what I am prepared to engage in and what I am not prepared to engage in with my energy--the archives

[Birgitt Williams]

Dear friends and colleagues on the list,
I have done considerable thinking and meditating about the existence of the
archives of this list and about the fact that the list is now open to being
searchable through the world wide web. It appears that I cannot do anything
about the decisions made. I am sad that we do not have a democratic process
in this community for decision making and I am sad that decisions are made
on behalf of a community by a few. Those decisions are then recorded in the
FAQ's and captured as what appear to be the 'givens' for this community.

I have read a number of items regarding building community for list serves,
the importance of protection and safety for its members so that the
community is a real community. I am deeply saddened that through the opening
of our list to world wide web in the way that it has been opened now by a
decision made by someone who has the power to do this on our behalf without
a decision making process within the community, that in my opinion we no
longer have a community. People can access our conversations without ever
taking the responsibility of identifying themselves to us. There is no equal
energy exchange between these people and those who contribute to the list by
participating in community either as speakers or listening learners. Also,
when our list archives are accessible through the search engines on the www,
our e-mail addresses are now available to the public whether we want them to
be or not. And as you all know, this means that these addresses are now
likely to be 'harvested' by the spiders who 'harvest' e-mail addresses to
send out spam mail to them. We have been opened to this and without the
community permission. From my perspective, any belief that there is now a
community is an illusion. I have invested a lot of my time, energy, heart in
contributions to the list for many years in my passion about what I believed
was an important community. I am so so sad at this violation.

Some years ago, on the list, I was made aware that the list had archives and
it was happily announced at the time that the archives could be accessed by
anyone on the list. I was fairly unfamiliar at the time with how all of this
worked and I was deeply disturbed that there were archives and I spoke
against them at the time, only to be told by Harrison and others that I was
naive if I had assumed there were no archives captured for the list.  I
noted for myself that everyone who accessed the archives had to sign in to
the list, and so I fell silent on the subject thinking that in a very arms
length way, these people, by signing in to the list to get to the archives
were also part of the list.

Over time, most people on the list who used my materials from the list also
used great professional courtesy and sent me a note about the intended use
to get my permission, knowing that once words are written, it is like a
copyright on those words. I was grateful to these people. I always gave
permission to use my words but sometimes I asked for a change to include
more context so that my words kept the same meaning that I intended them to
have by being kept in the context in which they were written. When my words
have been used out of context by people who did not have the professional
courtesy of letting me know they were using them and indeed publishing them,
that was another situation and one that I haven't known how to deal with.

For me, the recent announcement by Michael Herman that the archives are now
open to be searchable on the world wide web was one to which I immediately
expressed my dismay. I realize that I cannot change what is being done by
people who have power on our behalf. I don't even know who they are because
they have never identified themselves as our executive or some such. But,
they appear to be the decison makers.

I cannot do anything to change this situation that has troubled me so much.
I can however express my own needs very very clearly so that they are not
misunderstood. I have been a significant contributor to this community
through this list almost since it began. I did this to support this
community to the best of my ability and to do my part in assisting with the
building of this community to the best of my ability. I didn't do this to
assist in the creation of a data base that would be used by researchers and
others. My vested interest was in community support and community
strengthening. Archives of this list have been kept  and it has been without
my permission to keep archives of my writing and they have been kept without
letting us know from the beginning that a 'given' of this list was to have
archives. Archives of this which includes my contributions have now been
opened to the worldwide web and its search engines without my permission to
use my contributions in this way.

I am hereby giving notice to those who have made this decision that my
contributions are copyrighted and that anyone using my contributions to the
world wide web in any paper, article, thesis, or book that they are writing
must request my permission to do so. I am holding those who made my
contributions available to the search engines of the worldwide web
accountable for my copyrighted material which I made available for one
purpose and is now being used for another purpose to which I did not agree.
I am deeply concerned that my materials be quoted by noting the context in
which they are written and not pulled apart piecemeal creating the illusion
that I have said or implied something that I did not say or imply. I request
that those on this list who have made the decision to put make our archives
available to the world wide web search engines identify themselves to the
list so that I know who the decision makers on this list are and so that I
know who to hold accountable.

I am also deeply concerned that my sharing from the heart including sharing
about my personal life which I did a lot in the early days of this community
has become available to others for whom it was not written, to now read.  In
my research, I have discovered that most designs for lists intended for
community never violate that community. I am not naive to have made
assumptions that we were a community and that our sharing was for our
community. This is a clear situation of 'givens' being made along the way,on
behalf of a community, by a few in power. Again, this information is
copyrighted and permission must be asked of me to publish this information
in any way. Again, I am holding the decision makers on this list who have
made my contributions to this list community available to search engines on
the world wide web accountable for the  protection of my copyrighted
material.

I have loved this list community as an important part of my life for a long
time. It is my hope that there will be some understanding of what I am
prepared to engage in and what I am not prepared to engage in with my energy
and that my decision about the materials that I have submitted to the list
over the years falls within my definition for myself of what I am available
for and what I am not. I am available to contribute to this community.

Birgitt Williams
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