This is me! (Pictures Topic)

[Gamerprinter]

I think its "me", not so much where I live. I can get along with most anyone, and can read if what I'm saying is glossing over their eyes. Most my customers lead normal lives and consider what I do, or how I do things as more colorful - and they seem to appreciate. I have a good "REP" in my community.

You don't want to live here. I'd rather live in the great northwest - got relatives in Portland and I use to live in Seattle - long, long ago. Fact is if I didn't have so many local family in Illinois, some who depend on me somewhat, I'd move to Hawaii right now. (But shipping maps worldwide from Hawaii wouldn't be too practical!)

GP

[Gandwarf]

I understand. This carthography buisness can really ruin your reputation.

Actually, I think maintaining some anonymity is good. I have been involved in many job interviews and nowadays everyone is Googled, looked up on Hyves, etc. The things you see posted online
And I can assure you many candidates didn't even get an invitation because of their profile on the web. Is that really fair or prudent? No. But it will happen.

Sure, who cares if your photo is posted on this forum? But if you use the same username for example you can be traced to other websites.

Not saying people should be worried about posting their photo here, as it will probably be quite harmless. But I do think some people tend to forget how easy it is to gather information about someone on the internet. And I have seen with my own eyes that this can have some surprising results.

I myself like to maintain a certain degree of anonymity, though I have nothing to hide really and it gets harder each year spent on the internet

[Rahva]

I don't use Facebook/Hyves/etc, and I have about six screen names, because my first ones are taken 90% of the time. Rahva is one of the newer ones. On sites I don't want people to see me, I just use a silly name or a random string of letters and fill in bogus information.
For this site however, I don't really care. I make maps in my spare time, big whoop. If an employer won't have me because of that, I don't want to work there anyway.

Anyway, the fairly large and semi-wellknown place where I work recently had to screen some applicants. Monsterboard patched through some applications, two of which were extremely qualified for the job. My boss says to another division boss "Oh oh let's Google them " and they both had a good laugh about it. And then didn't do it.

I'm sure some companies do it, but it's probably not as bad as you think. If there's something embarrasing you don't want people to know, then keep it to yourself.

[Gandwarf]

Anyway, the fairly large and semi-wellknown place where I work recently had to screen some applicants. Monsterboard patched through some applications, two of which were extremely qualified for the job. My boss says to another division boss "Oh oh let's Google them " and they both had a good laugh about it. And then didn't do it.

I'm sure some companies do it, but it's probably not as bad as you think. If there's something embarrasing you don't want people to know, then keep it to yourself.

I have worked for several large companies in the internet industry for over 8 years. And almost all applicants have been screened using the internet. That's what you get for trying to get a job at an internet company
I know I have been screened as well. In a semi-recent job interview the interviewer used information he could only have gathered online
It's almost impossible to keep your real name of the internet if you work in the internet industry, darn it...

Ah well, the internet is a hype anyway

[Redrobes]

Just to put some perspective on it from my point of view. My forum (which gets about 1 post every year...) has had 10 people this morning tried to hack it, 53 people in the last 4 days. Run a web site and look through the logs and see the enormous amount of trolling going on from spiders, search engines and so on. Put in a robots file banning them all and see how many of these spiders actually take any notice of it. Whats also really shocking is the quantity of gov sponsored and intelgnce hacking going on or from commercial sites tied to censorship and net suppression. I would guess that about 80% of all traffic to my site is from nefarious sources. Since about 100% of russian sourced hits were hacks I just banned the whole .ru domain and I know many people do the same. Theres no cure but its so bad and so much worse than you can possible believe without seeing it for yourself that I go anon now. In any case I am interested in the maps not so much the people behind them.

[RobA]

Put in a robots file banning them all and see how many of these spiders actually take any notice of it.

Tell me about it I set up a "bad-bot" trap on my website.

I added an invisible link from my web site to a directory banned in a robot file. No person would ever follow it as they don't see the link, and browser pre-fetches respect robots files so I don't worry about "real people getting there"

I get 1-2 per week hitting it anyway. The only trick is that the .htaccess in that subdirectory tosses the source IP to the banned list of my firewall

(I also get a "Bad Robot" email report delivered to me each time so I can keep an eye on it)

-Rob A>

[jfrazierjr]

I have to say, being that I have the same name (diff spelling) as a famous sports person, good luck to anyone searching my name on the internet... I googled myself years ago and after about 20 pages of wrong information, I gave up.

[Gamerprinter]

I'm sure it could bite me in the behind - but sometimes I use my real name in a post, sometimes I post my phone number. I figure I'm in business so remaining in anonymity is not an asset for marketing purposes.

If you Google my name, though there are others with my name, I'm number one for it on Google. I have the most links.

Finally, since I started my own business (this is my second business) 20 years ago, I don't plan on becoming an employee, and never worry about interviews, where the potential employer has found an issue. I have clients, not employers.

GP

[ravells]

Ah well, here I am!

[woekan]

I understand an respect all of your oppinions.

I like this forum because of the maps, but after seeing someone post some interesting things i start to wonder who is behind that nickname. Maybe im a bit voyeur
I like the social aspect of this place as much as the creative.

And my reputation, ah well.. If i'm interesting enough to be googled, i'm happy