>I'll ask that you respond here to LSTOWN-L for further discussion
>on this point, and that any revised draft that you may write also
>be posted here for further comment.
 
Absolutely!  I wrote the draft letter and posted it to LSTOWN-L for
just that purpose.  The intent is to rewrite and refine the letter
before it goes out to 910 people, and to have the support of list
owners in doing it.
 
Let me first clarify a few of the goals I tried to achieve with the
draft: (read on before commenting, please)
 
#1 Not to sound like an advertisement.  I don't want to make this
letter come off as an advertisement for our product, because that
just annoys people.  I could go on and on about the wonderful
things people will be able to do with our product if you'd only
change your notebooks to public :-), but I don't that's a great
approach.
 
#2 Not to make the thing too complicated.  I'm afraid that laying
out each argument will just make the message too complicated.
 
#3 Not be too preachy or absolute.
 
That being said, I can see from your feedback that there are
problems with the letter on counts #2 and #3.  Your feedback also
brings up very valid points: these were not brought up in the
discussion several weeks ago.  To my mind, the most compelling
reason for keeping notebooks=private is a desire to keep track of
who has access to the notebooks.  I've seen an argument that lists
which are electronic journals should also have this, and I think
there are arguments both ways, such as, again, knowing who receives
the magazine.
 
Unless you track the SUB and SIGNOFF messages you get, your REVIEW
list will not reflect who has looked at your notebooks.  I'd be
suprised if list owners do track this information.  If they do,
then it sounds like a feature to add to the administrator version
of our software. :-)  Either way, I think those who made this
argument had a very valid point.
 
>Your letter should NOT state that there's no advantage to doing so.
 
My words were obviously badly chosen.  When I said "from a security
perspective it does not make sense to have private notebooks" the
phrase "from a security perspective" is the key phrase.  I think
that point is true.  There is no security advantage to making
people subscribe before searching, if subscribing is open to all
and automatic.  You do not close the list archives off from anyone
by having private notebooks when your subscription is open.  Now,
if subscriptions are reviewed (and sometimes rejected) or something
else like that, then the subscription is not truly "open", and yes,
there would be a security change.  None the less, I do not think I
wrote anything incorrect when I made that statement.  I have to
admit that my schooling is in philosophy and I can make, err...
uncommon interpretations of language. :-)
 
 
CHANGES
*******
I think this response really captures the essence of it:
 
>Your letter should point out the consequence of the administrative
>hassle involved, and that those list-owners who have not
>consciously decided to make this arrangement may wish to eliminate
>this unnecessary administrivia
 
Right!  I'll change the message to reflect the "conscious" choice
nature of it.  In many of the cases, I expect that list owners were
not conscious of the implications of their choice (I may be wrong,
we'll see).  I can see, though, that to someone who did understand
what they were doing, my letter is heavy handed and could offend
them.
 
Sorry: I didn't think of that.  But, because I knew I couldn't
predict reactions, I thought it prudent to get feedback from this
group.  Hopefully people on this group will see this as a good
thing and not take offense at my admittedly clumsy drafts.  I'll
post a rewrite soon.
 
Thanks!
 
John Buckman