[ftaadelegation] Delegation list archives

[Jon Falk]

Hi all-

As Katie discovered yesterday to her surprise,  postings to this FTAA 
delegation listserv are placed in a publicly-accessible archive on the Web, at:
        <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/>

While I sent out a message about the archive when we first set the list up, 
Katie's discovery made me realize that I did not explain the archiving 
well, or lead the sort of discussion about the implications of a public 
archive that we should have had.  So here it is, better late than never.

Mail-Archive.com is a free service run by a few volunteers.  E-mail 
addresses are automatically removed from messages, to protect privacy and 
prevent spam.  However, the content of messages is all there, which is good 
for us if there are things list members want to go back and re-read, but 
potentially bad if we are writing things we don't want everyone to 
see.  The archiving is either "on" or "off" - I can't edit out or delete 
individual messages.  It is very easy to stop the archiving of all future 
messages.  However, I don't know if it is possible to delete the existing 
message archive.  I can pursue this if people feel there are messages that 
they don't want preserved and shared.

If anyone feels that messages should not be archived, then I think it would 
be best to err on the idea of caution and privacy, and stop the 
archiving.  In that case, we would all be responsible for preserving our 
own copies of the list messages.

If this seems confusing, then please speak up and I'll try to explain more 
- I think it's important that we all understand what's going on.

Jon



Jonathan Falk
RR 2, Box 7162
Carmel, ME  04419
(207)848-2433