List business -- How private are your postings?

[Conrad Hoffsommer]

Piano type listers:

This reminds me of a discussion we had on pianotech some time ago. I don't
think we have any similar problems now, but felt it could be food for thought.

(I do have his permission to send it on as long as I give credit - hence the
header.)

>Sender: Harpsichords and Related Topics <HPSCHD-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU>
>From: Ben Chi <BEC@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU>
>Organization: University at Albany Computing and Network Services
>Subject:      List business -- How private are your postings?
>Comments: To: Pipe Organs and Related Topics <piporg-l@albany.edu>
>To: HPSCHD-L@CNSIBM.ALBANY.EDU
>
>A subscriber wrote privately not long ago to the piporg-l list owners
>about the following situation:  It seems that he and some others engaged
>in a frank and not always complimentary exchange on the list regarding
>some topic whose content is immaterial for the present discussion.  The
>subscriber was subsequently dismayed to find that this exchange had been
>quoted at length in a print publication without permission having been
>sought from anybody and felt that confidentiality conventions, if not
>copyright, had been violated.
>
>What should our mutual understanding be regarding the confidentiality of
>communications in such situations?  I think that a clear distinction has
>to be made between the case where one-to-one correspondence is involved
>and that where the mail is directed to a body of (mostly unknown) indi-
>viduals.  In the former case, there is a widely-accepted convention that
>the communication is private and not to be quoted without permission.
>
>In my view, this does not apply to the latter case, where one posts to a
>group >>whose membership one does not control.<<  And if one cannot con-
>trol the composition of one's audience, the net effect is that of a
>>>public statement<< in which case all privacy rights are surrendered.
>That the posting is public follows, a fortiori, from the fact the list
>archives are accessible to everybody (not just subscribers) via the
>piporg-l web page.
>
>All that said, commonly-accepted conventions require that such quotings
>be done with attribution to both the writer and the list so that someone
>who wished to do so could go to the source to check for accuracy and
>context.  (This apparently was not done in this particular instance.)
>
>Executive summary:
>
>1.  Postings to the list should be regarded as in the public record.
>Don't post something you wouldn't want to see in print.
>
>2.  If a posting is to be reproduced elsewhere, provide sufficient in-
>formation to guide the reader to the source, namely the list archives.
>
>                                           /bec
>
>

Conrad Hoffsommer		Office - (319) 387-1204
Acoustic Keyboard Technician	hoffsoco@martin.luther.edu
Luther College 			pno2ner@salamander.com
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