 |
 |
Carol, > Fair enough. One more question, and then I will cease and > desist. What is your opinion of 'going public' with abusive > E-mail? Carole H. This is not a question that lends itself to a brief answer - however I'll do my best to keep it short. In the first case many of the people complaining of having their private mail exposed to public scrutiny are not people I would normally think of as being abusive. However there is no doubt that on occasion truly abusive e-mails do arrive from whatever source and need to be dealt with. It seems to me that the correct response to abusive email is to set your mail options to not take messages from that sender. I find myself wondering why anyone would put up with receiving such offensive mail when the means exists to stop it arriving. Just what is the motive for 'going public' If it is to shame the person into desisting - a more efficient means exists as mentioned above - If it is to 'expose' the person to public scrutiny so that everyone can see 'what kind of person they are' this is 'tactics' aimed at gaining support from the list and the 'going public' should be seen in that light and judged accordingly. This 'exposing the bad guy' excuse has another facet to it. Some long while ago two people on a list I subscribe to had a public falling out. I happened to be on good terms with both and followed the disagreement with interest. One of the parties suddenly started to send out a series of off list emails addressed to some 20 or so listmembers in which they set about a systematic and vitriolic character assassination of the other party. If we accept that the bad guys must be publicly exposed then I would have been within my rights to reprint the letters. As it was I responded to the worst of them with a detailed counter argument and was promptly dropped from the list receiving the mails. The experience left me with a much reduced respect for the offending party and a somewhat jaundiced view of their public persona. What would have been gained by 'exposing' this person to the rest of the list - what could the full list membership achieve that setting my preferences to exclude that person could not achieve. Perhaps you could argue that the list has a right to know what its members are truly like - this is a dangerous argument - and one which Big Brother would surely agree with. Dennis