Changed thread links

I just installed a change to the Forum software which changed the URLs pointing to individual threads. Formerly, they looked like this:

Quote:

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http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/thread.php?topic=497283

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They have changed to this

Quote:

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http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/thread.php?qid=497283

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The only change was to change "?topic=" to "?qid=".

If you created any links to any thread in web page or bookmarks, please be sure to update your links to reflect this change.

The reason was that we discovered that 'topic' may be a keyword to Google that makes it abort scans when it sees that word, which may explain why our threads aren't indexed yet, and Search doesn't really work. We'll just have to wait some more to see it this fixes anything. I hope this doesn't cause any major inconvenience.

Tom,

I left Photonet because every bit of silly stuff I had written on there jumped to my face (and to other's) in the Google search. Don't tell us we have to shut up here as well! Place a Robot.txt and they will leave us alone or find a way to skip the user names from the searches.

Thanks!

Hopefully, you'll stay! We do need a search function, however, so people are able to find information in the archived topics. It hopefully will keep repeated questions to a minimum. Google is just the lowest impact solution to this need.

I am all in favor of a hide-my-most-embarrassing-commnets filter in Google and other search engines, but, you'd have to talk to them about that ;^) Besides, it's all too easy to find the "silly stuff" just browsing around on this site, so turning off Google wouldn't help with that.

Tom,

I agree that a search engine is very helpful at times. But is there no possibillity to have an internal search feature but no access to robots from the outside?

Oh my! I just carried a test search and this forum's stuff is already published worldwide! I'll have to be serious from now on...

Thanks for your work anyway, Tom.

Paul, for this forum to fullfil its educational role, it is also important to be indexed by google to gain exposure, therefore insuring that it is found by new large format photographers. There seem to be no connection between the visibility/permanence of a discussion group and the restreint of its members, as illustrated by Usenet.

Tuan, I guess that my concern was self-centered. Maybe we should adopt pseudos as some of us do?

What I would wish for is a site-internal search - something like a GREP. Any search on google for my name turns up several hundred pages of silly comments already, and I don't really want to expand on that - nor do I want to become any more serious...

Unfortunately, privacy is non-existent on the internet. That is why you will not find my surname anywhere on the 'net, and the e-mail address I use here is not written anywhere else and can be changed at will - as can the e-mail addresses I use elsewhere... A lesson learnt many moons ago...

I do think basic methods of reducing identity leak and avoiding spambots should be taught at school - at about the age of 7 should do the trick....

Cheers,