Public or private

At the time of this writing (April 16, 2026), this web site is to be considered to be public, if you are accessing it in connection with your course taking.

What does it mean "public"? It means that, when you use the forum site, by posting messages or comments, those contents are viewable by general public. (However, note that your voting records are not public.) This will be the case even after the course has been closed.

This policy may change in time. For example, it may be set up in the near future so that only registered users can read the forum discussions. Whether this change will be made or not depends on any feedback that I may get.

If you do not like the (current) public nature of the forum contents …

This would be an issue when you like to actively engage in forum discussions, but you do not like to be identified in public. [Perhaps, you might like an anonymity, even when the discussion contents are viewable only by your classmates, assuming that the access control policy is changed in the near future.]

I understand that this can be the preference. If this is the case for you, then I recommend you to do the following. Create a user name (like "slug1973") that has nothing to do with you, and post your messages with that user name.

In this case, you must let me know your real identity, however. This is necessary for my management. If your email address registered along with your account is a ucsc.edu email address, then I automatically know who you are. Your email address will not be, or should not be, readable by other users. If you use a pseudonym and a private email address, then you must notify me who you are. If you do not, then your account may be diabled.