Just picking up on Patrick van der Valk's reference to DejaNews - perhaps this is what he was alluding to - I've just noticed that this site seems to have added a relatively new feature (or perhaps I don't use it frequently enough), called 'author profile'. This is accessible once you've completed a keyword search and get some email addresses back, and provides a record of every newsgroup posting made (only going back for a limited period?) by a given individual, to any newsgroup, even those on completely unrelated topics. So if you want to find out someone's 'extracurricular' interests, beyond their workaday sci.chem postings, there's a pretty easy way to do it once you've located at least one of their posted messages. Of course, these are all public forums, as every newsgroup user should know. But is there something slightly unsettling about all your old messages being made available on a plate for everyone to see? As time goes on, will people be able to dredge up your more foolish off-hand remarks from decades past? And how long will it be before potential employers use a sift through DejaNews to help screen those final short-listed job candidates? (Hands up anyone who's used it that way already . . . ) ----------------------------------- Andrew Miller Editor, Chemistry & Industry SCI, 15 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PS editor@chemind.demon.co.uk ----- chemweb: A list for Chemical Applications of the Internet. Archived as: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/chemweb/ To unsubscribe, send to listserver@ic.ac.uk the following message; unsubscribe chemweb List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@ic.ac.uk)