TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Re: newsgroup caution (was Re: HTML Help Questions)
Subject:Re: newsgroup caution (was Re: HTML Help Questions) From:Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 29 Jan 2001 13:07:21 -0500
Jane Bergen wrote:
> A word of caution about newsgroups.... some of them retain message
> FOREVER. I read about it in an internet security bulletin and
> consequently did a google search on my name one day. I saw a few years
> worth of messages that I had posted to various news groups. I guess
> it's not a huge deal but still left me feeling kind of strange.
Yes. Especially when you consider that a prospective employer or lover might
check you out via the archives.
Of course Google is primarily a web search tool, so I think it only turns up
news and mailing list postings which are archived on the web.
A search tool specifically for news is Deja News. http://www.deja.com/home_ps.shtml
They run their own archive and retain messages indefinitely.
It has a feature where you click on a poster's name and get a profile table,
a list of all newsgroups he/she has posted to, with number of messages for each.
This can be quite revealing.
(Never post under your own name to alt.sex.bestiality.hamsters :-)
Does anyone know of a tool specifically for mailing list archives?
You can put a header in your message that asks people not to archive it.
X-No-Archive: yes
I'm on one paranoid list that puts that in every message it sends out.
Of course not all archive software checks for the header and some people
might deliberately ignore it. Or one might even concentrate on those
messages since the sender appears to have something to hide
At one point, deja ignored that header and there was some controversy about
whether they should. People argued passionately on both sides. I was on the
"archive everything" side of that argument, because various net.kooks
(see http://www.killfile.org/dungeon/) were using that header to get away
with saying outrageous things and not being called to account later.
I think deja end up respecting the header, but am not entirely sure.
Eric:
How does this list treat that header? If I set X-No-Archive on something
I send, does your software check and keep it out of your archive?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Develop HTML-Based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver 4 ($100 STC Discount)
**WEST COAST LOCATIONS** San Jose (Mar 1-2), San Francisco (Apr 16-17) http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.
Sponsored by DigiPub Solutions Corp, producers of PDF 2001
Conference East, June 4-5, Baltimore/Washington D.C. area. http://www.pdfconference.com or toll-free 877/278-2131.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
