Joe Mize Apr 18, 2002
> Hi Laurent.--
>
> I fully understand your concern about privacy. I'll explain why you
> need to register and give your e-mail address.
>
> First, I think that anonymous posting on a forum is not a good
> thing : it's always better to know who posted a question and who
> responded to it, like we are doing right now in fact. In fact
> anonymous posting IS possible on the site if I configure it. But I
> feel uncomfortable answering someone with "Hi anonymous" instead
> of "Hi Laurent". Using membership can help to create bonds between
> Project Pluto users.
>
> When you register, you need to give a real e-mail address because a
> password is mailed to you. You can, if you want it, add personal
> information like real name, ICQ, MSN, AIM or MSN address, country of
> origin, etc. The only requirement is your e-mail address. Why ?
> Because some features on the site need it : you can configure your
> account so that if someone reply to you you get a mail to tell you
> that. You can also ask to "Watch a topic" : when someone posts an
> answer, you get a mail. Another benefit of registering is the private
> messages members can exchange. That's an on-site feature, meaning
> that your e-mail or other personal information is not needed. But an
> option allows the site to mail you when you receive a private message
> so your e-mail address is needed here. BUT, you have to keep in mind
> that these are only options and that you can configure your account
> to not use them. Once you are registered, you can edit your account
> and change your e-mail (or other personal information) to a fake one
> if you want. I can also change it directly for you in the database.
> Private messages could be very interesting to directly share
> experience with another member. For example, if you're from Portugal
> and find another Guide user is also from that country (using the
> Memberslist) and want to contact him, you could send a PM to him even
> if he uses a fake e-mail address.
>
> As you can see, it's a very flexible system and your privacy is
> preserved. Anyway, it's important to state that the database where
> accounts are saved is not Lycos property. I mean they do not have
> direct access to it. Your passwords are also encrypted in the
> database. Besides, I can save the base in seconds, totally delete it
> and move to another web host without leaving a single personal
> information on Lycos.
>
> Since we're into privacy and security, I want to stress the fact that
> I'm using PHP Nuke, phpBB and MySQL which are all Open Source
> softwares. That means that the source code is free and that it is
> under strong scrutiny by hundreds of people everyday to insure there
> is no backdoors or security issues.
>
> I think the main advantage of the forums on the site is clarity :
> there are categories (which can be expanded at will, for example if
> it appears that a lot of Spanish users need one forum, it could be
> done in seconds) and the topics could be better browsed than on the
> mailing list (I think). You are not bothered with Yahoo ad in place
> of posts from time to time. You can also post "stickies" that stay on
> top of topics, for example if there is an important announcement. You
> can make powerful searches. You can also ban people if they are
> disturbing the forum.
>
> True, the main inconvenient is that you don't receive posts in your
> mailbox though it is possible to create a newsletter which could
> include interesting discussion and news and mail it say once a week
> (he he, if you used your true email address ;-)
>
> When I decided to try to make that site, I thought that it might be a
> good idea to gather all Project Pluto Activity (meaning forums, news,
> article and of course users) around one site. It's even possible to
> dream of a www.projectpluto.com site that would include both the
> current one and all that I'm proposing here.
>
> What is important to note is that we can control everything on the
> site and in the database and that's a great benefit over Yahoo.
>
> As I said in my original post, if a lot of users feel the site is
> useful, I could buy a domain name and host the site on a professional
> service. We could then get rid of ads and privacy concern.
>
> On the other hand, if you don't think the site is useful, I will
> delete it and all personal informations.
>
> Feel free to comment !
>
> ----
> Sébastien Vaast
>
>
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