FAQ: Lions and tigers and bots, oh my. Or, how to maintain the right level of privacy for you...

Even though we like to feel that we are a little community haven here on 5 for Fairness, far removed from the hustle and bustle of the wild, wild, web, we'd be remiss if we didn't put out an occasional a reminder that this is a public site where the information is accessible to others outside of 5 for Fairness and indexed on Google. This is a double edged sword.  We want the friendly Google bots to scan the site, because then, when people are looking for organizations working to make the world more fair for girls, we'll show up in their browser!. The downside is a lack of complete privacy.  However, there are ways to adjust your privacy settings on here to limit who can see your profile and postings. See below for a summary of some key privacy settings from Ning (the site software platform).

CAUTION ON PRIVACY AND MANAGING PRIVACY SETTINGS - You can adjust your privacy settings at anytime by logging in and clicking Settings in the upper right hand corner of every page that looks like this:

This will bring you to a page with a list on the left hand side that looks like this:

Click on each of the links to set your privacy level just the way you like it. You have the option of allowing everyone to see your postings (blogs, pictures, videos), or only your friends, or only yourself. You can also choose settings for each individual blog you write, but not for discussions. For example if you want your blogs to be viewable by only your friends, choose that setting, but you can choose to set specific posting open to be viewable by the whole network. You can also control what type of e-mail updates you would like to receive (there is an option to receive no e-mails). Please note that the network is an open network meaning outsiders can currently view the comments you make on your wall and others make on your profile. Thus, it is strongly recommended not to provide very personal information on the comment walls (nor your personal contact information). If you want to provide a personal message to another member, click on his/her profile and click the send a message link which will only go to the individual.You can delete any comments on your wall by clicking on the X to remove the post.

If you set your profile to private or viewable by friends only, your name may still show up in Google searches, but hopefully your profile will not be accessible via Google.  While we (well, Ning really,) will try to ensure privacy settings are followed, we cannot make a 100% guarantee. Thus, any user with strong privacy or security concerns is urged to use caution before posting anything personal and to make sure you adjust your privacy settings following the steps outlined above.

For additional suggestions on privacy settings see the following pages on the Ning help pages:

Answer Title: Can I set my profile to private?
Answer Link: http://help.ning.com?faq=3545

For additional tips and information, please see our Safety Page http://about.ning.com/safety.php