[Town Meeting] ADMIN: Should the TM listserve archives be public?

[David Coletta]

Having heard no objections, I have decided to open the TM listserve  
archives to the public.

The public archives are located at:
http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/townmeeting/

(This is a different link than the one for the private archives.)

In case you need reminding of what this is allow about, please see  
the comments in the message below.

David Coletta
TM Listserve Administrator

On May 11, 2005, at 9:57 AM, David Coletta wrote:

> Dear TM listserve member,
>
> When you were invited to join this listserve, the invitation said  
> that the listserve archives would not be public.  This was my idea,  
> motivated by concern for members' privacy.  Since then, however,  
> many TMMs have told me that they feel that the needs for  
> transparency and public access to information outweigh the privacy  
> concerns.
>
> Therefore, I plan to open up the archives to public access.  This  
> will mean that anyone can visit the archives over the web and read  
> what has been posted on the TM listserve.  However, the archives  
> will *not* be indexed by Google, so no archived postings will  
> appear in any Google search results.  Also, email addresses will  
> not be displayed, so there will be no danger of spam.
>
> If you are interested in seeing what the archives look like, please  
> visit them at:
>  http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/private/townmeeting/
> Since they are still private for now, you will need the password  
> that was emailed to you in the "Welcome to the townmeeting mailing  
> list" message you received when you joined the listserve.
>
> So far I have heard no serious reservations from anyone about  
> making the archives public, and I don't expect there to be many.   
> However, if you do have any reservations about it, please reply  
> *privately* to this message.  In particular, I would like to hear  
> if public archives would make you less likely to post, or if they  
> would compel you to cancel your subscription to the listserve.
>
> If you are comfortable with the archives being public, then there  
> is no need to reply.  I'm only looking to hear from people with  
> reservations or questions.
>
> Thank you,
> David Coletta
> TM Listserve Administrator