To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 02:09:44 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: LJ matters
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003 21:53:55 -0400 (EDT) "Keith F. Lynch"
<kfl at KeithLynch.net> writes:

> I've seen nothing shameful or secret in any WSFAn's livejournal.
> Not to mention, they've all deliberately been placed, by their authors,

> on the World Wide Web, where anyone on the planet can read them.
>

The rub is that many regard their web postings, chat group postings, and
other traces they may intentionally or unintentionally leave on the
internet, as somewhat private, probably because they believe that the
postings and other artifacts are quite unlikely to be accidently found by
someone who knows them, in the normal course of events.  People who are
'famous' (e.g. Tom Clancy), will not have such an expectation, because
millions know of them.  But the average person, who is known to a circle
of friends, acquaintances, current and former co-workers or schoolmates,
etc., numbering in the low hundreds, rather than being known to millions,
is effectively anonymous on the web even under their own name, to
something like 99.99+% of all internet users.  A friend of mine in
Bethesda who is an avid internet user once asked me about my seahorse
collection.  I don't have a seahorse collection.  But someone named Ron
Kean, who lives in the Netherlands I think, does have a seahorse
collection and has posted photos of it on the web.

The growth of the internet has raised questions of etiquette in contexts
so new that it is often not clear how to apply the traditions of
etiquette to the new medium.  For example, there is the question of
whether it is proper to incidentally reveal someone's email address to
another without explicit permission.  Several times, I have cc'd Keith
Lynch when asking, or answering, a technical question from someone else,
if I thought Keith might be interested, and especially if I thought it
might be good for him to join the conversation.  Keith has never
complained about that, nor would I expect him to, since Keith seems
always glad to meet interesting new people over the net.  But generally,
I am  careful about cc'ing people without asking first, because some
people take offense at that.

I am a co-moderator on a libertarian email list, and recently the
moderators of that list decided to delete the message archive, numbering
over 10,000 messages, going back years, because increasing numbers of
list members were becoming concerned that old messages could be dredged
up, taken out of context, and used to embarrass list members, or be used
as fodder for 'he said, she said' recriminations.  So now, we routinely
delete messages in the archive which are more than about one month old.

Ron Kean

.

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