Re: *Long* administrivia (but please read it anyway!)

From: Al Wootten <awootten at NRAO.EDU> on 1997.02.20 at 16:50:03(402) I would certainly compose snail mail letters differently than I do now if I expected every postman from here to the ends of the earth to read it. I regard email, especially to lists such as this, as something which I expect to be read and, hopefully, useful to someone. Once I sent a letter from my gggrandmother describing her wagon trip west to a USENET group. I was astonished to find later that it had been published without my knowledge by someone else. Although somewhat miffed at first, the incident eventually led to recovery of a fair amount of new genealogical information. In another incident, I sent, by private email, to a fellow family history researcher a completely speculative genealogy, as we tried to work toward the truth. I was apalled to later find out that this had been published as gospel truth on a CD-ROM by a genealogy firm, including details on my own family. Neither I nor my correspondent know how this came into the hands of the firm. I think that whatever we do, we should treat email as public information and rely on old fashioned mail to exchange sensitive information. I would like to see aroid-l archived. This would make access to useful information easier and relieve some diskspace on my computer. Orchid and bromeliad lists I have read are archived and they are made enormously more useful because of it. Clear skies, Al +More +-------------------------------------------------------+ | Alwyn Wootten (http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/) | | Astronomer, National Radio Astronomy Observatory | | 520 Edgemont Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475, USA| | (804)-296-0329 voice Let's build The Millimeter Array| | (804)-296-0278 FAX {> {> {> {> | +------------------------------^-----^-----^-----^------+

Note: this is a very old post, so no reply function is available.