Re: Excluding articles from DejaNews

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 6:48 AM 3/23/96, Rich Graves wrote:

>AltaVista doesn't index web sites that follow the Robots Exclusion
>Standard. Does that mean you won't use AltaVista anymore, either?

I didn't say that an indexing policy is the determinant of my using it or
not, only that DejaNews looks less attractive than it did before (which
wasn't very attractive anyway, compared to AV...your mileage may vary, so I
won't be engaging in Search Engine Wars).

>Agreed, anyone really concerned about their privacy should be using
>anonymity/pseudonymity, but a temporary hidey-hole is a Good Thing.

Well, I mostly disagree with this point. It gives the poster the
_comforting illusion_ of privacy, when in fact the Real Threat (tm) is that
the search engines of 2-5 years from now will trivially uncover all of the
"asides" (to use Rich's term) made in rec.music.white-power and
alt.sex.cypherpunks. It is the searches done several years from now that
will no doubt be of greatest concern to job seekers, professors seeking
tenure, and candidates for political office. No matter the "no archive"
headers, somebody will archive it. Thus, spiders will find it.

This is the "ostrich effect" I was referring to. The illusion of security.

>But I can think of a lot of reasons you might want to post something
>under your real name, or your regular pseudonym -- gaining the benefit of
>your good (or bad) reputation, mostly -- but on the other hand, you don't
>want that post archived. It's called an "aside."

The point is that just because one or more sites is not archiving the
traffic does not mean that other sites are not. Look at the parallels to
cancellation: some sites strongly believe that "cancellation" is a bogus
concept, that once a message has gone out it is part of the overall feed.
(I concur with this view, and, if I ran a site, would not honor so-called
"cancellations.")


>For example, I might want to say, "Tim May is a big fat idiot because of
>what he just said." I do want to say that, publicly, under my name and

It created a best-seller for Al Franken.....

>address, but for various reasons, I don't want that saved in the
>archives. Since X-Headers are readable by most newsreaders, and are in

Well, what you _want_ and what you're gonna git are not necessarily the
same thing. I expect some sites are going to advertise that they archive
and/or index _all_ public traffic, becoming a "site of record."

>OK, you've convinced me that this isn't a privacy thing, really, but I
>think is a valid and useful thing. What's the alternative, really? If I

At the risk of repeating myself:

-- some people will want to request "no archives" (for "asides" and "off
the record" comments.

-- some sites will honor these requests.

-- other sites will not.

-- that at least one site keeps the traffic and makes indices available is
sufficient to negate the effect of requesting "no archives."

-- the practical effect will be initially to make a search for the "no
archive" words _slightly_  more difficult, but not practically so...in
spiderspace, the distances are compressed and a search will still turn up
the words.

>want to say something, now, are you going to tell me that I don't have
>the right to request that you not take my comments on the record? That
>sounds sort of totalitarian. I either have to create a new, unique nym on

"Totalitarian"? You spoke publically, in this example, and I remembered
your words. What is totalitarian about this? Trying to purge uttered words
is the hard thing to do, actually.

>the fly, in which case my comments lose anything associated with my name,
>or I have to keep my comments to myself. Recognizing "Well, the full
>context is recorded too, you can defend youself with that" only makes it
>worse, really.
>
>Just thinking out loud, my thoughs being recorded for posterity on
>hks.net and Exon-knows where else...

Indeed, the storage densities and net connections that are coming will make
your words here trivially searchable by your daughter in her third-grade
class in 2005. Maybe on her handheld terminal.

(And she'll probably be most interested in the words that Daddy thought to
label as "no archives," as you yourself presaged in an earlier message.
Those are likely to be the juicier things to read.)

--Tim May

THE X-ON CONGRESS:  INDECENT COMMENT ON AN INDECENT SUBJECT, by Steve
Russell, American Reporter Correspondent....You motherfuckers in Congress
have dropped over the edge of the earth this time... "the sorriest bunch
of cocksuckers ever to sell out the First Amendment" or suggesting that
"the only reason to run for Congress these days is to suck the lobbyists'
dicks and fuck the people who sent you there," ....any more than I care
for the language you shitheads have forced me to use in this
essay...Let's talk about this fucking indecent language bullshit.