Is Information Always a Good Thing?

This is an editorial I did a few years back regarding on-line yahoo groups.

As I have been in SL now for a few months I see people here making the same mistakes so I am posting this as I feel it very much crosses over to SL. In our area if we see people giving out to much info in open chat we always private IM them and politely say you may want to think about how much info you wish all these people to have about you.

Are you too comfortable when talking and posting in online groups?

For me, I am always aware of not putting out too much information when posting in large online groups. I have no less than three online ID’s, one I use for friends in the BDSM community and for membership on groups I know keep strong restrictions on just who they allow on their group. One I use for my public website, communications and promotion of my many BDSM projects. And a third I use to stay completely anonymous; the profile is very limited and offers little to no information about my real identity. I use this ID when making first contact in new online groups and see if they allow anyone in their groups. I use this anonymous ID to see if the group is a group I may have an interest in, or when I join the very large online groups that offer no restrictions as to their membership.

I am always shocked when I join online groups at just how much information I can find out about the members.

Case in point:

In one group I belong to, there is a couple that posts all the time and in the past five weeks I have been privy to a description of their family structure including that they have kids at home, the type of work they do in real life, their real home address and directions to their home, that they have added a third to their BDSM family, and that they have a dungeon in their home. I am sure if I took a look through the past archives I could find out their birthdays, as on this group people are always wishing each other happy birthday and telling how old they are. If they had a death in their family, I can get their real names as again on this group people are always announcing when one of their family members pass away and the location of the funeral. A quick trip out to the address they listed, seeing I have directions I don’t even need a map, or a trip to the library to check the address in a cross-reference phone book would also give me their real names.

This type of information is given out all the time in online groups. I think it is just smart people getting caught up in things and getting too comfortable and the lack of good Moderators or Leaders either giving people a false sense of security or not taking the time to make sure their members are aware that not all people on their group are known by them.

If there is a person looking to cause them harm or a government agency looking in on the online groups in their local area, this is too much information to be posting on a public online group.

In my area, it is a known fact by all the online and RT BDSM group leaders that in fact the local police have ID’s on the open groups and do look in on them. With this knowledge at hand it is always a shock to see the leadership allowing people to post personal things about themselves -- in some cases, leaders and moderators being involved in the conversation and in fact being part of even more information being given out.

I do not know about most of the country, but in my state what we do is illegal. I would guess that this type of information for people with children could be a cause for much distress if it was presented to the child welfare authority. Information like this also could be used to cause stress for anyone that works at a job with a morality clause.

So remember when your chatting on an online group, unless you have met everyone on the group personally, be careful what you say. Don’t get so comfortable that you start giving out information that could cause you, your partner or your family harm, stress or embarrassment.

You know information is power; be smart, don’t give people you don’t know the power of information over you.

EPE Dominion