All,
Over the past few months a number of individuals have asked for some, many, or all e-mails they have written to be removed from the archives. In general, our answer has been a holding 'no', but the mailing list's archives were nevertheless temporarily hidden from view. This was unsatisfactory in a number of ways, and we regret our failure to communicate to the list what was happening. On behalf of all of the UK Wikimedia mailing list's administrators, I would like to apologise, and explain.
As a public mailing list, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on WikimediaUK-l or any other public Wikimedia-hosted list. Anyone who thinks otherwise is misleading themselves and those to whom they communicate these views. As has been noted before, the act of deletion is very much "blowing up the stable after the horse has bolted": deleting e-mails from the WMF-hosted archives will at best flag them to certain individuals as containing information that is worth ferreting out from the many other archives that are not under our control in any way.
Indeed, deleting e-mails is problematic in a number of ways:
* it hides the institutional knowledge that the mailing list's archives contain; * it gives an utterly false sense of security to people concerned about their privacy; * it turns an open forum into one where users are unsure about what to expect in terms of repeatability; and * it is difficult and resource-expensive to achieve, and risks breaking the mailing list server for all of the hundreds of WMF-hosted lists.
We will not agree to keeping the lists pseudo-private, or to the mass-deletion of content. We understand that this may concern some users, but we cannot wave a magic wand and fix what is broken. If some users find that this means that they are unable or unwilling to continue to contribute to this list, we are saddened, but would note that similar (and often far stronger) privacy issues are involved in other forms of online engagement, such as visiting most commercial websites, using instant messaging or editing Wikipedia.
The sign-up page for this mailing list[0] is not as clear as it could be as to the general nature of a mailing list, hailing as it does from the days when this was expected prior knowledge of anyone stumbling over the page. We will adjust it to be more explicit about the instant public dissemination and (in practical terms) irrevocable, distributed, permanent public archiving of all messages sent to a public list; this e-mail is also part of that user education work.
For the WikimediaUK-l volunteer mailing list admins,
James F.
[0] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
You guys sure take your time, but thank you for doing the right thing eventually!
One question: you said you won't agree to the "mass-deletion of content", does that mean you are deleting some content, just not a large amount? The arguments you make apply to small amounts of content just add much as they do large amounts. On Aug 15, 2012 9:25 PM, "James Forrester" jdforrester@gmail.com wrote:
All,
Over the past few months a number of individuals have asked for some, many, or all e-mails they have written to be removed from the archives. In general, our answer has been a holding 'no', but the mailing list's archives were nevertheless temporarily hidden from view. This was unsatisfactory in a number of ways, and we regret our failure to communicate to the list what was happening. On behalf of all of the UK Wikimedia mailing list's administrators, I would like to apologise, and explain.
As a public mailing list, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on WikimediaUK-l or any other public Wikimedia-hosted list. Anyone who thinks otherwise is misleading themselves and those to whom they communicate these views. As has been noted before, the act of deletion is very much "blowing up the stable after the horse has bolted": deleting e-mails from the WMF-hosted archives will at best flag them to certain individuals as containing information that is worth ferreting out from the many other archives that are not under our control in any way.
Indeed, deleting e-mails is problematic in a number of ways:
- it hides the institutional knowledge that the mailing list's archives
contain;
- it gives an utterly false sense of security to people concerned
about their privacy;
- it turns an open forum into one where users are unsure about what to
expect in terms of repeatability; and
- it is difficult and resource-expensive to achieve, and risks
breaking the mailing list server for all of the hundreds of WMF-hosted lists.
We will not agree to keeping the lists pseudo-private, or to the mass-deletion of content. We understand that this may concern some users, but we cannot wave a magic wand and fix what is broken. If some users find that this means that they are unable or unwilling to continue to contribute to this list, we are saddened, but would note that similar (and often far stronger) privacy issues are involved in other forms of online engagement, such as visiting most commercial websites, using instant messaging or editing Wikipedia.
The sign-up page for this mailing list[0] is not as clear as it could be as to the general nature of a mailing list, hailing as it does from the days when this was expected prior knowledge of anyone stumbling over the page. We will adjust it to be more explicit about the instant public dissemination and (in practical terms) irrevocable, distributed, permanent public archiving of all messages sent to a public list; this e-mail is also part of that user education work.
For the WikimediaUK-l volunteer mailing list admins,
James F.
[0] - https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
James D. Forrester jdforrester@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal capacity)
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 15 August 2012 21:38, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
One question: you said you won't agree to the "mass-deletion of content", does that mean you are deleting some content, just not a large amount? The arguments you make apply to small amounts of content just add much as they do large amounts.
Listmods don't actually have the power to delete messages - it's something a dev with shell access to the list server has to do. Mailman's archiving is sort of fragile and rubbish as well, so a slip-up can risk breaking all the hundreds of lists in ways that make the devs very unhappy - and making the devs unhappy is a hazardous occupation.
So making the request had better be pretty serious stuff *and* actually effectively address whatever the problem is. If the problem is "I've just outed myself", removing a post from the archive does *bugger-all* to suppress it in any meaningful way whatsoever. It'd be nice if it did, but it *actually doesn't*.
I wouldn't say "never ever" on removal of messages from the archive, but it's on the list of things the listmods and WMF staff really, really aren't keen to do without a stupendously compelling reason.
- d.
Thanks James. In light of this I'll unsubscribe from this list until such a time as the risks for new subscribers are made completely clear on joining. I will recommend the chapter considers it's stance on whether the list can be recommended as a service for members.
Fae
On 15 August 2012 22:28, Fae faenwp@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks James. In light of this I'll unsubscribe from this list until such a time as the risks for new subscribers are made completely clear on joining.
The current text, both on the page and in the joining message, is:
This is a public mailing list for Wikimedians in the UK. It covers UK-specific subjects and events, including but not only work by the chapter, Wikimedia UK.
As a public mailing list, any e-mail you send to this list will be immediately published by being cascaded to whomever has subscribed to the list, and a copy included in multiple public archives (both Wikimedia-controlled and third-party, not under any Wikimedia control) for all time. There is no real possibility of removing such information from the Internet once it is sent, so please be cautious in what you say about yourself and others if you have any privacy concerns.
Does this pretty much cover it?
Any public list for UK Wikimedians would exist under the same constraints (i.e., if you say something on the Internet then you've said it on the Internet) and a private list would be precisely secure as the most malicious (or, in their own lights, freedom-fighting) person who'd joined it.
If you have ideas on practical measures to run a list that doesn't suffer the general security problem of cut'n'paste fairies, this would be useful knowledge.
- d.
It is disingenuous to suggest that, in posting to a *public* mailing list, the risk that your post will be public is not clear.
I think it's a shame that a trustee doesn't wish to be subscribe to the mailing list that is the primary method of communication between WMUK and the UK Wikimedia community and of discussion amongst the UK community, and I honestly think that such a refusal to engage with the community would hamper one's effectiveness as a trustee.
I applaud and thank the list admins for finally restoring this list to public status - we shouldn't be seen to be discussing things behind closed doors, not least because it goes against the very principles of openness on which the Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia UK were founded, and there was a consensus to do so some considerable time ago. Harry Mitchell
Phone: 024 7698 0977 Skype: harry_j_mitchell
________________________________ From: Fae faenwp@gmail.com To: James Forrester jdforrester@gmail.com Cc: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, 15 August 2012, 22:28 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Status of this list and its archives
Thanks James. In light of this I'll unsubscribe from this list until such a time as the risks for new subscribers are made completely clear on joining. I will recommend the chapter considers it's stance on whether the list can be recommended as a service for members.
Fae
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 15/08/2012 22:53, HJ Mitchell wrote:
It is disingenuous to suggest that, in posting to a *public* mailing list, the risk that your post will be public is not clear.
I think it's a shame that a trustee doesn't wish to be subscribe to the mailing list that is the primary method of communication between WMUK and the UK Wikimedia community and of discussion amongst the UK community, and I honestly think that such a refusal to engage with the community would hamper one's effectiveness as a trustee.
I applaud and thank the list admins for finally restoring this list to public status - we shouldn't be seen to be discussing things behind closed doors, not least because it goes against the very principles of openness on which the Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia UK were founded, and there was a consensus to do so some considerable time ago.
I'll like second the above statement.
KTC
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org