Brigitt
thought personally I do not wish to enter this conversation, I hear
your hurt, which sadens me.
this note is to send you a hug and thanks for all that you have done to
support the nurturing of OST and the growth of my own learning
with love
Romy
On 29 Mar 2004, at 03:53, Birgitt Williams wrote:
Dear friends and colleagues on the list,
I have done considerable thinking and meditating about the existence
of the archives of this list and about the fact that the list is now
open to being searchable through the world wide web. It appears that I
cannot do anything about the decisions made. I am sad that we do not
have a democratic process in this community for decision making and I
am sad that decisions are made on behalf of a community by a few.
Those decisions are then recorded in the FAQ's and captured as what
appear to be the 'givens' for this community.
I have read a number of items regarding building community for list
serves, the importance of protection and safety for its members so
that the community is a real community. I am deeply saddened that
through the opening of our list to world wide web in the way that it
has been opened now by a decision made by someone who has the power to
do this on our behalf without a decision making process within the
community, that in my opinion we no longer have a community. People
can access our conversations without ever taking the responsibility of
identifying themselves to us. There is no equal energy exchange
between these people and those who contribute to the list by
participating in community either as speakers or listening learners.
Also, when our list archives are accessible through the search engines
on the www, our e-mail addresses are now available to the public
whether we want them to be or not. And as you all know, this means
that these addresses are now likely to be 'harvested' by the spiders
who 'harvest' e-mail addresses to send out spam mail to them. We have
been opened to this and without the community permission. From my
perspective, any belief that there is now a community is an illusion.
I have invested a lot of my time, energy, heart in contributions to
the list for many years in my passion about what I believed was an
important community. I am so so sad at this violation.
Some years ago, on the list, I was made aware that the list had
archives and it was happily announced at the time that the archives
could be accessed by anyone on the list. I was fairly unfamiliar at
the time with how all of this worked and I was deeply disturbed that
there were archives and I spoke against them at the time, only to be
told by Harrison and others that I was naive if I had assumed there
were no archives captured for the list. I noted for myself that
everyone who accessed the archives had to sign in to the list, and so
I fell silent on the subject thinking that in a very arms length way,
these people, by signing in to the list to get to the archives were
also part of the list.
Over time, most people on the list who used my materials from the list
also used great professional courtesy and sent me a note about the
intended use to get my permission, knowing that once words are
written, it is like a copyright on those words. I was grateful to
these people. I always gave permission to use my words but sometimes I
asked for a change to include more context so that my words kept the
same meaning that I intended them to have by being kept in the context
in which they were written. When my words have been used out of
context by people who did not have the professional courtesy of
letting me know they were using them and indeed publishing them, that
was another situation and one that I haven't known how to deal with.
For me, the recent announcement by Michael Herman that the archives
are now open to be searchable on the world wide web was one to which I
immediately expressed my dismay. I realize that I cannot change what
is being done by people who have power on our behalf. I don't even
know who they are because they have never identified themselves as our
executive or some such. But, they appear to be the decison makers.
I cannot do anything to change this situation that has troubled me so
much. I can however express my own needs very very clearly so that
they are not misunderstood. I have been a significant contributor to
this community through this list almost since it began. I did this to
support this community to the best of my ability and to do my part in
assisting with the building of this community to the best of my
ability. I didn't do this to assist in the creation of a data base
that would be used by researchers and others. My vested interest was
in community support and community strengthening. Archives of this
list have been kept and it has been without my permission to keep
archives of my writing and they have been kept without letting us know
from the beginning that a 'given' of this list was to have archives.
Archives of this which includes my contributions have now been opened
to the worldwide web and its search engines without my permission to
use my contributions in this way.
I am hereby giving notice to those who have made this decision that my
contributions are copyrighted and that anyone using my contributions
to the world wide web in any paper, article, thesis, or book that they
are writing must request my permission to do so. I am holding those
who made my contributions available to the search engines of the
worldwide web accountable for my copyrighted material which I made
available for one purpose and is now being used for another purpose to
which I did not agree. I am deeply concerned that my materials be
quoted by noting the context in which they are written and not pulled
apart piecemeal creating the illusion that I have said or implied
something that I did not say or imply. I request that those on this
list who have made the decision to put make our archives available to
the world wide web search engines identify themselves to the list so
that I know who the decision makers on this list are and so that I
know who to hold accountable.
I am also deeply concerned that my sharing from the heart including
sharing about my personal life which I did a lot in the early days of
this community has become available to others for whom it was not
written, to now read. In my research, I have discovered that most
designs for lists intended for community never violate that community.
I am not naive to have made assumptions that we were a community and
that our sharing was for our community. This is a clear situation of
'givens' being made along the way,on behalf of a community, by a few
in power. Again, this information is copyrighted and permission must
be asked of me to publish this information in any way. Again, I am
holding the decision makers on this list who have made my
contributions to this list community available to search engines on
the world wide web accountable for the protection of my copyrighted
material.
I have loved this list community as an important part of my life for a
long time. It is my hope that there will be some understanding of what
I am prepared to engage in and what I am not prepared to engage in
with my energy and that my decision about the materials that I have
submitted to the list over the years falls within my definition for
myself of what I am available for and what I am not. I am available to
contribute to this community.
Birgitt Williams
* * ==========================================================
[email protected] ------------------------------ To
subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
[email protected], Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
*
*
==========================================================
[email protected]
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of [email protected],
Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
