<p>Just a caution...please be careful how much information you put about you and your children on any Internet forum, including this one. It's not all that hard for folks to connect the dots and figure out the identity (name, school) of a student. Many folks post about their kids and themselves on multiple threads not realizing that others will read other threads and gain a lot of information. I'm just posting this so that others will think before they post this kind of identifying information.</p>
<p>And if you drink on spring break, stay off of hotel balconies. (Helpful advice of the day from the campus security dept at my daughter’s college, sent to all a few days before spring break.)</p>
<p>And if your bf has a sore throat, avoid kissing him for a while. Both mono and strep are very contagious.</p>
<p>I think being able to search a user’s previous posts makes the issue worse. Take that feature out and someone really has to work hard to connect all the dots across various threads.</p>
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<p>That feature does not have to be enabled. Anyone can Google a username.</p>
<p>Privacy: The final frontier.</p>
<p>thumper1: Good advice. Especially true about C.C. because so many of these kids are exceptional. I mean, there are only so many Intel Semifinalists from Maryland who also play the Viola and are applying to Northwestern University (just made that up).</p>
<p>Aww and here I was going to search the threads to find the Viola player …lol.
Good advice all around.</p>
<p>Sorry for being naive, but what does it do if you can connect all the dots? I remember a CC parent whose DS applied to Yale and was turned down despite his amazing stats and ECs. The details of the story posting here was similar to that of the story appeared on the NY Times. The difference is the NY Times story has his name, where he lives, what school he went to. Sure, the CC parent later confirmed that the NYT story is actually about his son. How is it safer to appear on NYT? At least, on CC we don’t really know his real name or the town or the school.</p>
<p>Hillbillie,
The difference is that the family in the NYT article cooperated with the authors and was fully aware that the information would be made public. I think the cautions above are for those of us who would prefer to maintain anonymity, but inadvertently leave a trail of details that could be quite identifying.</p>
<p>All true. I have been able to identify three cc posters from my town/high school just by info posted here; two parents and one former student.</p>
<p>I think the degree of concern about privacy should be tied to two key questions:</p>
<p>1) Are you revealing more deeply personal information about yourself or your child than you would ever post under your real name? </p>
<p>2) Are you revealing information that could be used against you, personally or professionally?</p>
<p>A false sense of anonymity can lull a person into overdisclosure online. The next thing you know, your mother-in-law’s best friend has recognized her from your online rant and sent MIL a link…or the husband you were about to leave has learned your plans and hidden a lot of his assets before you can even hire a lawyer…or your kid has discovered that you posted about his teenage bedwetting problem and is mortified & furious…or your boss has learned that you make humorous blog posts mocking your place of employment.</p>
<p>(Three of these examples actually happened to people I knew on online forums.)</p>
<p>It’s quite fine to post lots of personal information as long as you realize that your NAME could be attached to that information in some cases. If that is not an issue, than not to worry. Post away. BUT some folks would be surprised to learn that it is not all that hard to put the demographic information together in such a way that their child’s NAME and location can easily be identified (and sometimes the names and locations of the parents). It’s just a cautionary warning. Some folks may want to be more cautious and others may not find it an issue.</p>
<p>This statement is very true. I got an pm from a person giving me advice, and we pm’d back and forth…after a few innocence comments about our kids activities, found out they know each other and are in the same organization. And we thought we were a tiny spec in this BIG internet. Nothing against her but until now, I haven’t posted since because it showed me the unseen exposure of message boards.</p>
<p>A while back a poster was commenting on this very point. In a few minutes I could spout several identifying facts about his/her kiddo. (In a couple of more I could have “found” them. I had no reason to, and didn’t.) I meant no harm, just wanted to show what was possible. The poster signed off apparently upset (said I’d scared them off the board) and hasn’t (to my knowledge) posted again. </p>
<p>Don’t post anything you wouldn’t be willing to see on the news. Search function can be a :eek:.</p>
<p>All good points. Sometimes information shared in one thread finds its way back as ammunition in another thread, and once we had disclosed something about ourselves, even in a well-meaning fashion, it can come back to us in a negative way.</p>
<p>I used to worry about that a bit…then I thought: have I really posted anything that I wouldn’t want anyone to read, if they knew it was ‘me’? Not really… (I hope, lol).</p>
<p>Agreed…the worst offenders I think are the “chance” threads where people seem to find no end of info to share. I clicked on one about a year ago, and figured out the hs of the student. Then, I figured out who he was because of the award he listed on his chance thread was on the school website.</p>
<p>I think facebook has more information than CC.</p>
<p>Another thing to think about is what you post about other students – your friends, your friends’ kids, your kids’ classmates. Many posters here relate anecdotes about other people – and if you can be identified, so can the people you are talking about.</p>