On 8/1/02 1:10 PM, "J C Lawrence" <claw@kanga.nu> wrote:
> Among list owners its not a particularly uncommon view. However among
> list users I find it is rather uncommon -- the more laissez faire model
> which says that content is essentially public domain as soon as it
> leaves your network seems more common at a percentage level.
I don't disagree, but I think you're missing the point.
It's not content. It's (sigh) spam.
I don't think most users particularly care what kind of restrictions (or
lack of them) are put on their postings. But if they get spammed by someone
using an email address they tie back to your mail list, they're coming after
you looking for your butt ina sling.
Even if that leak was caused by a user subscribed on mac.com who forwards it
to his hotmail address, which forwards it to his home computer, where he put
it all on a web site so he could follow the list while he was on vacation
for two weeks. It's still the list-mom's butt in a sling, until proven
otherwise.
Content access doesn't bother me a bit. Protecting the user's email address
from abuse does. So for me, control of "outside" archives and gateways isn't
a content issue -- I'm all for that, honestly -- but making sure that the
user's email address doesn't leak. Any outside archive that can do that is a
friend of mine. Any that doesn't is blacklisted. Period. Content issues come
into it in some other ways (I have 'issues' with folks turning my content
into their revenue stream without my permission, or at least without my
getting a percentage), but in this case, it's the identify protection that
drives it, not the "protection of content".
My analogy is this. Think of the mailing list as community bulletin board.
Users don't have (or shoudln't have) any expectation that a for-sale ad
plopped on the cork board in the town square can be protected. At the same
time, no user should feel they can't use the cork board because if they do,
they start getting abusive phone calls at 3AM. I'm out watching for that 3am
Perv, not the person taking stuff off the board and sticking it on a web
site somewhere....
> The topic is important and interesting to be sure, especially if, like
> Chuq, you have questions of corporate asset, legal liability, and
> shareholder interest to protect, but most of the world, and in
> particular most of the list world, is not in that position.
And our legal interest is in protecting email addresses, not hoarding
inforamtion. We actually want to distribute the information MORE widely, not
less. But safely.
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/
Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven't fallen
asleep yet.
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