[okfn-discuss] Emails on IsItOpen

Peter Murray-Rust pm286 at cam.ac.uk
Sat Feb 20 14:37:06 UTC 2010


Thanks John

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 2:19 PM, John Bywater <
john.bywater at appropriatesoftware.net> wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
>
> Thanks for your considerations. I'm sure you're right. To some extent this
> is treading new ground, so it would be good to extend this discussion to
> include when it is appropriate for the enquirer to follow up the enquiry
> (how long does one wait for a reply?), whether 'thank you' notes should be
> sent to acknowledge a response from the data handler, whether there would be
> any such thing as an 'unhelpful response' from the data handler (and what
> one should then do), and so on.
>

Certainly - all these had crossed  my mind. I think we have to have
guidelines explaining to recipients why it's useful to give constructive
answers. We should acknowledge that:

(a) they may not be the right person
(b) they are not necessarily resourced to respond rapidly (FOI is mandatory,
IIO is not)
(c) it may take time to find an answer
(d) we should be sensitive about any perceived lack of response.

OTOH is is the deliberate non-response from some orgs that have occasioned
this. For this reason I think we should start
friendly ones as much as possible. In that way the potentially unfridenly
ones will get to hear about this - and we can point to the positive
responses.


P.

> At any rate, I hope you like the new features. :-)
>
> Certainly.

P.


> J.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> okfn-discuss mailing list
> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
>



-- 

Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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