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

[Michael Herman]

dear birgitt,

per your request, i am publishing here the entire list of people -- as
you call them, the small group of people in power -- who have been
responsible for the global and public distribution of your writing via
the OSLIST email listserve and worldwide web, 1996 to the present:

1. Birgitt Williams, birgitt at mindspring.com

over the years, the people listed here have posted countless messages to
the list.  all written by you, and yes some of them seemed rather
personal.  i know that you did not know that your words were being made
public, even though they were being mailed to hundreds of strangers
around the world.

years ago, when the existence of the public archive system was
discovered by you, your objection was raised and noted... but the people
listed above continued to use their power publish your words to the list
and into those darned public archives.  those archives have always been
public, and have always been available to stranger people and strange
crawlers, none of whom have ever had to announce their presence to you
or anyone else.

as for the givens here on the list... the only given that we have ever
had is that if you email something wise and professional or deeply
personal to several hundred strangers around the world, you don't and
can't have any idea where or when it will turn up next.  and this rule
was not made by anyone in power and not imposed on anyone.

and as for being copyrighted and quoted out of context... as far as i
know, a copyright does not protect you from being quoted.  it protects
you from having your entire work or major chunks of it reproduced in
full, or quoted in such a way that your quotes make up a significant
chunk of work that was then claimed or sold as the work of another.
simple quoting of and reference to copyrighted material is absolutely
legal. and of course it happens all the time.  sometimes it even is done
badly or out of context, but it only runs afoul of the law when what is
quoted is a substantial portion of your work or makes up a substantial
portion of a reproduction for which somebody else claims credit.  so
your declaration of copyrighting is obviously heartfelt, but also
irrelevent... unless someone chooses to publish special a book of your
postings.  i'll bet that doesn't happen.  and even if that did happen,
at least there would be plenty of context.

please address all future questions, concerns, legal-sounding threats
and general comments about the public distribution of your writing to
the powerful people listed above.  i join you in holding them fully
responsible for the distribution of your work and i'm glad to know that
from now on, you will be in full control of all of your words.  i hope
that you will find a way to keep giving them to the world.

thanks very much for your frequent kind words, your quick
acknowledgement the volunteer work i do to maintain our global community
web presence, your living example of generous community contribution and
the wisdom of your letting go with grace.

with best wishes for peace,

michael herman

p.s. thanks too for your linking to our community sites from your site
at "OpenSpaceTechnology.com."  that seems important as
"OpenSpaceTechnology.com" might often be the first place people would
look to find the worldwide community of openspacers.  so thank you for
generously redirecting them to the rest of us!






Birgitt Williams wrote:

>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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--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
300 West North Avenue #1105
Chicago IL 60610 USA
(312) 280-7838

http://www.michaelherman.com - consulting & publications
http://www.globalchicago.net - laboratory & playground
http://www.openspaceworld.org - worldwide open space

...inviting organization into movement

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