Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on February 10, 2021, 11:25 pm

Intro

First off:

Privacy and degrees of safety around private information are two different things.

And there is an also element of personal self-empowerment to how you approach them.

Let's see:

1. THE FORUM IS NOT PRIVATE

Your posts on the public side of the forum are not private, but public.

That means anyone with an internet connection can access them -that's how you were able to end up on the forum in the first place, after all-.

That being said, humans are generally biased to overblow the risks:

1.2 But It's Relatively Safe to Write

ThePowerMoves.com is a popular website in the social skills / strategies / dating niche (and power dynamics, of course), but it's still a niche website.

It's great that you stumbled here, but your path is atypical.
The vast majority of people, including a huge chunk of people who could gain a lot from it, are never going to end up here (and that gives you a good competitive advantage, BTW).

Furthermore, it's only a tiny minority of this website's readership who even ventures into the forums, let alone read it, let alone stick around long enough to start piecing together enough information to know it was "you".

My personal opinion is that over-worrying is both unneeded paranoid, and self-centered.
Most people don't care enough about their own self-development to read here for themselves, let alone if they care that much about you.
And of those few who do, they're far more likely to become eagles and high-quality individuals, and they'll respect your drive.

Still, if you're very concerned about privacy, then write in a way that cannot be easily linked to your real-life persona.

2. THE FORUM IS INDEXABLE

Any thread on the public side of the forum is also indexable by Google.

Which means that if someone were to type a combination of keywords on Google, they might end up in the forum.

So unless you don't care about privacy, don't use any personally identifiable information in the title of your forum threads.

That being said, don't overblow the risks: it's highly unlikely that anyone will end up on your posts from Google.
And it's close to impossible that someone can end up on a thread of yours by actively searching for information about you.

See here for more:

• Are forum threads searchable?

3. THERE IS A PRIVATE AREA OF THE FORUM

For PU alumni and subscribers there is a private area of the forum with far higher privacy.

However, that area is for more extreme cases in which you need to post screenshots or personal pictures and you need to do everything in your power to minimize any chance someone you know might read that post.

Instead of opening threads there: remove personally identifiable information, make up names of the people in the events you're describing, and post them in the open area of the forum.
And chances are high that you will be totally fine.

4. CAN I EDIT AND DELETE MY THREADS & POSTS IN THE FUTURE?

No.

Always consider you can't.

The legalese in the various T&Cs are similar on all forums, and they say that content generated on the service provider platform becomes the property of the service provider.

So just to be sure, please consider that your posts and threads might not be amended in the future.
This is because:

1. Value loss: Many threads become valuable to the community, to the website, and to power dynamics as a discipline. And removing them is a loss for all
2. Time loss (for me or future admins): Deleting and editing threads takes time -and we encourage to jealously guard one's own time here-
3. Social scalping: if you wrote and received advice, you got value and people's time. Asking for even more admin time to erase other people's time and contribution is a form of social scalping, trying to take value, and then taking some more
4. Bad precedent: this is power dynamics. Once an exception is carved, then everyone feels entitled to the same special treatment, and then the "please delete my 3 years old posts" become the norm

Edit:
LOF brought to my attention that editing or deleting forum posts is also regulated under the GDPR, which adds one more layer of complexity to editing/deleting, and one more reason not to.

4.2. So, Are My Posts Here "Forever"?  

Consider they are.

But in practice, most likely not.

Before we begin, keep this in mind: in the long run, we're all dead.
So that should already put things in perspective when it comes to privacy :).

It's also possible, maybe even likely that this forum software will stop being supported, and that switching to a new forum software will mean that only a few hand-picked posts will be moved over -just the best of the best-.

It's also possible that thepowermoves.com might discontinue the forum, or that the website might lose all its readership, or totally cease operations one day for one reason or another (not what I plan on doing at the time of writing, but also not impossible).

And it's also possible, even likely, that you'll move on to do different things with different people, and whatever you've written in the past won't be relevant to you anymore, and not a social threat if discovered.

Increasing Privacy

The forum as of today is for members only.

Non-members and random readers cannot click on your profile.

They cannot see your original user registration name, and cannot see your post history.

So changing your username ensures your privacy towards 99.9% of the readers of this forum.

Changing Your Username

Follow these instructions:

Change your username here.

Bear in mind that if you originally registered with a username bearing your name/nickname and it comes up in Google search, Google will take some time to update its results after you change your username.

Deleting Your Username

The nuclear option is to delete your user.

You will lose access to PU/SU.
Your posts remain, but they won't be with your username anymore, but they will show "deleted user".

Mindsets & Empowerment Around Privacy

If you're not worried at all about privacy, then you're either very easy-going, very high-power, or enlightened.

But it's also possible you might be too naive, not aware of the potential costs.

But over-worried about privacy is also not good.
If you're too worried about privacy, then it's possible you can first work on:

• Focus on opportunities more than threats: privacy over-worry is a poor use of your mental faculties, plus makes for a generally poorer life. Less focus on threats and more on opportunities might be something to consider
• Higher congruency = higher confidence: there is more power, mental health, and confidence when you can publicly speak up of your studies and self-development efforts. So if you can say "I'm learning about power", then you got nothing to fear if someone were to find out you write/read here
• Personal empowerment: you're here to learn power. Including personal power. And what's higher personal power, the one who's afraid of writing on a forum because "someone might find out", or the one who prioritizes personal growth, learning, and social effectiveness, and he's not too worried/scared because he can own it?

I am biased on this topic.
And my self-interest is best served with people speaking openly about who they are, and never asking to delete anything.
That being said, I believe that over-worry about privacy is incongruent with self-empowerment and learning about power dynamics.
It self-communicates that you must hide yourself, and that you're leading a double life. My advice is to not be that fearful guy, to write openly, and to own it.

High-Power Approach for Privacy-Concerned

This is a high-power approach for the more privacy concerned ones:

I'd rather people I know don't find out what I'm writing and learning, and I'll take reasonable steps to minimize that chance.
If they do, that's not the best outcome, but it's not the end of the world either. Fuck it, I'll own it, and I might even learn something from it.
My priority is personal growth anyway.

So if it was so embarrassing that you wrote about someone you know that they behaved like a POS and they confront you on it, then your mindset, and a good retort, would be:

Yeah, you read that on thepowermoves.com, good for you, great website. You did indeed behave like a POS, I hope you understand that now.

High-Power Approach Without Privacy Concerns

I am who I say I am, I don't need to hide anything. As a matter of fact, I'm proud of my self-development efforts into becoming a higher-value, higher-quality individual. After all, that's not just good for me, but also for those around me.