Joan,
 
Unattributed, uncredited comments ('...mask the identity of the message
writers...') doesn't avoid any copyright (and what about courtesy?)
obligations of obtaining permission to use the author's work.
 
Furthermore, and perhaps as important in this case, by obscuring the
authorships of messages, it means the students can not follow one of
the important tracks of such a lesson ('...in the way arguments are
advanced and evidence is used...'), namely that of identifying and
understanding how a single author's ideas might evolve in the light of
other authors' commentaries.
 
Peter
 
> Date:         Sat, 10 Aug 1996 15:04:04 -0400
> From: Joan Korenman <[log in to unmask]>
>
> ...  I've heard again
> from the Canadian professor, who I think has decided to reproduce the
> logfiles but mask the identity of the message writers.  Since what she
> wants the students to see is the way arguments are advanced and evidence
> is used rather than a single individual's contribution, I think her solution
> makes sense.  It's not perfect, but neither is any other, including
> trying to write for permission to thirty or so individuals whose e-mail
> addresses may well have changed.