Google SideWiki
Dec. 2nd, 2009 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustHow long has this been going on? When I logged on last night, Firefox was open at a tab about wonderful Google SideWiki, which would allow me to add comments to any web page... Hang on, isn't that what we call graffiti?
I like comments. I'm always pleased when people comment here, and when I set up a site for someone else, I encourage them to keep comments as open as they can. But when I design a static page, I design it to be read as it is: sometimes you don't want people scribbling in the margins. I'm spluttering with fury at the idea that a third party - even Google, who despite everything are a pretty useful third-party - should feel rntitled to encourage visitors to comment behind my back and outside my control.
SideWiki appears to be a feature controlled from the Google Toolbar. Once you know it exists, it was easy enough to find information about it on Google's 'Toolbar Help' page. But I had to go looking for it - there's nothing on Google's home page to alert me to it. If I didn't use a Google toolbar I'd be none the wiser.
And the 'help' doesn't include anything about how to block SideWiki comments from your pages. You can enable or disable it on your own toolbar, but what's the point of that? Well, I suppose if I disabled it, I could get rid of the irritating icons, and its habit of flasing across the page when my cursor passes its ticklish spot, but then I wouldn't know if my pages were spawning graffiti. Better not. (Of course, it isn't actually enabled on my toolbar until I create a Google account, and right now I don't feel inclined to sign Google's terms and conditiond to do that...)
A quick search - well, no, of course, a quick google - reveals that there is no opt out clause (also that when people google 'google sidewiki', the phrase they are most likely to be looking for is 'google sidewiki opt out'). You can block Google Toolbar users from visiting your site - which seems extreme - but once you let them in, you do so on their terms.
Don't be - what was it again?
I like comments. I'm always pleased when people comment here, and when I set up a site for someone else, I encourage them to keep comments as open as they can. But when I design a static page, I design it to be read as it is: sometimes you don't want people scribbling in the margins. I'm spluttering with fury at the idea that a third party - even Google, who despite everything are a pretty useful third-party - should feel rntitled to encourage visitors to comment behind my back and outside my control.
SideWiki appears to be a feature controlled from the Google Toolbar. Once you know it exists, it was easy enough to find information about it on Google's 'Toolbar Help' page. But I had to go looking for it - there's nothing on Google's home page to alert me to it. If I didn't use a Google toolbar I'd be none the wiser.
And the 'help' doesn't include anything about how to block SideWiki comments from your pages. You can enable or disable it on your own toolbar, but what's the point of that? Well, I suppose if I disabled it, I could get rid of the irritating icons, and its habit of flasing across the page when my cursor passes its ticklish spot, but then I wouldn't know if my pages were spawning graffiti. Better not. (Of course, it isn't actually enabled on my toolbar until I create a Google account, and right now I don't feel inclined to sign Google's terms and conditiond to do that...)
A quick search - well, no, of course, a quick google - reveals that there is no opt out clause (also that when people google 'google sidewiki', the phrase they are most likely to be looking for is 'google sidewiki opt out'). You can block Google Toolbar users from visiting your site - which seems extreme - but once you let them in, you do so on their terms.
Don't be - what was it again?
