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

[Romy Shovelton]

Brigitt
thought personally I do not wish to enter this conversation, I hear 
your hurt, which sadens me.
this note is to send you a hug and thanks for all that you have done to 
support the nurturing of OST and the growth of my own learning

with love

Romy


On 29 Mar 2004, at 03:53, 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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