[blparent] message about list privacy

[trishs]

Point well taken.  Thank you.

> ----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jo Elizabeth Pinto" <jopinto at pcdesk.net
>To: "NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List" <blparent at nfbnet.org
>Date sent: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:35:46 -0700
>Subject: [blparent] message about list privacy

>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"
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