Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Licking Wounds

It probably isn't the best place but it is I imagine the only place where there are people who understand and help. I am sure if the OP had trustworthy knowledgeable people to talk to in person she wouldn't be here.

The same applies to many of us.

Once you post something on the Internet, you lose control over it, full stop. There are spiders that scan pages for content for the purpose of indexing and other reasons. You have no idea if any of the information they find is being saved on someone's hard drive or re-oposted via their server. That is, except for the Internet Archive (aka the Wayback Machine). The whole point of that organization is to archive stuff that's on the web. I found deleted posts from this site that are live on that one. The people running it are unlikely to delete things, as the whole point of the organization is to archive stuff that was posted PUBLICLY by a person with a right to post it.

Will say this again, and understand that I'm trying to help here: once you post something online or send it via email, you lose control over it. Full stop. If you don't believe me, ask the Democratic National Committee how the whole email confidentiality thing worked out for them. People here may agree not to quote you, but that doesn't change the fact that right now there are 52 spiders online at this site (down from 81 earlier), and you have no idea how many of them are archiving content.

I'll also add that I don't think this site is an appropriate place to air grievances that are internal to a family or are playing out in family court. We had an ugly thread here a while back where mom wrote in to complain about something, and then dad replied, having found his wife's messages. He was clearly very unhappy and thought she'd misprepresented his and the school's position. It was awful, and presumably didn't help their child.

But it did help the lawyers.

Remember, lawyers are people too! Even family lawyers!

Chat board messages and e-mails are one of the litigation happy places. It's sometimes like finding an old buried pirate treasure full of gold, diamonds, and rum.

Back in the day, I spent many a billable hour on the Wayback Machine. Just used it the other day to see if a lawyer was fired from a local firm. It's good for tracking lawyer-firm employment history.

And I remember the days, back when I was fighting the great corporate intellectual property disputes, I would spend lots of time downloading websites to use in depositions.

One of those days, during a deposition, I had a nice filet mingnon sandwich in the local club. I tried to have it for lunch the next day, as well. That did not go quite as well, if I recall correctly. It was a nice little place. Part of the old rust belt industrial sector. Had that old school vibe. It was in decline, though. So there was a sadness to it, as well.

Good times.

I understand your concern for oversharing, and fortunately this forum allows members to edit posts. Therefore I have edited my post to speak in generalities, for example masking the gender of the poster, spouse, and child. In the future, if you should have a concern, please feel free to PM me (or any poster with whom you may have a concern). This may both keep a thread from "going haywire" (as you say) and also provide a quick communication to the poster (as a poster may set his/her profile to request an e-mail notification when a private message has been received).

Meanwhile, it is beneficial to have had this discussion of privacy. It seems this used to come up a few times a year, and it has been a while.
- As there is no board rule against quoting what another has posted (and the board provides two options to do this - Quote and Quick Quote), dusty has provided a useful tip: to consider stating in your original post that you do not wish to be quoted.
- More good advice exists in heeding Val's important reminder that internet posts may be automatically copied and replicated... existing long after deletion from this forum.
- It is not often easy, but keeping posts focused on the information which one is seeking rather than posting a rant may also help reduce oversharing.
- If your screen name may reveal your identity you may wish to change that for further anonymity.
- Once grown, our gifted children may also read these posts.

Davidson Gifted Issues Discussion Board rules state, in part:
As many of your concerns seem focused on special needs, are you familiar with the wrightslaw website and the book, From Emotions to Advocacy?

Thank you all, so much for your help. Because of all of you, DS was accepted to a private school that supports 2e students. Reasonable minds might disagree about enrolling DS, so I don't yet know if DS will be able to enroll for the upcoming year.

Emma, fingers and toes crossed for you! I really hope he is able to attend, and get the support he needs. Amazing work on your part to get this far, under such difficult circumstances. Your son is one lucky young man to have you in his corner.