In response to my questions about the archives of a professional list to which I subscribe being made accessible to the Internet as a whole rather than just subscribers:
Harold Federow <hfederow[_at_]u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
> ...anyone who joined the list could access messages and the archives.
> The only difference is that you won't have to join the list now. The
> basics, though: that anyone at anytime could access the list or the
> archives won't have changed.... It may be the case that you FELT that
> everything was in essence private, but that was never really the case,
> at least as you described the situation.
Consider this situation: I am a psychotherapist, and need to maintain professional boundaries with my clients. The chance that a client of mine will find and subscribe to the particular professional list in question is very slight, esp. since it is a professional list related to psychodynamics and study of group process, and a large percentage of members are psychology professionals or in related fields. (I will also add that it is a list which studies it own process and the interpersonal and group dynamics between list members). Because of this, I made the decision to post relatively opening, sharing my personal process in accordance with the nature of the group. I knowingly took the risk that someone I would rather not subscribe to the group would choose to subscribe; but this is not the same as knowing what I wrote would be easily accessible to anyone on the Internet.
On the other hand, if my 200+ postings and articles were on an open site on the Internet, and my clients who were on the Net could look up my name in a search engine and discover all the posts I wrote when the list was open to subscribers only, my work would be seriously jeopardized. This is of serious concern to me. It DOES introduce a major change in regard to the accessibility of my posts.
Also because I have a second occupation as professional writer with hundreds of thousands of readers, many who write me asking about my future writings. I am not eager (to say the least) to have hundreds or thousands of my readers located these posts via Internet search engines! I did not choose to participate in this group with the understanding that whatI wrote would be easily located by anyone on the Internet who knows my name!
Changing the rules now is one thing; but changing the rules AFTER THE FACT is another. When and I and others joined the list we were informed in writing that the archives and posts were only open to subscribers; we also had to give our real names to subscribe. Subscribers to a professional list (even if it is public) means far less easy access than accessibility to search engines.
I do not understand how making the archives accessible to the Internet as a whole in this situation can be considered either ethical or legal... Apart my own situation, I find it frightening. It paves the way for any material written for a semi-private (or semi-public, or at least circumscribed) audience to be available to anyone who wants to see it, without the permission of the individual writer, and no matter who is hurt in the process.
Does anyone have further thoughts on this matter, or on what one can do to protect one's personal rights in this regard?
I have reason to believe that IF the archives are posted on a public site, (I say IF because the decisionmaking process is not over, due to a few people, such as myself, who object... but if it doesn't happen now, it could easily happen in the future....particularly when and if those who oppose unsubscribe from the group) the listserv in question will not be so readily willing to respond to individual requests to remove one's posts, particularly because they are struggling financially, and do not have the manpower or resources to do so....
Thank you for your responses...
Tracy Marks
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0 : Mon Mar 26 2007 - 00:35:22 GMT