[Peace-discuss] Closed archives

[John W.]

At 10:26 AM 12/28/2007, Stuart Levy wrote:

>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


I would cast my vote in the strongest possible terms for closed archives, 
for the following reasons:

1) Not all of our mailing list communications show up on Google searches, 
for some reason, but only a smattering of them.  Thus our statements appear 
outside the context of the entire thread, and can easily be misinterpreted.

2) It's one thing to express one's opinions in the context of a small group 
with whom one has certain basic beliefs in common, and quite another to 
make one's opinions available to the entire world via Google.  While we 
still should probably not advocate the violent overthrow of the United 
States government on the peace-discuss list, nevertheless I think that 
there is a certain basic level of trust that we can assume in a closed 
mailing list whose beliefs are well known and to which we ascribe.

3) People change.  I may not want to be reminded of statements made by me 
five or ten years ago, beliefs which I have since renounced or statements 
made without sufficient prior thought.  Plus, as I said above, the 
statements as dredged up by Google are out of context.  I don't want to be 
embarrassed by them, or worse, at a later date.

There are probably even more good arguments in favor of closed 
archives.  By contrast, what good arguments can be made in favor of having 
our discussions on a local mailing list made available, more or less 
randomly, to the entire world?

John Wason