GOOGLE SEARCH!! PLEASE READ... pretty please!!

I was aware of Google's far reaching search abilities when I came here. I saw that there were several other members with Lydia as user names. That is why I chose to create enough distiction here by just using my last initial rather than my entire name which would have revealed my identity to the entire world through Google's portals.

You could use something like "Sarah LC" which would still reflect your true name and protect your identity from intrusive searches. You can still use a full name signature on your posts and in a by-line on your poems. But unless you care to alter your screen name, I don't think there is any remedy.

For most people their poems contain expressions of their innermost thoughts and emotions that they are willing to share with other poets of like minds. But they may not want to be baring their souls to all their schoolmates and other acquaintances. I think that the decision as to how much a person wants be open or to be private about this is just a matter of personal preference. But if you value your privacy you do have to exercise some appropriate precautions on the internet.

Why would you care what other people think? I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Someone at ur school walking up to you and saying "So... you write poetry?" Maybe you might run into a few jerks but then again, people might discover how talented you are and you might make some new friends. Keep your chin up and ignore them.
Aken Sol

I agree with Tyrel. I think it is seems more comfortable to communicate with people who are identified by their first names or something similar instead of a contrived identity like "tortured tire tread." Just my 2¢.

Sarah, you can distinguish you name from other Sarah's by using an initial or symbol(s) to accompany your first name. For example, you could use Sarah LC or Sárah or §-Sarah-§. That would safeguard your identity from being revealed in a Google search but people here will still recognize your first name.

My name alongside my poms is importants for copyright reasons. How can I prove that it's indeed my poem when I was using Blinky or Drangon X or ĻέMM¥$ when I wrote it?

I do understand that some topics people write about are personal. To those folks I would suggest to make 2 accounts, one for the personal stuff, with a nick-name, and one for the other more public stuff.

BTW: I did a google search of my poems, and found a lot of plagiarist. eg. "Gangster At Heart"

Yeah, plagiarism is rampant.

Intellectual property can be copyrighted even though it is created or published under a pen name. In any case, though, unless your copyright is registered, your remedies in event of an infringement could be very limited.

If you do a Google search you can find some articles written by attorneys that explain copyright law as it pertains to pen names.

Ryan Cabrera is THE hottest guy I have ever seen in my whole entire life....wow!

muhahahaha, no matter how hard I try, I can't find myself on google :D:D:D Sarah, maybe you can just have your name as "Sarah" its still you but people won't be able to find you on google ;)

Ditto! I can't find myself on Google either. Well, I can but only for some away messages I left on some site. LOL. I can't find myself here is the point. I'm kinda jealous. :-(

Those people can't be found on Google because they are using a more common keyword ("Allen" or "luv me lur" ). Like Allen told, if you use Sarah.. then it will be hard to find you too!
Sarah L costello makes your search more specific and thats how you are identified more faster..

It is nothing to do with this site.. Google has such a strong search engine.... so the more you specify your search the more closer result it will give...

Even i faced the same problem.. Before I used to use my user name as Trincy Thomas.. But then some people whom i didn't want to identify me.. whom i didn't want to know my feelings spotted me.. So i changed it to Trincy. it helped me a bit.

I understand there is a lot Sarah's on this site and so you may not want to make it "Sarah" instead of "Sarah L costello"...

MAy be you can change it to "S@r@h L C0ste||0" or something like that.... (some thing more nice to look at..lol!)

Hope that will help you atleast a bit

Trincy, I really agree with you and thanks for explaining it better than I did.

Other than the more remote and sinister risks, I just don't care to receive a surprise call about my poem from someone like my father! Not that I don't love him but I don't want give everyone a key to the deepest inner reaches of my soul.

I did notice that even if you use a pen name but you insert the copyright symbol © alongside your true name on the page with your poem, it will still be picked up by Google's search engine.

I know, it gives me the creeps. I don't use my real name but, if anyone ever cracked the code of my screen name (it's NOT that hard) and looked it up...grr...i looked up "summer hennessy" because that's my friend's old name and it came up with MY profile (i resubmitted some of her quotes for her and wrote by summer hennesy beside it.)..so any part of your entries can be looked up.

I dunno. I feel really weird actually. I know it doesn't say my exact name on this but, it's still weird you know?

OH MY GOD *screams really really loud*

i jsut looked up Jackie Bilson on GOOGLE and do you know what popped up???? MY CONVERSATION VIA FORUM TO GOLDEN TEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG....that is just f***ed up.... OMG...that is not right...that's OUR conversation! so, anyone on this site can read it but, I don't want personal info being read accidentally through google!!!!!

oh great and now my comments can be read too...grr...

I can't believe not more people care about this scary scary new discovery....I mean, it really got to me when i first heard it but no one has posted since then...guess it's not as scary for others as it is for me :)