[blparent] message about list privacy

[Jo Elizabeth Pinto]

Hi, all.  An incident occurred this week that brought my attention to the issue of list privacy, and I thought I'd better let you know about it.

This list is a great forum to discuss topics that are relevant to blind parenting, and many of us have shared intimate details about our lives and families with each other.  To post to the list, you have to subscribe and be a member.  However, what I didn't fully understand before now is that the list archives of past messages are public.  Anyone who happens upon them while surfing the Internet can browse through and read stored posts, sorted by thread, author, subject, or date.  This is beneficial because people at large may be interested in finding out information about blind parenting.  That's the point of the list, and it's a good tool for educating the public.

Keep in mind, though, that the Internet is accessible to anybody with a computer.  What happened to me during the past week is that I got an e-mail from my mother.  Someone who lives in my home town, while searching Google, came upon a post I made to the blind parenting list.  That post from back in May, in which I complained about being tired all the time and asked for suggestions on ways to get more energy, got forwarded to my mother.  She clicked on the link found on the bottom of all the messages, which led her to the access page for the list archives.  From there, she could potentially read everything I had posted during my year and a half on the list.  I don't know what she has read and what she hasn't, but I have to assume that anything and everything I've ever said, some of it rather sensitive, is now public knowledge, to her if not to others in my family.

I haven't posted anything in the last eighteen months that I wouldn't defend as the truth, but I didn't necessarily consider that my mother, or any other random person on the Internet, would be reading my messages.  The moral of the story is, while it's nice to have a place to vent and to ask and answer questions, always remember that since the list archives are public, they can be read by anyone who comes across them.  It might not happen often, but be aware before you send an e-mail to the list that your mother or your best friend or your nosy neighbor down the street might eventually read it.

Thanks for listening,
Jo Elizabeth

It is easy--terribly easy--to shake a man's faith in himself. To take advantage of that to break a man's spirit is devil's work. Take care of what you are doing. Take care.--George Bernard Shaw in "Candide"