[Peace-discuss] Closed archives

[Stuart Levy]

On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 12:22:20AM -0800, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
> I do forward interesting AWARE stuff to aware friends in other states, so
> that could have been when/how my posting went public... 

As things are now, every message sent to peace-discuss
(or to peace) is visible to anyone who looks at the web site,
including web crawlers like Google.

I'm inclined to say that "peace" as an announcements list should
remain open to the public, while "peace-discuss" might go either way.

If it remains an open list, the interesting things people express
and republish here can be seen by the world, and there's a
public record of our public activities.   But, the senders'
identities are exposed, and there might occasionally be sensitive
information mentioned which should go unrevealed (such as the
true name of a visiting Palestinian-rights activist who goes by
a pseudonym for her family's safety), or strategies for action
which will remain more effective if they're surprising, or whatever.

Since anyone is allowed to join the peace* mailing lists, it will
never be an effective way to keep a secret from someone who knows
to look here for information; but it could be argued that we'll
speak more freely if things posted here won't show up in Google
search results.

What do people think?  So far Bob I. has spoken, but I haven't
heard from anyone else either way.

   Stuart