On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 1:16 AM, <jida...@jidanni.org> wrote: > Why have each user jump through such hoops, and still leave this door > open to the "the bad guys" whoever they are. [snip]
If you wish to have a productive discussion with people you'll be most successful if you try to understand and empathize with their concerns, so that you can find a solution which satisfies everyone. You won't go far with scare-quoted phrases like "the bad guys" and hyperbole like "held for ransom" and "North Korean style". The current behaviour was established as the result of experience: It's not something that was done speculatively, but as a solution to real problems which were occurring. Removing messages from archives was found to be time-consuming and ineffective because once out the removal often did nothing. The annoying of dealing with it was magnified because it had to be done by someone with shell access and because it was, naturally, always urgent. People make mistakes, both the "clicked the wrong button type" and the "failed to consider the consequence" type, and people often play fast and loose with other people's privacy. As an example— an issue we've had in the past is people responding with private details to a message which included a public list buried in its carbon-copy chain. So admonishing "be more careful" really doesn't solve it: The lack of google indexing is intended to address the cases where "be careful" failed. The intent isn't to stop people from searching for information in the lists, which would be an impossible goal, but to prevent material from the lists from showing up at the top of google when people perform random searches for various people's names and to make removals actually effective. So the availability of archive files is not a problem. Perhaps this is more of a problem for the Wikimedia Lists than many others due to the high search placement of the Wiki(p|m)edia sites in general. I think the comparison to LKML is entirely inappropriate: not only can you make an entirely different set of assumptions about the users technical prowess but LKML is open for posting to non-subscribers … the level of SPAM received through it in the past has exceeded the volume of some of our lists, its like arguing that we shouldn't wear underwear because the nice folks at the nudist colony don't either. :) Different culture, different issues, different solutions. Other people do have the same problems and concerns— though obviously you're less likely to see them if they aren't indexed by google! Being able to keep your messages out of the search indexes while remaining open to anyone who is willing to click a few buttons is a primary attraction of the yahoo-groups service. Be thankful that we don't force you though an infuriating web interface like they do. I think everyone would like better search than we currently have available. It should be possible to provide a solid search interface without increasing the level of exposure. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
