ADMIN: Possible Change to the Main List Settings

[davewitley]

Abigail asked:

> An idea has been floated among the elves that we think
> might have great potential for making HPfGU easier to use and
> friendlier for new members. It's a bit of a change from the way
> we've done things until now - so much so that it's taken us this
> long to think about it, when in fact it might seem obvious. Quite
> simply, we'd like to open the list archives to non-members.
> Posting would still require joining the group, and new posters
> would still be moderated, but anyone would be able to read
> messages posted by members.

I have snipped the pros (which I agree with) and the legal con, for 
which, presumably, you need a legal opinion.  I want to comment on 
this issue:

> 1. First, the obvious - HPfGU would become Google-able. Anything
> that any of us have posted would now be visible not only to the 
11,000
> members of HPfGU but to anyone online. This does not include our
> e-mail addresses, to those of us who are concerned about spammers
> - Yahoo automatically shields them - but it might include personal
> information. There's also the issue of copyright - anyone can 
access
> the posts and copy them at will. Right now, we feel that there is 
no
> significant difference between exposing yourself to 11,000 
strangers
> and to the entire internet, but some of you may feel otherwise.

I have to admit this is my big worry.  Taking the last point first, 
I think there is a difference, because the 11,000 are people who 
have already made a commitment to HP, however slight.  Even if it's 
only psychological comfort, it gives me a come-back on anyone who 
tries to criticise me: "How do *you* know?  Takes one to know one, 
etc."

The sort of situation I envisage is where someone Googles my name in 
a work-related context (I have done this myself, in order to help 
understand where a customer or a colleague from another organisation 
might be coming from in preparation for a technical discussion).  At 
the moment, such a search yields up a short piece by me on FA and 
another on the Lexicon. I don't mind that.   Were the archives 
public, potentially dozens (over 350, according to the hall of fame, 
actually) could come up, and while I'm reasonably confident of my 
own mental balance and focus, I can see how that could be either 
misunderstood or misrepresented.  I can't tell if my posts would be 
found from a search based on my name, but it seems a distinct 
possibility.

One could argue that I should have signed up with a greater effort 
at pseudonymity - but, first, HPFGU has been a private list, and 
second, at the time of signing up I had no great intention of 
posting anything.

I therefore support the concept of a list where the archives are 
public, but not making the existing private archive public, at least 
not in a hurry.

If the concept of a public list has general support,  one 
possibility would be to migrate to a new list, which would give 
members a chance to hide their RL identity if they so wish.  This is 
likely to cause a degree of confusion and carry the risk of losing 
members, even those who actively lurk or post.  I suppose you could 
start HPFGU-public now, and let people post interchangeably between 
the main list and that one, and see how things develop.  There is 
also the possiblity of combining such a move with a move from Yahoo, 
if that were desirable on other grounds.

This has the disadvantage, of course, that the existing archive 
would remain private, but it would allow prospective members to 
assess the group.  The same would be true for other variants of this 
idea, such as copying the archive into a private list and then 
deleting it before making the group public-access.

David, who thinks this *has* been discussed by the admin team in the 
past