Thanks, Jim, Henry, and Mark, for the feedback. Jim's and Henry's posts
helpfully indicated some confusions between public and private discussion
lists that may well be shared by other listees, for all I know.
Jim's objection to making Poetryetc's archives private--that it "isolates
the list"--goes to the heart of what "private" means. Any number of people
from 2 to 200 who wish to converse privately on any topic whatsoever may
take more or less careful steps to assure their privacy, and I doubt if even
the most ardent eavesdropper would claim a right or entitlement to listen in
on a private conversation (unless s/he worked for the FBI or some other
public agency of governmentality). The fact is that most private lists--as
both Poetryetc and Jim's own New-Poetry list are (i.e., subscription is by
member request and owner approval)--have private archives, while public
lists (which anyone can join merely by signing up) have public archives. For
public lists, there is an expectation, even an ethical mandate, to leave
their archives open to public scrutiny, and it is a matter of policy for
Jiscmail and many other servers that these public lists do so.
With respect to the private lists they serve, Jiscmail leaves the option of
open or closed archives to the discretion of the respective listowners, who
typically make that choice when they start up a list (i.e., before there is
even any membership to be consulted about that). The original/founding owner
of Poetryetc, John Kinsella, made what private/public choices he did partly
as a function of the options offered him by the list's original (academic)
server, since which time he has had to change servers twice--to elude a
cyber-terrorist (Kru-Poet), who was eventually apprehended by the combined
efforts of Scotland Yard and the FBI--and then again when Mailbase shifted
all its academy-identified lists to Jiscmail. With every server shift there
were listowner options to do with the basic private/public distinction. At
the same time, the risks of cyber-terrorism--personal and viral--have
continued to grow for all electronic discussion groups such that privacy has
become identified with security to a greater extent than ever before. During
the same decade, a number of worldwide copyright accords and treaties began
to be negotiated and signed, all of which addressed to some degree questions
of digital publication relative to software liscensing and
intellectual-property rights (personal and national), so this too has
factored into the meaning of "private" in the online discussion-list
context.
The question of isolation raised by Jim cuts both ways, of course, and
Jiscmail tells me that not only do most of their private lists keep their
archives closed to the non-membership public, but many of them have asked
not to be advertised by the server (a request Jiscmail readily grants). In
their early days, all lists on any given topic must compete for members and
may wind up with a membership that more of less overlaps with that of one or
more other lists on its topic (as do the Brit-Po and Petc memberships,
e.g.). If a list endures (and most do not, I gather), it eventually reaches
a point where it no longer needs to actively market itself, having a
name-brand status that makes advertising less necessary for its growth,
unless it defines itself in terms of an ever-changing membership (all new
blood all the time). Established lists like Poetryetc and British-Poets
would seem to have reached that point, while a relatively new list like
Jim's (albeit one that inherited a portion of its membership from a prior
established list, CAP-L, that could even be considered an earlier
incarnation of New-Po) might still need or want to advertise itself via its
own archives. Potential listees do shop around and do sometimes choose among
the hundreds of lists on a topic such as poetry on the basis of the ambiance
conveyed by a list archive. So Poetryetc is now somewhat isolated from
poetry-list consumers, but it is also somewhat more protected from the
various forces of exploitation and destruction to which all such lists are
vulnerable in this era.
Henry's additional reason for believing that Poetryetc's archive should be
open to the public--"so that people can draw their own conclusions about the
various flare-ups that have occurred"--seems to me to take the
private/public question back to the desires (but not the rights or
entitlements) of the eavesdropper. Why should an argument erupting in the
course of a private conversation be considered the business of anyone but
the conversants--and why should anyone else be interested in their
arguments? I can't think of any legitimate reason for indulging
eavesdroppers myself, but I'm open to the possibility and would be
interested to hear what other listees think as well as your preference for
open or closed archives.
Thanks,
Candice
|