The following is a DRAFT version of an article on group and content security. Because this topic is fairly complex, I would appreciate community input before publishing a final version. There are many unique variables and combinations which impact the visibility of your content. I have attempted to outline the most widely used variations, but some subjects defy simple explanations.
Hopefully, the reference chart at the end of the article will help in tying it all together.
Please let me know your thoughts, questions and suggestions.
Thank You!
» | Have you ever wondered if articles published to a private group are really private? | ||
» | Are you a Gather Group owner and uncertain of the security/privacy options for your group? | ||
» | Or, are you curious about what content becomes visible on the internet outside of Gather? | ||
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Group Access Options
There are four (4) primary levels of security for Gather Groups which are defined by the Gather Group Owner. They are:
Private |
A private group, and all content, is invisible to everyone except for group members. The group will not appear in group search results, or in any group listing, unless you are a member of the group. If you are invited to join the group, you will not be able to view group content until you have accepted the invitation to join. All content published exclusively to private groups is also not accessible or indexed on the internet outside of Gather. The option for making a Gather Group private or public is located on the Group Settings page, as illustrated below:
Content-Restricted |
A content-restricted group is visible to everyone and will appear in group search results, and in all group listings, even if you are not a member of the group. However, content published exclusively to the group, or in addition to other content-restricted groups, will not be visible to non-group members. Some group content may be visible to the public (to non-group members, and on the internet), if the article/image was also published to a public group (see reference chart at the end of this article).
As with a private group, if you are invited to join the group, you will not be able to view restricted group content until you have accepted the invitation to join. All content published exclusively to content-restricted groups is also not accessible or indexed on the internet outside of Gather. Unlike a private group however, there is no indicator on the publishing page identifying the group as having restricted content. The option for restricting group content is also located on the Group Settings page, as shown here:
Restricted - Adult Group Settings |
You may also restrict access to your group and content through the 'Adult Group Settings'. When you add a flag to your Gather Group (for nudity, crude or indecent language, etc.), you automatically restrict group access to members of the community with Guarded Viewing turned OFF. Therefore, the group becomes invisible to all members with Guarded Viewing turned ON, and to anyone not signed into Gather. This also means that the group will not be accessible or indexed on the internet outside of Gather.
However, while the group may be invisible to some members, and to the internet, all content published to the group will still be accessible on the namespace of the author, within other groups where the content may have been published, and to the internet (except in cases where the content also has a 'Mature Audience' flag).
Public |
A public group, and all content, is visible to the entire community and across the internet (unless the group is restricted by an adult group setting, or the content has a mature audience flag). You do not need to be a member of the group to view the group's content.
NOTE(S): The settings above also impact the visibility of comments made on group content. If the content is restricted to group members, the comments will be as well. IMPORTANT! - If you have access to group content, and comments on that content, then they will be visible to you upon all listings in the community. This includes 'Articles for Me', 'Images for Me', and other sections of your 'My Gather' page, as well tag and article search results, 'Recent Articles' and all other listings. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT EVERYONE ELSE CAN SEE THEM...only you, and other members of the group(s) where the content was published. |
The settings outlined above have a dramatic impact on the security and visibility of your content. While you have some level of control when you publish, the security of your content may ultimately be decided by the leaders of the groups you publish to. For example, content published exclusively to a private group can be made public if the group settings are ever changed by the group owner, or moderator(s). You are not provided with any notification when this occurs.
Publishing Access Options
As outlined in the sections above, the access options you select when publishing may not reflect the actual security for your content. Depending upon the mixture of groups you have selected, visibility options for your content may automatically adjust when your content publishes. This will change the security settings for your article or image.
For example, on the publishing options page illustrated below, you can choose for your content to be visible to 'Everyone', to 'Select People and Groups', or to 'Just Me'. If you choose 'Select People and Groups', and publish to a public group, your content can be viewed by everyone in the community and across the internet. Access is not limited to members of the specific group you selected (your selection of 'Select People and Groups' will be changed automatically to 'Everyone' post-publication). This is contrary to what is stated on the publishing options page for articles and images.
The matrix below may be helpful in understanding the various access/privacy options, and how they affect your content. The green and red areas identify to whom your content will ultimately be visible. If content is visible to 'Everyone', this will include access from outside of Gather, and across the internet.
Note: At this time, there is no visible indication as to whether a group is public, or content-restricted. Only private groups are identified for you on the publishing options page.
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Comments: 40
You said: "...when an article is published to a public group, it can still be seen by everyone."
That is true. It is a PUBLIC group, so it will be visible to everyone.
Do you want to restrict content to group members only? If so, then you need to make your group content-restricted, and publish content ONLY to your group.
Does that help?
That should not happen....ever (unless there is a glitch which is adversely impacting this group for some reason).
I will send you a message on this.
As I stated to Faith, if the group is private, and content is private, and content is published exclusively to the group, then content should ONLY be visible to group members. There may be an occasional glitch in this set-up, but I would hope that this is an extremely rare occurrence.
There may be a practical application for this configuration, but I felt that it was a 'one-off' situation which was better left out of the information above.
Here's our scenario, Kevin:
The group itself IS public, but it's also content-moderated. I just checked the settings so I'm sure of these two tidbits.
I publish a weekly article to only this group (which, to note again, is strictly content-moderated), and I always choose the 'select people and groups' option, yet it always publishes to everyone. How does this fit into your analyses? Do I need to completely privatize the group in order to keep content from appearing to everyone on Gather? It was previously a private group, but that extra layer of security slowed down the loading of our content so significantly that I changed it back to a public setting.
You want the picky things before a final posting?
Are you a Gather Group owner and uncertain of the security/privacy options for your group? [I only suggest adding privacy because that could be a more familiar term for many.]
Is there a word missing somewhere here? ...both will be visible to you upon all listings in the community. If not, I'm not exactly sure what you meant.
...and their affects [effects?] on your content.
...to whom your content will ultimately be visible to. Don't need "to" both at the beginning and at the end.
I may look at this again later tonight or tomorrow, if that's okay. But as for meaning, I don't think you lost me. It might make little sense to someone who hasn't set up a group, but it will be helpful for group owners who have questions.
When you say content moderated, do you mean that you must approve content before allowing it into the group? If so, then this option does NOT affect the security of content once it has been approved, or released from moderation.
You must restrict access to the content by making content visible to ONLY group members (see content-restricted group above), and then publishing to 'Select People and Groups', and choosing ONLY your group. This should restrict the content for you.
Let me know of any questions, or if this is not what you are experiencing.
THANK YOU. That is exactly what I was asking for. I typically don't have a lot of time to put these articles together, so your input is very valuable. :-)
As an aside, I finally got Firefox working again as it should.
I tend to stay fairly close to Adobe/Macromedia products. The graphics above were created in Photoshop I believe (I did them back in April). They aren't exactly what I wanted, but as I stated above, I typically don't have a lot of time to invest in my Gather articles.
Can you spot them? :-)
I'm not quite clear on what you are referring to as 'scoping rules'. Part of the reason for this article (well, republishing this updated version) is due to incorrect verbiage on the publishing pages. Therefore, in some cases, group/content privacy no longer works the way in which Gather states that it does.
BTW, you might consider toning down the visuals. They look like a marketing presentation.
I hope you can get something changed around here.
? Any other thoughts on this one??
Thanks for the input. I wasn't certain about the 'scoping rules' comment as I haven't heard that term used in many years, and it can relate to a few different areas of this article. I agree that the publishing page should be changed, or access permissions should be modified to reflect what is stated. Gather is aware of the disparity, so this article is only meant to help bridge the gap until some change is made.
Hmmm. I will send you a mail message on this. I have a few ideas, but I believe your situation may be caused by a glitch, and could be outside of your ability to correct.
One comment, just a quick one, becuase you asked and you said this was a draft. Please, don't get the guillotine.
You categorized four types of security content ratings for gather groups. You labeled them Group Access Options.
They included:
Private
Content-Restricted
Restricted - Adult Group Settings, and
Public
However, in your matrix, you included only 3 of the groups, then you added the distinction of Combinations.
While I understand what you were showing, and I know what the Adult Group Settings means, I'm thinking that you could enlarge the box and include it, too.
Next idea, you could include an explanation of what a combination of more than one group setting might be, just as you explained the other settings.
These are just imho. Take that for what it's worth (probably not much.)
Otherwise, I really enjoyed reading your article. Thanks for providing such extensive and useful information to the rest of us gatherholics.
Kevin,
The headings and lack of early definition of article structure are confusing. The Level 1 heads are smaller and more subtle (text) than the level 2 heads (colored bars with text) which is not helpful. The layout takes precedence over the content, which is not good. Maybe a bullet list of the four types of "group access options" would help.
Unless "group access options" is what they are called in the UI, you might want to change that head name, because I'm not sure if people who are publishing articles will think of it that way. (if it is what it says in the UI, then it's sooo not your fault!) Hmmm, how about calling this section "group settings" since that is what the page is?
I see that the second L1 head of "Publishing access options" is actually talking about the "article options" screen. The article should reflect what the reader will see in the actual UI, so I'd change that to match.
The images are rather large - 120k+ which seems really big - especially when you stack several on a page and take into account the number of dialup users. You might want to check out smaller graphics formats and not repeat graphics that are identical except for which radio button is selected, as the first two are.
The blinking text SUCKS. Make it stop please.
Is that what you were after?