Subject: Re: [lojban] where the mailing lists lie

From: lojbab <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 18:08:03 -0400

At 01:09 AM 4/19/02 -0600, Jay Kominek wrote:
>On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, lojbab wrote:
> > Not finding Yahoo Groups tolerable is their problem, more than it is
> > ours.
>
>It'll be ours when Yahoo starts selling our names, addresses, etc.

They can't sell what you don't give them. (Hint: they have no way to 
verify the truth of anything you enter into their data fields, other than 
your email address. And the only way to protect your email address on any 
list is to make it impossible to reply to the sender instead of the 
list. I suspect that there are enough mirror lists and archivers 
subscribed to our list that any poster's email address is all over the 
net. This would be the case no matter who hosts the list, unless WE screen 
subscribers.)

> > It'd be nice to avoid the ads, but we are getting good service and free
> > advertising of our own.
>
>The ads are a non-issue.

Except that you mention it as an issue several times below. (For others, 
it is more of an issue than the privacy policy, which can be circumvented.)

>Yahoo is making it quite clear that they have no
>respect for our privacy, by running around with these plans to sell off
>our personal information.

They're running a business, and need to make a profit or sooner or later 
the service will no longer be available.

> > [stuff snipped I'm too lazy to go back and get.]
>
>It is worth noting that it is easy for the administrator(s) of a Yahoo
>Groups list to get the email addresses of everyone currently on a mailing
>list, thus allowing them to be automatically subscribed to a new mailing
>list. (So we wouldn't lose anyone in the switch, unless they specifically
>dropped after the switch was completed.)

I know. I get the list every several months, just in case.

> > This doesn't count the beginners list, or any of the other lists now
> > hosted on Yahoo.
>
>FYI, lojban-beginners is up to 82 members, in ~9 months, with a fair burst
>of subscriptions recently.

Excellent.

> > Other than catering to some people's preferences (and the nature of those
> > preferences or the tradeoffs have not really changed since we set up the
> > list),
>
>The tradeoffs have indeed changed since Yahoo started wanting to sell our
>personal information.

They've ALWAYS wanted to sell your personal information. You could tell 
them no before, and you can tell them no now, and as I said above, you can lie.

> > I haven't seen anyone post any actual *advantages* that we would
> > gain by hosting it at lojban.org, and we would lose the advertising and the
> > relatively convenient interface.
>
>We'll have our privacy respected. We'll not have to look at ads to access
>the archives. (That is getting tiring, awfully fast.) We'll have better
>access to future archives. (Yahoo is making it very very difficult to
>acquire the archives in an automated fashion. So if they ever decide to
>dump the archives, which I've heard rumours of, then we might not be able
>to duplicate them so as to save them.)

The latter is true, but was also true of OneList and Egroups ever since we 
went to the commercial service. I know there are people who have managed 
to acquire the archive (no idea how) so it can be done. If done regularly, 
we'll have the archives.

>It isn't so much a matter of advantages, as lists are relatively
>simplistic things. Rather, it is what disadvantages we can avoid.

And for all the complaints, I haven't seen anything new. They stuck in a 
new few options, and used it as an excuse to make it necessary for everyone 
to say no again. They've done it before. Life goes on.

> > Personally, considering that we are a charity organization that is not even
> > managing to break even with donations (there are a lot of you out there who
> > support us by buying books, but that isn't enough to cover the operating
> > costs of the organization - donations have actually been smaller in the
> > last couple of years despite all the increases in activity), I think we
> > have done remarkably well in minimizing the amount of commercialization
> > that we have had to deal with. Unless some big donors (or lots more little
> > donors) start showing up to pay off the LLG debts and operating costs, ads
> > are going to creep in somehow. (But we won't sell our mailing list; I will
> > stick to that commitment as long as I have the power to do so).
>
>Er, I don't get this.

This is not specific to the list issue, but is a general rant. The only 
thing specifically relevant, is that we have been respectful of our 
members' privacy regarding the data that I collect, and will continue to do 
so. But we've given up a lot of potential income in order to do so, and 
money issues have been a continual drag on our getting things done.

>Robin can run the lists for free. I could get the
>lists run for free if need be. Adlessly. With our privacy respected.

This could have been done 3 years ago when we moved the list. Ads and 
privacy were potentially an issue then, and it wasn't a big deal to enough 
people to interfere with the policy. Not that no one objected, but the 
advantages of the interface and the central site were enough.

>With
>no need to tell them someone you don't know your marital status or annual
>income.

You don't have to do so now. Indeed, I just looked at my account info, and 
it seems that I've never even given them my name and address, only my city 
and zip code. They say the fields are required, but apparently not for 
mailing lists.

> We can minimize the commericalization, for free. So saying "we
>should be glad we're not more commericalized!" is silly.

My point is that we are no more commercialized than we were a few years 
ago. It only seems to be an issue when Yahoo brings it to our attention.

> > Thus issues of list management will be decided by Cowan (and me) in
> > our executive capacity, pending any discussion or policy change decision by
> > the voting membership at the annual meeting during LogFest (the voting
> > members can of course change any LLG policy within legal and bylaw
> > constraints %^).
>
>I hope, then, that the online poll will merely be a preview of the way in
>which the voting membership will vote, come next LogFest.
>
>If I can't make it, I'll be sure to mail a couple of copies of the poll
>results to be passed around at LogFest. :) (Including an accounting of
>those people who can't cast a vote online.)

That's fine.

lojbab