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[grandkid44]

Many seem shy when giving info on their profile page..
we have included everything on ours, address , phone numbers, etc., and have not been placed on anyones mailing list or had crank calls. Im not sure why anonymity is relished by so many..so far, everyone we have met in geo is intelligent , courteous and respectful . What is the reason??

[arkansas_stickerdude]

I don't have anything to hide and have not got any annoying phone calls or emails.

[GEO]

If you need more than I provided please let me know.

[Gaddiel]

I guess I'm just a little leary of putting my home phone or address out there for the world to see. Yeah, they can find out anyway if they know my real name, but that would take a little more digging. I've been in IT long enought to see a handful of horror stories, I guess... On the other hand, I've talked to several people who put all their information out there and haven't had a problem. It's just not for me.

[BACKPACKNJACK]

Many seem shy when giving info on their profile page..
we have included everything on ours, address , phone numbers, etc., and have not been placed on anyones mailing list or had crank calls. Im not sure why anonymity is relished by so many..so far, everyone we have met in geo is intelligent , courteous and respectful . What is the reason??

Yes Doc., Most people are intelligent. and there certainly doesn't seem to be a shortage of IQ throughout all of Geoing. This would not be the most fitting game for those of diminished mental capacity. Think about it Doc.

[Geezer_Veazey]

Many seem shy when giving info on their profile page..
we have included everything on ours, address , phone numbers, etc., and have not been placed on anyones mailing list or had crank calls.

You can go weeks, months or years without objectional material being emailed to you, but then your email address gets picked up by the wrong person and suddenly you are receiving several sexually explicit messages a day. It's true we can just delete them, but some people prefer not to have them show up in their inbox.

Im not sure why anonymity is relished by so many..so far, everyone we have met in geo is intelligent , courteous and respectful .

It's true, most everyone in geocaching is intelligent, courteous and respectful. (Phrasing it that way I can include myself.) However, everyone that sees this website is not necessarily respectful. I did a google search with keywords Arkansas and Geocacher and this site came up on the first page. Most of the time when I log on there are one or more so-called guests online. Its very likely that some of these are not from the geocaching community.

I also logged out as a registered user and became a guest to see if I could get peoples email address. I was able to get it for everyone that had "show email" enabled in their profile. I decided to disable it in mine. It's not a matter of wanting to be anonymous to members of this board, but to non members. We can communicate through private messages and we can communicate through email on geocaching.com. We can reveal our mailing address, special interests and life history to whomever we choose to do so.

Having been closely connected with the computer industry for many years I understand peoples cautionary instincts when it comes to the world wide web and personally believe they are wise to be that way.

I am sometimes grumpy, intentionally objectionable and sometimes just playing devils advocate. But this is a sincere desire for understanding.

Geezer

[BACKPACKNJACK]

Well said Geezer. We could probably use up this bandwidth telling our stories. On my registered dot com, I have to delete around 250-285 spams every other day. I have come back from road trips to face 1,000+. My real emails are in there somewhere so I have to sift through them (read the "from" or subject). I have a different ID, password, and email address for everything I do.
I'm NOT hiding...my name is on my license plate... but it's true, I AM shy.
BackpacknJack

[southdeltan]

For reasons of privacy - only members of the MSGA page can view the Members list or the forums. I'm also fairly sure I have it set up the same way on profiles as well (if not, you can't find a profile without visiting the members list or forums anyways - I think I have everything set to private).

This keeps out spam/email harvesting "bots" and other troublemakers. True - people can still create an account (I don't have the last level of security in place - the bit that makes it so "I" have to manually approve everybody), but I feel our community is very safe.

Everything that a non member needs to see is out there in plain view.

You can also set it up so that email addresses are NOT showed but the person can still recieve email. If that's still a problem, you can set it up so that you get an email when somebody sends you a PM.

Most email harvesters (I'd say the vast majority) run automated programs and won't go to the trouble of signing up.

Of course - the real problem is do you trust the geocachers in your area/state. I'd say I trust 99.9% of them. There is one guy who's caused some trouble and has a few people annoyed - so you never can be sure....

southdeltan