Posting messages word for word from neighborhood list serves

[Anonymous]

Jeff, I reported the thread where someone took a message from a local listserve and then posted it word for word here, with names redacted.

My feeling is that this is a breach of privacy and destructive to community networks, or at least, very, very uncool. As I said in my message, people "expose" their identities on their neighborhood listserves because they are trying to share something within the community. Even if someone posts something idiotic, people should bring their grievances back to the listserve, not attack them here anonymously. It undermines the purpose of community listserves, and is just, frankly, a really shitty thing to do to someone else.

I know that you are not totally averse to drawing the line. So, I'm curious - what are your thoughts on this? Why let people come on here and word-for-word post someone else's message? Doesn't this cross a line? Doesn't this at least rankle your basic sense of social justice, or, being decent to your fellow man?

[jsteele]

I think it is a pretty classless thing to do. But, lots of classless things get done every day on DCUM. My concern is privacy and, in this case, it appears that no private information about the author of the listserv post was included. So, I don't feel a need to remove the message.

It should also be noted that an unnamed individual was taken pretty sternly to task with no opportunity to defend himself or offer his side of the story in the original listserv post.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Jeff. Once again, you've confirmed my impression that you're a good guy.

If I were the site administrator, I would've taken it down, but then, I'd take down about 90% of the stuff on here too, so I probably err on the side of censorship.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:I think it is a pretty classless thing to do. But, lots of classless things get done every day on DCUM. My concern is privacy and, in this case, it appears that no private information about the author of the listserv post was included. So, I don't feel a need to remove the message.

It should also be noted that an unnamed individual was taken pretty sternly to task with no opportunity to defend himself or offer his side of the story in the original listserv post.

The original message was sent on a list serve. If individual is subscribed to the list serve he did have opportunity to defend himself and offer his side of the story if he wished. May be he even did by emailing the email author directly. It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

The OP, author, and the 500 recipients of the list serv already knew who the author is, before the OP posted. Not a single additional person learned who the author is as a result of OP's post. Why is this so hard to understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

The OP, author, and the 500 recipients of the list serv already knew who the author is, before the OP posted. Not a single additional person learned who the author is as a result of OP's post. Why is this so hard to understand?

More importantly, the OP already broadcast her rant to the world. She wanted it out there. The OP just helped her get her message out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

The OP, author, and the 500 recipients of the list serv already knew who the author is, before the OP posted. Not a single additional person learned who the author is as a result of OP's post. Why is this so hard to understand?

More importantly, the OP already broadcast her rant to the world. She wanted it out there. The OP just helped her get her message out.

You people seem to be missing something. When you post a message on a neighborhood list serve, you are not saying "now go ahead and sling insults at me anonymously." You are trusting it will stay within the community, or that if people have a response, they will do it, with their name behind it, on the list serve.

Imagine this: put a post up on your local list serve about an issue that you're worrying about wrt your child. Now imagine that you open up DCUM and see thousands of people discussing you, mocking you, etc. If we show no respect for the spirit of a neighborhood list serve, no one will eventually speak up about anything, for fear of it going over to DCUM. The content of the stupid pinecone message doesn't matter. The point is that it's shitty to do to someone else.

this is why many neighborhood list serves have RULES that messages posted there are NOT MEANT TO BE FORWARDED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

The OP, author, and the 500 recipients of the list serv already knew who the author is, before the OP posted. Not a single additional person learned who the author is as a result of OP's post. Why is this so hard to understand?

More importantly, the OP already broadcast her rant to the world. She wanted it out there. The OP just helped her get her message out.

You people seem to be missing something. When you post a message on a neighborhood list serve, you are not saying "now go ahead and sling insults at me anonymously." You are trusting it will stay within the community, or that if people have a response, they will do it, with their name behind it, on the list serve.

Imagine this: put a post up on your local list serve about an issue that you're worrying about wrt your child. Now imagine that you open up DCUM and see thousands of people discussing you, mocking you, etc. If we show no respect for the spirit of a neighborhood list serve, no one will eventually speak up about anything, for fear of it going over to DCUM. The content of the stupid pinecone message doesn't matter. The point is that it's shitty to do to someone else.

this is why many neighborhood list serves have RULES that messages posted there are NOT MEANT TO BE FORWARDED. [/quo

This is ridiculous. If you want privacy, don't post on an internet site!

[Anonymous]

Eh...as long as my original post in the listserv gave no identifiable information, I probably wouldn't care.

[Anonymous]

If you want privacy, don't post on an internet site!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

The OP, author, and the 500 recipients of the list serv already knew who the author is, before the OP posted. Not a single additional person learned who the author is as a result of OP's post. Why is this so hard to understand?

More importantly, the OP already broadcast her rant to the world. She wanted it out there. The OP just helped her get her message out.

You people seem to be missing something. When you post a message on a neighborhood list serve, you are not saying "now go ahead and sling insults at me anonymously." You are trusting it will stay within the community, or that if people have a response, they will do it, with their name behind it, on the list serve.

Imagine this: put a post up on your local list serve about an issue that you're worrying about wrt your child. Now imagine that you open up DCUM and see thousands of people discussing you, mocking you, etc. If we show no respect for the spirit of a neighborhood list serve, no one will eventually speak up about anything, for fear of it going over to DCUM. The content of the stupid pinecone message doesn't matter. The point is that it's shitty to do to someone else.

this is why many neighborhood list serves have RULES that messages posted there are NOT MEANT TO BE FORWARDED.

And this would be your mistake. Non-computer-geek people have been using email broadly for a decade or more at this point. If you haven't internalized "anything I send over email can be forwarded way beyond where I may intend it to go so I should be careful" by now, you do not have the right skills for modern technological life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is not anonymous because the op knows who the author is, the author knows who she is, as do almost 500 recipients of the list serve.

The OP, author, and the 500 recipients of the list serv already knew who the author is, before the OP posted. Not a single additional person learned who the author is as a result of OP's post. Why is this so hard to understand?

More importantly, the OP already broadcast her rant to the world. She wanted it out there. The OP just helped her get her message out.

You people seem to be missing something. When you post a message on a neighborhood list serve, you are not saying "now go ahead and sling insults at me anonymously." You are trusting it will stay within the community, or that if people have a response, they will do it, with their name behind it, on the list serve.

Imagine this: put a post up on your local list serve about an issue that you're worrying about wrt your child. Now imagine that you open up DCUM and see thousands of people discussing you, mocking you, etc. If we show no respect for the spirit of a neighborhood list serve, no one will eventually speak up about anything, for fear of it going over to DCUM. The content of the stupid pinecone message doesn't matter. The point is that it's shitty to do to someone else.

this is why many neighborhood list serves have RULES that messages posted there are NOT MEANT TO BE FORWARDED.

1) That's naive.
2) That's not actually how the Internet works.
3) That's unbelievably naive.

Post to a listserv it is, by definition, intended for broad public consumption.

[Anonymous]

There is a difference between what is possible, and what is shitty to do.

Sure you have the ability to broadcast a private or semi-private email message to a much larger audience, but all things being equal it's generally a shitty thing to do.

If the only response you have is "that's naive" then you sound like a huge douchebag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a difference between what is possible, and what is shitty to do.

Sure you have the ability to broadcast a private or semi-private email message to a much larger audience, but all things being equal it's generally a shitty thing to do.

If the only response you have is "that's naive" then you sound like a huge douchebag.

The papers print stuff posted here all the time. Is that a shitty thing to do? A listserv is, by definition, a public domain.

[Anonymous]

I have mixed feelings about the issue. On the one hand it seems thoughtless, because even though the names were redacted, those on the listserv could trace it back. But they have the information anyway. I can also see feeling that it is crappy to disseminate the info further. But the people on the listserv were quite possibly doing that anyway through verbal recounting. I know I would have mentioned a post like that to a few friends and possibly my mom without identifying the poster, because it struck me as really out there. But it would not have been disseminated word for word, and certainly not to as wide of an audience.