To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 13:49:29 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] archive, archive, where's the archive?
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 11:39:34 -0400 "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net> writes:
>

> How can you be sure one of your list members isn't privately
> archiving the
> messages?  (You can't, of course.)
>

We can't be sure.  We were careful to announce well in advance of
deleting the old archives, that we will do so, to avoid the possibility
of there being a firestorm of protest should the archives be deleted
without notice, so anyone who wished to download them had the
opportunity.  It would take many hours of work to download them all via
the yahoo interface by hand.  As it was, it took several man-hours just
to delete them.

We are not much worried about the messages being privately archived,
partly because there is no way to prevent it, and partly because a
private archive is many times less likely to be abused than a public one.
 To paraphrase H.L. Mencken (or Richard Nixon), those who bet on the
laziness of the public have made a safe bet.

Ron Kean

.

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