I just accidentally reran a search on “passing trains that have no names” and my post from a few minutes ago came up #1 on Google. After nearly a decade of being invisible to the greater community I am uncomfortable with this. Can we end this or should I ask Tubadiva to delete any posts or reports that contain my real name? It’s not that they embarrass me, but being associated with Cecil’s articles about boobs and anal sex does not reflect well on me, a job seeker.
Yeah, I shoulda thought about that first, but back then Google ignored us and a vanity search left me at the bottom of ten pages of soap opera synopses and I felt safe.
Historically, board policy seems to be that if you reveal something you might be sorry about, tough luck bub. Personally, I think that’s a rather silly policy, but there it is.
As to why Google is here, it has to do with bringing in new users. Given that lots of factual questions are asked on the boards and lots of people using Google are looking for answers to just those questions, it’s pretty likely that Google readability is perhaps our greatest source for self-advertising. Looking at big-boards.com, it looks like our membership has increased by ~10,000 people in just the last year. Supposedly, previous to returning to free posting, our membership had been at a plateau for some time.
Q: What advantage is there to Google seeing our threads?
A: Maybe you’ve seen posts in ATMB complaining about the search function at this message board? I could have sworn I’ve seen one or two. I even seem to remember people asking why we wouldn’t let Google index the board so that they could use the Google search engine to find old threads.
dropzone, I did the same Google search for “passing trains that have no names” and in the thread I found I didn’t see your “real name” anywhere. Did you often post your real name?
It does give people an option other than the board’s search function. But mostly it brings new people to the board and I thought that was the primary appeal.
On one Staff Report and in a thread based on it, to show that **dropzone **was the same guy as what wrote it, but I was employed at the time. I’m not nearly as concerned with what I write as I am with what Cecil writes; I’m a bit of a prude and Cecil can be ones rowdy and embarassing, but fun, uncle.
Is Googleable even a word? I know it’s creeped into our language as a verb but I’ll want stronger evidence before we allow people here to start using it as an adjective, participle, article, pronoun, preposition, adverb and/or conjunction. I’m off to do some jeevesing to settle this matter, if such a matter is altavistable.
No need, I suppose. The already-googleable staff report doesn’t come up until the second page of a vanity search and a prospective employer would probably give up when faced with all the false leads. There is an advantage to having a common first name and a last name that is also a verb.