[Leica] OT: Good behaviour

[Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>]

There has recently been a discussion on this list about the use of public
versus private email.  One view put forth was that this list is a public
forum and that it is irrelevant if someone wishes to take the discussion
into private email, thus making all private email freely distributable by
the second party to the list.

Anyone should recognize that this is absolute nonsense.  It is NEVER the
prerogative of the recipient of email to redistribute this to a public
forum, just as it is not the prerogative of the recipient of a private 
letter to pin it up on a public bulletin board without the prior consent
of the sending party.

If there is ANY doubt about this, consider the situations in which this
happens.  Typically, the recipient of private email will feel that the
person sending it has written something inflamatory, and they wish to show
to the rest of the world what an asshole (in their opinion) the sender is.
So, the email, or portions of it, get publically posted.

This kind of behaviour is not only childish ("Mummy, mummy, so-and-so just
took my spade!") it is a violation of the most basic manners in written
conversation.  If private email upsets you, ignore it.

By redistributing private email so show how terrible someone conducted
themselves actually only does more damage to your own public image than
that of the author of the private email.

To ensure that your email is identified as private, mark it as such (I use
"[private]" in the subject heading when writing to people who I also
correspond with through emailing lists).  If you wish to redistribute all or
parts of a private message, seek consent before doing so.

M.

- -- 
Martin Howard                     | 
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU       |    What boots up must come down.
email: howard.390@osu.edu         | 
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/        +---------------------------------------