Fri, 11 Nov 1994 12:47:04 EST
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Dear List Owners:
I want to thank the dozens of you who
responded to some questions I posed to
this list for an article about mailing
lists in academe that was published in
the Nov. 2 Chronicle of Higher Education.
I can send photocopies of the article to those
who want them. Just send me a snail-mail address.
In researching that article, I became interested
in the issue of how list owners govern. I heard
from some people who said they had been tossed off
of lists because of political differences with the
list manager. The Chronicle has recently had two of its reporters
tossed off of lists after they telephoned people to
pursue stories about what they said on the lists.
The listowners said that reporters did not belong and would
inhibit discussion.
These were not private lists, but ones with open, automated
subscription mechanisms.
My questions have to do with how much power list owners
should rightfully possess?
What are your policies about who gets to be on a list?
Do you consider them private places or public places where
journalists and ideological opponents may lurk?
If you think of them as private places, why not create a
private list for people with specified credentials rather
than keeping them open to everyone except journalists
and those you've identified as enemies?
Are there any checks and balances or appeals
processes that someone can use to try to stay
on the list after you've decided they should go?
If you are operating your list on a university-owned
computer, does your computer center have rules about
whether your lists must be public?
I imagine that the types of incidents that
I've described here are pretty rare and that most of
you have never had to confront these issues.
Nevertheless, I'd like to hear your thoughts
are about how you might handle them.
Thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
Thomas J. DeLoughry
Senior Editor for Information Technology
The Chronicle of Higher Education
1255 23rd Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
[log in to unmask]
ph: 202-466-1061
fax: 202-296-2691
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