Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 21:55:28 -0500 (EST)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Email issues...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

"Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu> wrote:

> There are a few folks - and no, I don't recall how many - who are
> on only the Yahoo list (and conversely, a few only on the Original
> List).  So be it.

I just think it's unfortunate that some people will see some messages,
others will see other messages, and anyone who subscribes to both
lists so as to see all of them will see many of them twice.

Many past and present WSFAns refuse to have anything to do with Yahoo!
for a variety of reasons, so will never subscribe to the Yahoo! list.

I'm less clear on why anyone who is on that list doesn't want to be on
this one.  Some newer members may be unaware of this list.  Some may
believe that any important message will appear on both lists, and they
don't want to get things twice.  Some may have a grudge against me.
I don't know.

> Yes... because the WSFA Yahoo Group is a publicly accessible group,
> ANYONE can read the messages.  So... should anyone ask a WSFAn about
> the 5 page Screed and rather then trying to explain all of the
> inconsistencies, one can just direct folks to the WSFA Yahoo Group

The club voted that this list would have archives that accessible
to WSFAns but not ones that are accessible to the whole world.  If
there's any interest, I could easily set it up so that some messages
are, and some aren't, accessible to the whole world, depending on how
the sender chooses to tag their message.

> and tell them to do a search for the word "enigmatic" and lo! there
> is Cathy Green's response in all of it's delightful cold lawyer like
> prose deconstruction all what Alexis wrote about her.

And those who are only on this list never saw her message at all.

"Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> wrote:

> Actually, I'd say that everyone lost to one extent or another.

True.  I don't think we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

> The purported reason for the change was to have the "official" WSFA
> list on a system that WSFA controlled, and since you'd left WSFA
> having you host it didn't fit that requirement any longer.  I'm
> still puzzled as to how Yahoo is better, since Yahoo isn't a WSFA
> member either, and specifically prohibits use of their mailing
> list/forums for "corporate" purposes (isn't WSFA incorporated and
> therefore inelligigble?) but whatever.

I think the real reason was, after the Gilliland had stuck a knife
into me, to give the knife a twist.  I was foolish enough to explain
why, of all possible list hosting options, if for some reason the club
wanted to replace this list, Yahoo! was the only really unacceptable
choice.  So of course that's the one that was chosen, knowing that I'd
thereby be permanently locked out by my own choices.  That so would
many other WSFAns, they didn't care.  Apparently it doesn't matter how
many people are hurt so long as I'm one of them.

> I'm only on this list.  That means that if someone posts to both,
> and I reply to both, I'll get a bounce from Yahoo telling me that
> since I'm not subscribed to that list, I can't post to it.

Right.  Conversely, any past or present WSFAn is always free to post
to this list.  Even the Gillilands.  Indeed, I still update my WSFA
attendance database to find the names of everyone who has been to
three or more meetings, so I can whitelist them.  Not that I'm able
to do a very good job of that, as meeting minutes with attendance
information are only online for five of the last fourteen meetings.
I hope that that information at least exists on paper somwhere.  If
not, this is shaping up to be the biggest hole in WSFA's archives
since the 1970s.  (We know more about the WSFA of 1948 than of 1978.)

> Unless I'm misremembering, this list is archived in publicly
> available format too.

Yes and no.  There are no links to the URL of the archives, so Google
and random websurfers never see them.  I do regularly look at the hits
log to make sure there aren't any hits that don't seem to be from
WSFAns.  If we start getting any, I'll immediately move the archives
to a different URL.  (Since they're hosted on a Unix system, this would
take me less than five seconds, as all I have to type an "mv" command.)

(There's also still a copy of the archives on wsfa.org, 13 months out
of date.  I am not able to view its hit logs or to move it to another
URL if necessary.  I did leave the new webmasters instructions which
suggested checking the hits log.  I have know way of knowing if
they've been doing so.)

> And the fact that what you post on that group could be considered
> illegal in any or all of the places Yahoo chooses to store it (their
> server locations), and that some or all of those places might choose
> to indict you for it, and attempt extradition?  Even though the US
> won't extradite for things like that today, no telling what might
> happen in the future with things like the "World Court", right?

More realistically, they *already* sell whatever information they can
to whoever they can.  I stopped having anything to do with Yahoo!
when, as far as I knew, this included only companies that wanted to
stuff my email with "targeted" ads.  Since then we've learned that it
also includes hostile foreign governments.

The information posted to any Yahoo! group belongs to Yahoo!, not to
the poster, and not to WSFA.  The poster loses all rights to it, and
could in principle be sued by Yahoo! for copyright infringement if
they were to later republish it elsewhere.  And Yahoo! reserves the
right ot change their terms and conditions without notice at any time.

Their total lack of business ethics should be obvious just from the
fact that they attach their ads to each message from any yahoo.com
address, to make it look like whoever sent it is asserting that, for
instance, " has the best spam protection around."  I have
long automatically deleted such ads from all messages posted to this
list.  (One sometimes slips through when Yahoo! adds a new ad, but I
always quickly plug the hole.)

> It could limit your travel options anyway.  This list is just stored
> at Keith's place in Virginia, and while they sometimes have really
> stupid old fashioned laws in Virginia, they are nowhere near as
> rabid about speech as China is.

Actually, KeithLynch.net isn't in Virginia, it's in Minnesota.  It's
a single-person operation whose owner is the exact opposite of Yahoo!.
When Global Prosperity Group's lawyer sent me a letter demanding I
cease and desist hosting a denunciation of that group, I sent him a
photocopy of the letter.  He backed me up 100%.  I'm still hosting
that denunciation more than a year later, and you can read it at
http://KeithLynch.net/gp/

I see that wsfa.org is still hosted by Panix, which is in New York.
They're also a good bunch of people.

At the moment, I don't even have a computer booted up here in my
apartment in Virginia.  (So how am I online?  By using advanced
technology that the ancients developed way back in the 1970s, which
was thought to be forever lost in the early 1990s.)