[open-science] Publishing curated email lists

Thu Jun 23 17:29:31 UTC 2016

Hi Alexandre,

This hasn't been an issue on this list (as far as I can remember), but a
recent conversation about privilege that happened on the SCHOLCOMM listserv
comes to mind as an example of one that's a) worthy of archiving and also
b) a conversation where some participants perhaps wouldn't want their
responses shared verbatim.

For some, it's one thing to have your emails buried in a listserv archive
that is technically public, (assumedly) receives only light traffic, and is
associated with a non-profit--it's another thing entirely for a company to
reuse your emails, make them more discoverable (The Winnower has great SEO
and lots of attention from the larger scholcomm and open science
communities), and put your words out there without your express permission.

I do not mean to pick on The Winnower or call Josh's intentions into
question--I think his idea is a great one and capturing important debates
that happen on listservs like this one is yet another way of elevating
"non-traditional" scholarship.

Indeed, we at Altmetric have been wrestling with a similar issue (as we
collate and archive public conversations around scholarship in general that
happen all across social media, blogs, news papers, policy, etc). We're
similarly a company that, in some cases, surfaces conversations that
technically happen in public but take place with a certain expectation of
"privacy through obscurity" (if you will)--things like patients discussing
a disease between themselves on a public patient advocacy blog that only
has a few hundred visitors a month.

The moral aspect of reusing others' data is not something that we've taken
lightly, and I appreciate that Josh has similarly been sensitive to these
issues. I hope there's an easy way around the "opt-out" issue--would love
to see this idea come to fruition!

Stacy

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Alexandre Hannud Abdo <abdo at member.fsf.org>
wrote:

> Ni!
>
> Is there in fact anybody who's been saying things in this list they
> wouldn't want to be slightly more widely reported?
>
> This discussion seems quite premature to me. I'd say once it becomes a
> concrete issue the solution will be self-evident, but in current terms
> there is not solution because there is no problem.
>
> Just assume things are public, because, hey, they are.
>
> We're well into the XXI century, no matter how obscure a public archive
> is, at the moment it acquires any relevance all search engines will
> imediately point everyone to it.
>
> Getting used to this is not optional. Privacy, however, is an option: if
> you want it, don't use public media or your personal identity.
>
> Abraços ;)
> l
> e
> .~´
>
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Stacy Konkiel <stacy at altmetric.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Josh,
>>
>> I think you've proposed a great workaround that's able to address nearly
>> all concerns.
>>
>> For the issue of how to document a thread where one person doesn't want
>> their words directly quoted, I wonder if there's a way to apply the Chatham
>> House rule? (You can paraphrase, but can't name the person in question.)
>>
>> Looking forward to seeing how this might play out!
>>
>>
>> Stacy
>>
>> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Josh Nicholson <
>> jnicholson at thewinnower.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Thomas,
>>>
>>> I agree with your points.  At this point I feel that there is a ton of
>>> great information shared on these lists but that it is largely inaccessible
>>> due to the formatting and presentation of it.  I was hoping to change this
>>> but there appear to be numerous hurdles with participation/implementation
>>> and I don’t want to force people to have their emails published.
>>>
>>> What I propose doing is curating these on a collaborative writing
>>> platform like Authorea and inviting members of the list to view/edit it.  I
>>> will then only go forth with publishing if I get agreement from those on
>>> the thread.  I think this should be fair to all parties involved.  Still,
>>> it presents a problem if one or two members of the thread do not wish to
>>> participate as it can make the thread unclear.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Josh
>>>
>>> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> >
>>> > Message: 1
>>> > Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2016 21:27:58 +0100
>>> > From: Thomas Kluyver <takowl at gmail.com>
>>> > To: open-science <open-science at lists.okfn.org>
>>> > Subject: Re: [open-science] Publishing curated email lists
>>> > Message-ID:
>>> >       <CAOvn4qj9vxKVWs3g-0nEiCX=
>>> jgFn2SpRB3KrrE+JMGMD8qriPQ at mail.gmail.com>
>>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>> >
>>> > On 21 June 2016 at 17:28, Stacy Konkiel <stacy at altmetric.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> One thing I would suggest is having an opt-out mechanism available for
>>> >> those who don't want their email(s) shared publicly.
>>> >>
>>> >> It may seem counter-intuitive--I think we all know that most email
>>> lists
>>> >> are hardly private--but I also think that for many there's an unspoken
>>> >> expectation of "this will stay on this list".
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > I understand the intention here to offer a kind of privacy, but I'd
>>> worry
>>> > about offering some kind of 'opt out' on a public list (both publicly
>>> > archived and open to anyone to subscribe):
>>> >
>>> > 1. There's a risk that the existence of an opt out gives people the
>>> idea
>>> > that their posts are private if they opt out of publication, when in
>>> fact
>>> > they're still completely public, just maybe not so obvious.
>>> > 2. It creates an ambiguous situation around the messages of people who
>>> > opted out. It's public, but you can't... make it too public? What if
>>> > someone made a nicer interface to the mailman archives that invited
>>> more
>>> > attention? What if a journalist wanted to quote messages from a mailing
>>> > list? What would the opt out actually mean?
>>> > 3. How can you sensibly archive conversations where a key participant
>>> has
>>> > opted out, especially if people quote them in replies? Does anyone
>>> involved
>>> > in a conversation effectively have veto power to prevent re-archiving
>>> that
>>> > conversation?
>>> >
>>> > Thomas
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Stacy Konkiel
>> Outreach & Engagement Manager at Altmetric <http://altmetric.com>
>>      working from enchanting New Mexico, USA
>>
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-- 
Stacy Konkiel
Outreach & Engagement Manager at Altmetric <http://altmetric.com>
     working from enchanting New Mexico, USA
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