[kwlug-disc] Should kwlug-disc archives be private?

[Bob Jonkman]

I've also gone back to the archives when a topic comes up again [and
again]* , just to see what contrary opinions were expressed back then.

While doing that I've also been sucked into the rabbit hole of the
archives, purely for their entertainment value.  I wouldn't do that with
a list I'm not subscribed to (not nearly as much fun).

Of course, as a list member, those archives would probably still be
available to me even if they were made private.

--Bob.


On 2018-11-28 4:05 p.m., Benjamin Tompkins wrote:
> I have used archives of a mailing list to get an idea of the community
> involved before either a) posting or b) joining.
> 
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 3:51 PM Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc <
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> wrote:
> 
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 12:06:21AM -0500, Andrew Sullivan Cant wrote:
>>> On 2018-11-26 3:45 a.m., Paul Nijjar via kwlug-disc wrote:
>>>> A few weeks ago a list member contacted me privately. This person was
>>>> uncomfortable participating on the mailing list because the archives
>>>> are public, and show up in search engine results.
>>>
>>> Did they give any more details about their concerns?
>>> (e.g., email being published, content of the messages being published)
>>
>> The person in question was surprised/dismayed to do a DuckDuckGo
>> search on their name and find the archives show up. Their perception
>> of the list was that it was not as public as it is. As a result they
>> are reluctant to participate on the list in the future.
>>
>> I see the point. There is a qualitative difference between making our
>> posts public to a community of people and making our posts public so
>> that unknown giant entities can vacuum up our data for surveillance
>> and/or profit.
>>
>> We tend to dismiss such distinctions (as Chris notes,
>> anybody could publish all the archives, or CSIS/Facebook could join
>> the mailing list) but I feel those distinctions of intent are real. We
>> just don't have a good way of discussing them.
>>
>> Here are two followup questions:
>>
>> - Regardless of philosophical positions as to whether the archives
>>   ought to be open, are there additional stories where people have
>>   actually used the openness of the archives for some purpose? Bob
>>   gave us one example when he talked about linking to particular
>>   posts. Are there others?
>>
>> - Are there members of this list who would prefer the list be private
>>   but are not participating in the discussion because they feel
>>   intimidated by the strong stance expressed, or because the list is
>>   public and they are concerned about their privacy? (People who are
>>   less concerned about the archives being public are exactly the
>>   people who are more inclined to participate in this discussion,
>>   after all.) If you are in this camp, please contact me offline. I
>>   will take a tally of you and relay your concerns (without your name)
>>   to this thread.
>>
>>
>> - Paul
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> kwlug-disc mailing list
>> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
>> http://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>>
> 
> 
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-- 
Bob Jonkman <bjonkman at sobac.com>          Phone: +1-519-635-9413
SOBAC Microcomputer Services             http://sobac.com/sobac/
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