Re: New home for list needed-a Case Against Yahoo
Loris, a couple of things:
(1) You seem to have missed, or misunderstood, my point. The issue
I'm concerned about, the commodification of information, is an issue
that's inherent in all commercial internet content providers, in fact
underlies all their activities, and is not addressed in either
yahoo's copyright policy or in their terms of service (which is odd
because it really should be there, an understanding that at any time,
the company can be sold and the content will be sold with the
company. Most commercial content providers have that written right
into the terms of service).
It's a basic difference in philosophy I'm talking about; to go from
an educational institution to a commercial site does require a
fundamental change in the philosophy of how information is defined
and valued.
(2) As I said before, I greatly fear that our community is in danger
of splitting, and I want to avoid that if at all possible. You and I
are apparently on opposite sides of the fault line, and I think we
need to tread very carefully here. To use inflammatory rhetoric like
"conspiracy theory" and "misinformation" in response to a genuine
concern about the commodification of information is not helpful to
the goal of keeping our community intact, and I suggest that it would
be a good idea to tone down the rhetoric. Thank you.
Katharine Thayer
On Nov 12, 2009, at 9:57 AM, Jean Daubas wrote:
Hi Katherine,
I fully agree with your positions and I share your fear that our
group will split in 2 parts. Unfortunately, as I wrote it in a
previous post, it is exactly what happened in the pinhole
commmunity when a part of it went to the more commercial, fully
organised F295 group while the others tried to keep on sharing on a
more spontaneous and informal way on the pinhole discussion list.
I really think the "spirit" which had been shared until now by the
list subscribers (and managed by Gordon) is our "strength" and any
solution we are going to find must be respectful of this free-
sharing spirit.
Jean
From: Katharine Thayer
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:40 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: New home for list needed-a Case Against Yahoo
On Nov 12, 2009, at 6:34 AM, Gene Laughter wrote:
>
...
...
My understanding is that Kees has a server ready to go, has the
archives there, and could transfer the mailing list to his server
immediately if necessary; I'm afraid I don't understand why this
offer isn't being taken more seriously. If the issue is that this
makes the list too dependent on one person and his server, then let
it be a temporary solution while an institutional host is being
sought.
I greatly fear that we are about to split into two groups: one that
wants a web-based platform and format and doesn't have an issue about
the content being considered a commercial commodity, and one that
wants to keep the forum as an educational (non-commercial)
resource. I am heartened by the reports that an institutional host
may be found, but I would much prefer going to an individual host
like Kees or non-profit like Malin's site, both of which would
preserve our fundamental spirit as an educational resource, than to
a large commercial concern whose interests are not the same as ours,
even as a temporary measure.
Katharine
.