I think I might need to make the point here that I do not normally forward 'personal' posts from insights to anyone else, and if I do, I ask their permission. I do, however, forward, print and distribute items from both Assembly and Synod updates, press releases from church agencies, letters from moderators and presidents and anything else that is clearly intended to be in the public domain.
Clare writes: > > Judy Redman wrote: > > > Clare writes: > > > > > (which I think is a good thing, spam-wise), so I think one > needs to consider > > that anything posted to the list is a public comment at least within the > > UCA. If it's not something you're comfortable about having > everyone in the > > Uniting Church hear, then this list is probably not the place > to post it. > > This, of course, is very different to passing posts from the list on to > > members of the media and other people outside the Uniting > Church, for which > > I would expect people to ask my permission. > > I think that's a pretty artificial distinction. Many people on the list > aren't UCA members (myself included, possibly) and many UCA members > aren't on the list. Standard list protocol is usually to ask > permission, if only out of courtesy, before passing on a post to a > non-member. After all, who's to say there might not be some personal > issue unknown about between the list member and someone you pass it on to? While what Clare says about personal issues is true, there is no way for average list members to know if there some personal issue between themselves and other list members, either. Even Stephen and the people who do the IT support for our ISP can only find out what email addresses are subscribed, and the rest of us only know about those who post or who have said something about reading our posts - there are a large number of lurkers on this list. The fact that we have lurkes is just fine, but it makes it unwise for members of the list to post anything to this list that they are not happy for their best friend, their boss, members of their staff or their worst enemy to read because any or all of them might be subscribed without us knowing. I think the point I was trying to make was that I am only concerned about my posts being disseminated further when they are likely to be reproduced in a less ephemeral form than email and/or read by people who do not have the particular background necessary to put what I am saying in context. > The other factor that came up in the discussion on it last year, though, > was that it's actually a legal requirement under the Privacy Act to get > permission before quoting someone. We may well have said this, but I don't think it's actually true for most posts sent to this list. I don't have time to re-read the Privacy Act, but my understanding is that it is only concerned with the use of private information and states that anyone in receipt of information about a person that makes her/him identifiable can only use it for the purposes for which it was collected and cannot pass it on to a third party without the consent of the person who provided the information. Thus, as long as you removed all identifying info (name, address, phone number, email address etc), you could forward posts anywhere without getting the author's consent. I think it would actually be quite difficult to make a case that forwarding material that simply contained the author's name is in breach of the Privacy Act, given that there are many ways in which posting to insights, or any other publicly accessible unmodified e-list is very much like writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine. You send it with the intent that it be read by the readership of the list/paper, with no way of knowing who might be part of that readership either as subscribers, so I would suggest that forwarding posts that have the poster's name but no other contact details probably comes under the conditions of fair dealing with respect to copyright, rather than privacy. It is only when you forward a complete unedited posting in such a way that it sends contact details as well as names that you are breaching the privacy act, and possibly not even then if the person is a public figure and you have only forwarded information that is readily accessible in the public domain. Whether or not it is courteous is a different issue. I guess that as a minister, I might be less sensitive about what people do with what I say than those who are not ordained, but I tend to assume that anything I say that is 'heard' by more than a handful of people at once is in the public domain and while I might appreciate it if my hearers tell me when they pass it on, it's not necessary. At least when people forward on my emails they have a better chance of not misquoting me. :-) > > > If we want to go the way of getting permission to pass any > posts at all on, > > that needs to be included in the welcome message that people > get when they > > subscribe and someone also needs to remind members periodically. > > Agreed completely, and there was some attempt to draw up a list protocol > - what happened to that in the end, Stephen? I suspect that expecting people who join an email list by email (rather than from the website) will necessarily check the info on the website is overly optimisitic. Judy -- "Politics is the work we do to keep the world safe for our spirituality" - Judith Plaskow Rev Judy Redman Uniting Church Chaplain University of New England Armidale 2351 ph: +61 2 6773 3739 fax: +61 2 6773 3749 web: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/ action for peace: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/links/peace.html email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
