I think sometimes people develop views that it is safe and private posting on the internet because... The alternative can seem a little too much to bear. Some people don't have anyone IRL that they can talk to about certain issues and problems they are experiencing. Psychcentral is supposed to be a safe place for people to post those questions, problems, thoughts, concerns, worries that they are having trouble talking to people about IRL.

I wouldn't want people to stop posting because they became concerned about their posts being used against them in some way...

But I do reccomend that people be careful about leaving a trail from their internet identifies back to their real life identities...

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Regarding quoting peoples posts off these boards and posting links off these boards to posts on these boards etc etc... I think that while Doc John and the mods here do their best to protect people from hurt as much as possible... If this site is anything like another (similar) site I've posted to there are around 4 lurkers for every poster.

What are those lurkers up to? Probably looking for people who have similar issues to them... Probably looking for answers to specific questions... Who knows really. I figure most lurkers are well intentioned. They get something from reading (maybe the answer to their question is on the boards already or maybe just seeing that there are other people struggling with the same / similar issues is enough for them).

I do think that privacy is something where it is important to respect someones wishes. I've had this issue come up for me when I really wanted to quote someones posts (not from this site) for a thesis I was writing... I wasn't sure whether it would be unethical for me to do that. The internet is the public domain after all. As someone has said... Posting messages to a publicly viewable internet board is a lot like posting a message to a bulletin board in a supermarket. Except... Maybe even worse than in the sense that you get a lot more through traffic on the net and supermarket bulletin boards aren't linked to by search engines!

I think it is important to respect and be sensitive to peoples feelings on that. Even if the laws are behind how people feel... If you are going to quote ask permission first. Same if you want to save someones post or print someones post. It can't hurt to ask. If you say to someone 'I really liked your post and I'd like to look at it when I'm feeling down' then the person is likely to feel good about themself. If you use it and they didn't know you had done that and they find out... They are more likely to feel violated and upset...