What goes on the Web?

[stddly at SHSU.edu]

From:	MX%"ansteorra at eden.com"  1-AUG-1996 07:20:57.19
To:	MX%"ansteorra at eden.com"
CC:	
Subj:	What goes on the Web?

To be clear when you read the following please keep in mind
I do not advocate censorship. I am occiasionally paranoid
but have had good reason to be. I have in the past been threatened with loss
of my child because of my involment in the SCA and have seen
people have to drop SCA memberships and activites in order
to keep their jobs. 

I don't advocate that we run in fear of the things people
might do or that we completely close up either.

We just need to consider the possible impact of our
actions and things we can do to still allow access and
growth while still being able to have a comfortable
trusting atmosphere in our game.


/on Thu, 1 Aug 1996  Galen of Bristol replied to
   
> Greetings from HL Zahra Zena,
> In reponse to the messages from Lorraine, Kein and Keif
> 
> >I HATE censorship, but, there are things that we do not need to put
> >in such an open forum as the internet. We need to think what kind of
> >repurcussions some of the information will have on people's lives.
> 
> After these last two weeks, I think it is a good time to reflect on what we
> put out on the net and the W.W.W.  
> We have entered into a paradox here, where we want open information and wish
> to put it out into the public, and yet we must stop and think about the
> people that will be effected.  
>
> When I became a Kingdom Officer, I understood that my name, phone number,
> etc. would be published in a newsletter and that it would be put out on the
> web.  This is the vulnerability that occurs when you become an officer and
> public representative of a group. Any nut can call you. And they do.

/I have placed the contact information for all the Kingdom and Regional 
/officers, and some Baronial officers, on the Ansteorra WWW page, and the 
/contact information for all Elfsea officers on the Elfsea Page.  My WWW 
/page has included my contact information for over 10 months; no abuse of 
/any of this information has come to my attention.

There is a BIG difference between allowing information out in a format
1200+ people will have and the infinite exponentiality of the Web.
Most people have no clue how extensive and accessable things are on
the Web.(It would be polite of you if you put a notice in the Black
Star that you have put that information on the Web ... not that
people actually read the Black Star;)) 

How would you know if by putting someone's information on the Web 
(someone who is completly computer illeterate and who you do not
come into personal contact with) 
resulted in their psychotic ex or some other obsessive idiot to find them
track them and result in their hospitilization or death?
Or them losing their job.
(though I realize this is a worst case senario it is plausable)

Or that a site is lost because a person who saw the map info  on the
Web who believes we are a Satanic group because his/her pastor told him/her so
and so complained to the site owner.

Think about the people you would personally give out home addresses
and maps to events to. Would you indiscriminatelly give them to pediphiles,
gangsters, the local congregation of the nearest fundamentalist church,
rapists, people whose whole focus is fantasy, or whose whole focus is
S&M, or whose focus is finding victims or the Cult Awareness People
(not that some of these don't already have subscriptions to the 
Black Star). Do you trust all of these people to abide by our codes
of conduct and not have misconceptions without even talking to them.

/I have received two requests to remove information, one from someone who 
/did not want a phone number listed, and one from someone who did not want 
/his mundane name on-line; such requests are promptly respected.


If I did not have access to the Web or did not have the inclination to search
your pages I would have had NO CLUE that any of our Baronial information was
out on the Web at all nor would I have realized the potential of people
I don't know to put that information on the Web.(well at least I've met
you and know people who know you)

> 
> Perhaps we should refrain from putting too much information out on the
> internet about events.  A calender of events is good, and a list of officers
> who can be contacted for the individual groups is good.  A complete event
> announcement with a map, etc. may be too much information.
> 
/And yet, given that so many of us are on-line, how afraid do we need to 
/be that someone will come to an event unready for it?
/
There are people who have played fringe for years who are still unready
for events even though they have been talked to and walked through stuff.

Just because information is out there does not mean that people
really read it all/understand it/or remember it. 

With your logic with all the health services on line how could anyone not
have information (or misconceptions) on any illness.
                                    
/I'm completely content to let event autocrats decide what info about 
/their events should be posted.

People just don't realize the breadth of the internet. The same people
who would not hand out event fliers around their town to all aspects
of their community (including the undesirables) post their event info
with a map on the net where there are more people who could read it
than they could ever know. 

/
/Far more widely distributed than a WWW page (The Ansteorra page had just 
/over a thousand hits when I last looked) is your name, phone number and 
/address in the phone book.  If we're worrying about someone picking you 
/out at random and victimizing you in some way, surely more wackos have 
/phone books than WWW access.

Personally, my number is  not listed in the phone book (it will be in the 
Black Star and I have given permission for it to be permitted to
be place on the Raven's Fort page) and neither is my home address 
(i use a po box)



> We are being forced, as an internet community, to develop ethics of
> behavior, beyond those imposed upon us by exterior forces.  This is a good
> thing.
> 
> My two bezants worth...
> 
> 
> ZZT

/I welcome further discourse on this subject.
/
/- Galen

Lorraine
(ya don't have to be paranoid just aware)