Here is an example of why I am personally uncomfortable with the BS threads being easily shared.

Dani, hope you don't mind, but I am going to use the two of us as an example.

Dani and I both use the same name on Mudcat that we are known by in the place where we live, a small community. We are very close and intimate friends. We have both lived in the same small community for a long time, attend the same church, shared a booth at the farmer's market for a couple of years, and have kids the same age who went all the way through elementary school together. We know, or are acquainted with a large number of the same people, but that does not mean we are good friends of the same people. Dani has local friends on Facebook that I do not, and visa versa.

Few of those people would be likely to stumble across my postings to BS threads through a Google search on any given topic. While it is possible, it is not probable. If, however, Dani were to share one of those threads on Facebook, a number of people that I know, am acquainted with, or perhaps know who I am even if I do not know who they are probably will read it, and will correctly assume that Janie on Mudcat is the Janie they know, or know of, in 3-D. Or will wonder. Then, Dani's local friends on Facebook have other local friends on Facebook who are not Facebook friends to either Dani or me, but may well know or have some local indirect link through family, friends, work or community involvement to one or both of us. Perhaps one of those friends pass on the link. Easy for something to go "viral" in a small community.

I reveal a lot about my personal beliefs, philosophy and attitudes, as well as some personal information about my relationships in threads on Mudcat. It is a large, international site. My next door neighbor could run across that thread on Mudcat through a search engine, and have no idea or inkling that the "Janie" posting is their next door neighbor. A person who reads that same thread because Dani linked it on Facebook, might very easily decide that it is me. It has been the very rare occasion, if at all, that I have posted anything or written in a way that would embarrass me, but if I don't choose to share my personal views on politics, religion, or fart jokes with my next-door-neighbor in 3 D, I am not comfortable with them reading those views on a Mudcat thread that Dani linked to.

It is very much a privacy issue. If Joe Blow from Peoria reads what "Janie" posts to the 'Cat, I am still anonymous. Not so if the the leader of the alter guild at church reads it because Dani linked to it.

More importantly to me, I am a social worker who has worked in the public mental health facility that serves our county for a number of years, and also have a private practice here. It is hard work to maintain the boundaries necessary to be an effective therapist when one both lives and works in the same small, rural community. It is essential to my effectiveness as a therapist that many of my personal views remain personal. I can tell you it is a very small world where I live and work, and will leave it at that.

Perhaps I am the only person on Mudcat for which that kind of loss of probable anonymity is likely or even important, but I doubt that.

I note that a number of people in favor of the "share button" keep saying that anyone can come across Mudcat threads with the proper search term, and/or that it is possible already to link to Mudcat threads at other sites.    Please note that most, if not all of us who have serious reservations acknowledge these facts in our posts, but are inclined to think that having to do just a little more work to do so is a good thing as it allows some time for thought.