guest download from Google Earth Community

Hi

Glad that the GEC forum is going on in here.

By sort of accident I accessed the GEC on a device and browser without logging in. I see this:

Google Earth Community Forums
Oops, there was an error!
Guests do not have access to download attachments. Please log in and try again.

I sure hope, wish that everyone can download from our new forum.

Thanks
Tom

Hi Tom,

You can read the forums and look around to see if they interest you, but to comment or download you must register.

You can read the forums and look around to see if they interest you, but to ... download you must register.

I certainly hope this will not continue to be the case. I know you told me that this was done to prevent nonmembers from stealing content, but I think lack of real access by the general public would be a serious mistake. I do not like the idea of anyone stealing my work and passing it off as their own, but that's quite difficult to completely prevent, and it has substantial downside.

Barring downloading would prevent non-members who do not wish, or find it difficult, to register from having legitimate access. For example, I spent last Saturday with Yoneda-san, the archeologist who taught me so much about kofuns and whose work was the core of my post on the search for Takayasu Castle. He read many of my posts on the old forum, but I don't think he'd be comfortable becoming a member of this one. He took me to 5 kofun, 2 museums, a very old shrine, and an ancient road, to explain to me a monograph that he had recently published. I thought that it would make an interesting post, but I wouldn't want to undertake such a difficult project if I knew my audience would be limited.

I'm not sure if it is related, but perhaps it is: This forum does not seem to be open to web searches. I don't know this for certain, but the oldest post I could easily find, The Ledge's post on Henry Hobart, posted on March 21, is still not findable in a Google search. Whether this is a separate issue or a related one, I think it is an extremely undesirable condition and greatly cools my enthusiasm for participation. I'm not particularly interested in posting to a forum where my audience is limited to 4 or 5 people, plus the administrators, the gamers, and the spotters of planes, trains, and fancy automobiles. (God bless the gamers! They have kept the GEC afloat in lean times, and I admire their skill and would probably join them if I only had a small modicum of it, but most of them seem to confine their activity to the Fun and Games forum and seem to seldom read or write content in other areas.)

>> I'm not sure if it is related, but perhaps it is: This forum does not seem to be open to web searches.

The only point I can at the moment add to this thread is that it is open to web searches. Actually, we need to wait for some weeks to see the first results.

Could we open kml attachments in devices, BTW?

The only point I can at the moment add to this thread is that it is open to web searches. Actually, we need to wait for some weeks to see the first results.

That's good news!  It removes half of my concern.

As for the "devices," I presume you mean smart phones and pads.  I don't own any, but I always assumed that there was no way to open a KMZ / KML in one now.  Can you?

Can you?

Gladly, no. So that, when I am away from my laptop, there is silence and peace.

Gladly, no. So that, when I am away from my laptop, there is silence and peace. 

 Hahaha, good answer, Tek!

This forum is open to web searches.

Web Search

Hi

sorry for a bit late reply.

As for 'devices' - I have no problem open kml/kmz on my IOS and Android devices. Beyond that GE apps on 'devices' challenge one (me) on navigation with kml/kmz. But this and that was not the main issue of my thread :-)

:-) Glad to see that it seems that (as Posted by ET_Explorer 23 Apr 2015 at 14:51)
that general search is indexed and so making information of this great forum open to the world.

Like any of the various old versions of the Google Earth Community or in any other Google Earth related other communities, I have never seen that it has been required to join to access content.
In my humble opinion (and by experience of a(nother) forum) you will only gain new (0-1 post and a lot of add's) members by forcing to join to get access. I prefer that new joined users are real engaged users.

So please consider if this restriction have a fair reason.

Thanks
Tom