Why do some people say not to quote their post?

[tiramisucheese]

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Members don't see this ad.

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

 

[md-2020]

There might be sensitive/personal info that they would like to remove from the internet at a later date, after their question/thread is answered.

 

[NotASerialKiller]

Naivete

 

[cactusman]

They're masochists and they feel joy when someone quotes their post just to annoy them.

 

[McRibs]

They derive too much of their identity from an online forum board.

 

[Catalystik]

Why do some people say not to quote their post?
Sorry if this is a dumb question.

They don't realize that we have some members who will go out of their way to quote their information in order to help teach them that nothing is private once you post on the internet.

 

[tiramisucheese]

They don't realize that we have some members who will go out of their way to quote their information in order to help teach them that nothing is private once you post on the internet.

Thanks all! In all honesty, nothing makes me want to quote a post more than when someone instructs me not to...more out of selfish pleasure than as an instructive lesson though, hah.

 

[Catalystik]

Thanks all! In all honesty, nothing makes me want to quote a post more than when someone instructs me not to...more out of selfish pleasure than as an instructive lesson though, hah.

Unfortunately, asking not to be quoted also deters responders with the larger purpose of helping others with similar questions. Many premeds lurk here and learn through others' experiences.

 

[Lucca]

As a PSA, the chance that you will be identified from information on a post on SDN is very, very small, for several reasons.

1) You are not as unique as you think you are. Your GPA and MCAT combo describe hundreds if not thousands of other applicants in the cycle. Your EC descriptions are probably nothing special. So you did two summers of research and volunteered at a food pantry. Even rarer ECs like Study Abroad and College Sports are not that uncommon in the grand scheme of things. Unless you literally won a national or international award, compete in the Olympics and then proceed to say "I won the gold medal in X event in the 20XX Olympics" on SDN, it is unlikely anyone will be able to identify you.

2) Adcoms aren't on here trying to figure out who people are. Sure, by pure dumb luck one of the adcoms who are also established SDN members might recognize you. They are a handful among a much larger number of adcoms. I couldnt think of a bigger waste of time than trying to use SDN WAMC posts to identify people IRL.

and more.

Furthermore, even if you were identified, who cares? Unless you are also posting incredibly problematic stuff on SDN, what is an adcom going to do with your SDN identity? Watch every post you make for an excuse to reject you? When they receive your actual, real application they will have your name and if they wanted to snoop on your online presence they would just google you or try to look for you on social media, if they try to search for that information at all.

Adcoms on here have said that they typically discuss applicants in meetings for 15-30 minutes at most. They are not going to waste several hours checking up on random SDN posts to try to figure out if maybe, just maybe that person's application passed through their desk.

Some people don't want others IRL to know they use SDN but those people likely care even less about that than adcoms do.

 

[enchantediris]

As a PSA, the chance that you will be identified from information on a post on SDN is very, very small, for several reasons.

1) You are not as unique as you think you are. Your GPA and MCAT combo describe hundreds if not thousands of other applicants in the cycle. Your EC descriptions are probably nothing special. So you did two summers of research and volunteered at a food pantry. Even rarer ECs like Study Abroad and College Sports are not that uncommon in the grand scheme of things. Unless you literally won a national or international award, compete in the Olympics and then proceed to say "I won the gold medal in X event in the 20XX Olympics" on SDN, it is unlikely anyone will be able to identify you.

2) Adcoms aren't on here trying to figure out who people are. Sure, by pure dumb luck one of the adcoms who are also established SDN members might recognize you. They are a handful among a much larger number of adcoms. I couldnt think of a bigger waste of time than trying to use SDN WAMC posts to identify people IRL.

and more.

Furthermore, even if you were identified, who cares? Unless you are also posting incredibly problematic stuff on SDN, what is an adcom going to do with your SDN identity? Watch every post you make for an excuse to reject you? When they receive your actual, real application they will have your name and if they wanted to snoop on your online presence they would just google you or try to look for you on social media, if they try to search for that information at all.

Adcoms on here have said that they typically discuss applicants in meetings for 15-30 minutes at most. They are not going to waste several hours checking up on random SDN posts to try to figure out if maybe, just maybe that person's application passed through your desk.

Some people don't want others IRL to know they use SDN but those people likely care even less about that than adcoms do.

To add to your post, the only time I've ever identified someone I know IRL on SDN was by chance when they posted something similar on a school thread and on Facebook, and happened to have the same profile picture for both accounts. If not for that coincidence, I doubt I would have been able to identify them just by their posting habits.

 

[TelemarketingEnigma]

I've identified one person on SDN that I know in real life, and that was because of their username rather than post content. My reaction was not "gee let me use this information they've posted to blackmail them" but rather "I'm glad to see that someone else I know is going through the same things and also neurotically lurking on SDN"

 

[Lawpy]

They don't realize that we have some members who will go out of their way to quote their information in order to help teach them that nothing is private once you post on the internet.

And this is bad measure on their part. By doing so, they are directly disrespecting members' privacy just to make some random point about the internet. Granted, if something is personal and people need help, they should directly PM the adcoms/faculty addressing their concerns. But people don't realize this in times of desperation and they don't want to out themselves publicly. Quoting their posts despite explicitly saying not to quote them is arrogant, demeaning and unprofessional. It's important to answer the questions directly and not derail the conversation to discuss something that's irrelevant.

 

[Dr. Stalker]

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Premeds sometimes will reveal too much about themselves and thus, their anonymity is gone. To eradicate that, they ask you to not quote (i.e. "511 mcat, 3.589435908gpa at X University, my hair color is brown, male, asian american, specifically ___, attached is a photo of me, chance me!!!!). No need to give away your identity, often times an MCAT+GPA and State of Residence is more than enough to determine a school list.

 

[Catalystik]

Premeds sometimes will reveal too much about themselves and thus, their anonymity is gone. To eradicate that, they ask you to not quote (i.e. "511 mcat, 3.589435908gpa at X University, my hair color is brown, male, asian american, specifically ___, attached is a photo of me, chance me!!!!).

. . . . and here is the citation for a paper I published.

[Please don't do this. You can create a fictional version to give the flavor of what you're trying to convey.]

 

[Dr. Stalker]

. . . . and here is the citation for a paper I published.

[Please don't do this. You can create a fictional version to give the flavor of what you're trying to convey.]

Lmao, bonus points if OP in your hypothetical says "BTW I'm second author" clearly giving it all away haha.