The list may have been misconfigured; it strikes me that pretty much
all the damage has already been done, though: the message has been
distributed.  Further, anybody who wanted to find it could, even after
you've officially removed it from the current version of the list
archive.  Whether it's true that the list was misconfigured or not,
that genie is well & truly out of that bottle.

Still, I suspect that this is a case where I might silently sneak into
the archive and delete the message -- there won't, I assume, be
responses to it which are thereby rendered meaningless, and at least
you'd be able to say that nobody will stumble on it accidentally.  I
have to admit that I once succumbed, in a similar situation, to
someone's plea to edit an archive . . .

-- Russ

> >} list and it got sent to hundereds of his classmates.
> >} I can't allow it to remain in the archives.
> >
> >Too late now.  You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
> >
> >And the kid has learned a painful lesson.  Hopefully he will be more
> >careful in the future.
> >
> >Other posts to the list gave the URL to the Lsoft FAQ telling how to
> >do
> >it if you must, but I stand by my earlier opinion.  Feel free to
> >disagree.
>
> Archives of discussion lists should not be edited to appease
> subscribers who
> knowingly post in haste, then repent at leisure, however, the few
> facts we have
> been given suggest this might be a case of a subscriber who has been
> victimized
> by poor judgment on the part of the list owner.
>
> I suspect the message was posted to a list which is intended for use
> as an
> announcement list to distribute administrative information to
> students. If
> that is the case, the list should be configured with 'Send=
> Editor,Confirm'
> and 'Reply-To= Sender'. Apparently, however, it is configured with
> 'Send= Private' and 'Reply-To= List'.
>
> It seems inherently unfair to advise the student that his family's
> private
> financial information must remain available to all present and
> future
> subscribers of the list simply because the list owner made
> inappropriate
> choices in the list configuration. More importantly, given the
> nature of the
> posting, its presence in the list archives could make the school
> liable for
> violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
>
> --
> Paul Russell
> Senior Systems Administrator
> OIT Messaging Services Team
> University of Notre Dame

Russell Hunt
Department of English
St. Thomas University
http://www.stu.ca/~hunt/