A couple of people have suggested that we should not include any list
information in our directory unless the list owner proactively contacts us
and tells us to do so. I wanted to highlight that we are not building our
directory from scratch, but by consolidating information from well known
public directories. Several list owners from whom we originally got feedback
suggested that we should not contact list owners at all, since their lists
were already in these public directories. However, we found out that many
owners were not aware of the fact that their lists were in these
directories, and we felt it was important for them to know it (plus, we
wanted to make it very easy for list owners to modify or delete their
information).
Probably a bigger issue with an approach that would only include lists whose
owners proactively contact us is that we would not be able to offer what we
believe is a valuable service to the email list community. Most people agree
(I believe) that services like Yahoo!, Lycos and HotBot have made the Web a
much better place. Yet those services would not exist if they had only
included web sites whose owners proactively contacted them with instructions
to be included in their directories. These services don't even give web site
owners any notification that they have been included in their directories,
or much control over their information.
We realize that email lists are quite different from web sites (that is why
we are building a service dedicated to lists). Because of this, and of our
respect towards list owners and strong believe in their ownership of their
lists' information, we decided it was important to contact list owners and
give them control over their lists' information - even thought our directory
has been built by consolidating previously existing public directories.
We realize there is no perfect answer. We are making a very sincere effort
at balancing all of these issues in a way that best serves the entire email
list owner community. We will continue to do so, and will certainly
incorporate your feedback. Thank you.
Ariel Poler.
