<p>I recognized a woman from my town a few months ago by looking at some of her older posts. Her son had graduated in 2005 as did my daughter. I did not know her, but by looking at her older posts and some other info, and askig my daughter, she confirmed who the son was, an acquaintance of hers. </p>
<p>I still do not know the mom, but it’s a small town and she posted something very very distinctive about the town and I sent a PM, saying hi and introducing myself. Never heard back, so I guess I overstepped the boundaries. Oh well.</p>
<p>I live in a small city in a small state, and anyone who does some legwork can figure out who I am. (At least one person has, and I’ve figured out several posters from my state.) I tend to be pretty circumspect about what I post, especially about my daughter. But I really had to hold my tongue about her classmates. I could never relate anecdotes about their application process and quirks because they would be easily identified and I need to respect their anonymity. The one time I did that, I had to ask the moderators to remove the thread because the student had been identified (and they did). It’s sometimes frustrating not being able to join the conversation, but I have to keep my mouth shut.</p>
<p>Back in the age of dinosaurs we used our real names (many even provided their phone numbers etc) in discussion groups/message boards. I figured they would be lost in the ether eventually. Nope, some of my personally signed messages from circa 1990 are still out there, just one Google search away…</p>
<p>Which makes me wonder…does C.C archive messages indefinitely?</p>