Friends Lock - I can has?

[teyla]

Found this link on jantalaimon's journal - thank you!

You know how the new profile advertises the Search option with a nice blue-colored spelled-out link right next to your entry count? Well, this search option was on the old profiles as well, but it was a little magnifying glass that nobody ever seems to have used, judging from the frowny-faced posts about the 'new' search option I see cropping up everywhere.

This search option might make it possible for people to view your friends-locked entries even if they are not on your f-list.

ETA: Or maybe not! LJ is being as confusing as always. Go here for some clarifications.

If you don't want that to happen, go here and follow the instructions.

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Most of my posts are public, but the ones I lock I lock for a reason.

I'd already clicked to block one of the search options after Botgate, but I didn't know about LJ Search getting up to the same shenanigans.

[teyla]

the ones I lock I lock for a reason
Same here. I've seen it happen more than once that f-locked entries got made public. I don't know if this was down to untrustworthy friends or the LJ search, but I'd rather not take any risks.

[alchemy]

That is incorrect, and always has been. I'm willing to bet that the person who posted that didn't check to see whether all three of those results were for the journal of the person in question. LJSeek searches all of LJ, not just your journal.

[teyla]

Idk if it's incorrect or not. I'm not LJ-savvy enough to be able to determine whether this is true or false myself. If there's any chance that this search option lets other people view protected entries, though, I think being extra-careful won't hurt. I'll change my wording from 'will make it possible' to 'might make it possible', though.

[alchemy]

Last time this rumor circulated, I checked myself out on LJSeek just to be sure, and couldn't find a single locked post. But yeah, if you're still nervous about it and it makes you feel better, definitely check those boxes.

[teyla]

I had them checked for a while. I'm mostly posting this to let people on the f-list know who might not be aware of this.

[debris_k.livejournal.com]

I totally agree that this is completely bogus - I use ljseek all the friggin' time (with running a rec comm checking and looking up previous posts is a day-to-day job, basically) and never ever have I seen it have a post THAT HAS *NOT* BEEN F-LOCKED *AFTER* IT WAS POSTED.

Meaning that, if this post was not f-locked when ljseek added it to their database, and you f-locked it 15 seconds after the fact, it *would* still be findable. If it were posted as f-locked right off the bat, it would not be found.

Anyways, checking this is easy enough: do a search for any of your f-locked posts you *know* you have not unlocked, or post a locked test-post, wait about 24 hours (ljseek parses lj about every 12 hours, if I recall correctly), the search for it. If you find it, my bad, but I doubt you will - I cuss out ljseek and everyone who posts comm-locked posts often enough when I can't find them in my searches to have a little experience with this.

[teyla]

I knew that you could find previously open entries that were locked after they were posted - you could always do that, even before the profile of fugly went live. I got the impression that the person in the post I linked to was saying that generally f-locked posts could be accessed through LJ-seek. Maybe she's wrong about that though. I just don't like the thought, you know?

Either way, it's not a bad thing to tell people about those two check-boxes, because the way they're buried in the darkest corner of the account settings, I doubt most people come across them by accident.

[debris_k.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think spreading around false panic rumours about things that other folks actually find useful on a regular basis is not a good thing - I read that post you linked, and the poster admitted to not even testing all that much before their panic-post.

Dude. You should hear me cuss when some person or another whose journal I want to search to find *that one thing I really want/need to find* has turned the ljseek searching off. Seriously, unless it's states or personal secrets and the poster is not wise enough to f-lock right off the bad, ljseek does no more harm than google (the satan) which I might also point out *also* caches the pages it parses. But we don't see any options to lock out search-engine searches, do we? *huffs*

[teyla]

Eh, idk. I don't lock stuff I'd previously left unlocked, because I know it's out there anyway. So I guess for me it doesn't make a difference either way.

I just sometimes wish LJ was a little, you know, simpler. Lol.

er, yeah, editing since I saw your newly edited post

[debris_k.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but. Your post is still just as or more panic-raising than the one you linked to - if you know now what you didn't know then, could you at least please edit it?

Because I really like ljseek, as useless as it can sometimes be (read: more often than I'd like), and if there's a mass blocking of it on lj due to folks spreading false facts, I'll be one even more unhappier panda.

Because it's always that *one* author with that *one* story that has the search banned that I need to find in a clinch, or something, and, seriously? Let's just campaign against real informations abusers the likes of google or idiots like the lj PTB, but not half-decent if not particularly smart sites that try to make lj a more useable place.

Nevermind, you already did it. Sorry for the rant. Am not a happy panda today. grrrr stoopid lj design-blind team grrrr

Re: er, yeah, editing since I saw your newly edited post

[teyla]

Lol, it's cool. I don't usually like to participate in panic-raising campaigns and try to avoid tin-hats as much as possible. Sometimes, though, it's hard to figure out which precautionary measures are actually useful, and which are just security blankets for the paranoid. I really don't want people to be able to read my f-locked posts - because usually, that would end in wank, lol - but otoh, I do want people to find stuff easily on my journal.

Ech, idk. The profile is still fugly. xD

[debris_k.livejournal.com]

Oh heavens, is it ever fuglier than fug - I had to view a profile just now to find a link, and my poor eyes are still in shock.

There's a room in heaven where all good horizontal lines go to, and right now they're all crying in misery over the abuse going on down here. D:

[teyla]

The worst, imo, aren't even the lines, although they are terrible. If you ask me, the worst is the way the basic info and the stats and the journal name are all jumbled up in those first two segments without any rhyme or reason.

Also, my PM feature link is gone. Looking at other profiles has me believing that it should be in the 'Contact' column, but there it is not. Sigh. I need the PM feature. People from the comms I mod use it to contact me. I checked; it's still turned on. I can has link plz?

[debris_k.livejournal.com]

There's a 'Private Message' link right under the 'contact' header on the right; your lj email is under it. So, you have it, you just don't know it. :-)

Maybe you should check out someone else's profile for the "real" view - apparently, now users see their own profiles differently than others. Though why *I* would want to see the list of comms I have posting access to and no one else is allowed to is beyond me... @.@

[teyla]

Ooh, so I can only see it on my own profile when I'm logged out? Alright, that explains it. Well, at least it's not gone. Although I don't get why they wouldn't want me to see the link. It's like that message you get when you re-install Windows XP and navigate to the program folder - 'You're not supposed to see these files. You might not know what you're doing and break something!' Yeah, right.

Though why *I* would want to see the list of comms I have posting access to and no one else is allowed to is beyond me
Yeah, idk. And things like the stats, stuff that some people would really like to be hidden, are right out there in the open without even an option to at least collapse them. Wtf, LJ.

[seularen.livejournal.com]

What is this epic fuckery?

[teyla]

Well, this is LJ Seek, and it's nothing new. The profile only makes the feature more prominent - which might even be a good thing insofar that people realize this now and go to change their settings.

Still, it's not something I'm very comfortable with, and I don't like it that the profile advertises all my journal details right at the top next to my user name. And I'm still finding it fuck ugly, even after I had 24 hours to get used to it.