Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 01:05:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA]  Re: Phone Numbers
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Five years ago, when I started placing WSFA Journals online, I first
made sure there was a CLEAR consensus on what was acceptable.  The
UNANIMOUS consensus was that names and phone numbers were opt-out, and
that current street addresses and email addresses (but not towns, and
not PO boxes, and not past street addresses) of past and present WSFA
members were opt-in.  If I hadn't gotten this consensus, I wouldn't
have done all this work.  Nor would I have asked Wade, Sam, and others
to help.

Just to be clear, I have *not* been adding journals with street
addresses or email addresses, and later removing that information from
those online journals.  This information was never on our website to
begin with.

It wouldn't be difficult for me to go through all the journals online
and remove all the phone numbers.  Nor would it be difficult for me
to go through all of them again a few months later and remove all
the names.  Or to go through them a third time and remove all of
some other category of information.  But after a few such iterations,
why even bother?  I would have just as little interest in putting up
such bowdlerized and mangled journals as anyone would have in reading
them.  It would be better to put the whole project out of its misery
and shut down our website.

We might as well shut down the club, too.  After all, you can never
be sure that the person sitting next to you in a meeting isn't an
FBI agent making careful notes of everything you say and do.  If you
accidentally let slip what your phone number is, he might just devote
the rest of his life to calling it over and over again, so that you'll
never again get a moment's peace.  It's possible.  And if you have a
soft drink at a meeting, someone might carefuly fish the can out of
the trash so as to plant your DNA and fingerprints at a crime scene.

And, of course, there's absolutely no difference between LexisNexis
and ChoicePoint storing millions of people's SSNs, DOBs, salaries,
criminal records, medical records, etc., unencrypted on laptop PCs
protected from thieves only by being stored in plain view in locked
cars, and the WSFA website mentioning the phone numbers of members.

Sometimes I really wonder why I bother.  The people who come to
meetings and never *do* anything get a whole lot fewer complaints.
And the people who no longer bother to come to meetings at all get
the fewest of all.

Mike, is there any information about you that's on the WSFA website
that you would like me to remove?  Would you like me to replace every
mention of your name with some alias?  All you have to do is say the
word, and I will do it.

What brought this on, anyway?  Was it the privacy notice that I post
along with every new WSFA Journal availability announcement?  I'm
trying to bend over backwards.  I don't know what more I can do except
shut the whole thing down.  And wear a paper bag over my head and ask
permission of everyone within visual range before peeking.  "Hey, you
glanced at me without asking permission first!  I'm going to sue you
for a Godzillion dollars and Mothra cents!"