Visibility of public posts (especially by search engine)
Flaburgan
Public
Seen by 63
There is actually a interesting discussion on Diaspora* about visibility of public posts. (same topic from different pods)
https://www.joindiaspora.com/posts/2660269
https://diasp.org/posts/1967379
People was surprised that public means public to the whole Internet and not only "public in Diaspora". After a discussion, they understood that we can't guarantee that a post will not quit the network.
But being easily researchable is a problem, so I think we should add a setting to allow or not search engines to index profile. The profile would be visible if an internet user has the url, but would not be found into Google / Bing / etc.
As the https://joindiaspora.com/robots.txt already disallow /u/ and /people/, I do not understand why we still find profiles on Google...
goob Wed 29 May 2013 7:03PM
I would love a 'public to Diaspora only' setting, so that my public posts wouldn't be indexable by Google, etc.
However, the experts in the technical side of things have said that it would be extremely difficult to implement and would give very little in the way of real privacy benefits, so I don't think there's going to be any way to do it.
Perhaps the people who really want this can themselves work out how to do it, and if they can find a way that is neat and not unwieldy, they can make a pull request.
Sean Tilley Wed 29 May 2013 7:08PM
Really, I have no problem with Public posts being indexed by search engines and the like. That's part of the nature of being public. It's public content and public data; once you push it out onto the web on the Public setting, it's available to everyone.
Poll Created Thu 30 May 2013 7:12AM
Change label "Public" to "Internet" to be more clear Closed Sun 9 Jun 2013 4:00PM
The label stays "Public"
We should avoid confusion, and if some people confuse, that means we can be more clear. I propose to replace "Public" by "Internet" so everyone understand correctly.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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|
Agree | 6.7% | 1 |
|
| Abstain | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 93.3% | 14 |
|
|
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 130 |
|
15 of 145 people have participated (10%)
Jason Robinson
Thu 30 May 2013 8:14AM
Please no
goob
Thu 30 May 2013 10:34AM
'Public' is fine, and clear enough. 'Internet' sounds ugly (in English).
Shmerl
Thu 30 May 2013 4:24PM
Public is descriptive enough. Add tooltips if you want to clarify the meaning.
Tom Scott
Sun 2 Jun 2013 5:04PM
I really don't think anyone is confused about this.
Rasmus Fuhse
Fri 7 Jun 2013 7:48PM
I know those people who have a problem with the understanding of the word "public", but it is simply the right word for it.
Shmerl Thu 30 May 2013 7:16AM
I don't see a problem with Public. Internet sounds more confusing. However you can help the user by placing a dedicated tooltip on each option.
I.e.: [All Aspect] -> tooltip: All contacts in your aspects will see the post.
[Aspect X] -> tooltip: Your contacts in aspect X will see the post.
[Public]: Post can be seen by anybody and outside Diaspora.
Erwan Guyader · Wed 29 May 2013 6:17PM
I sincerely don't understand how people can be confused by a word like "public" which does what it actually means.
Anyway, I agree that some settings to manage the visibility of a profile would be great. I wouldn't say the issue is about indexing but just about who can see the profile. If you want your profile to be public, I believe it should be indexable (if not indexed).