks yes i was not logged out at the time. live and learn