Re: debian-private declassification team (looking for one)

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Saturday 26 June 2010, Don Armstrong wrote:
> My own opinion is that we've done this backwards, and that everything
> on -private modulo vacation messages and posts explicitely marked with
> a header indicating that they shouldn't be declassified should be
> declassified automatically after three years.

But that's not what the project decided to do, so it's rather moot.

> Unfortunatly, a large majority[1] of the messages to -private
> shouldn't be private in the first place, or they only need to be
> embargoed for a short period of time.

Any real evidence to support that rather strong claim? IMO most threads on 
d-private get started there because the sender actually wants the subject 
to be private.

I agree that some threads could just as well have been public and also that 
some threads branch out into subjects that could be public. But it seems 
to me that those are also often the least interesting, so what's the gain 
in declassifying them?

IMO the whole idea of partial declassification stinks anyway. Is it really 
desirable to declassify some messages in a thread but not others? Does 
that give "the public" a balanced view of a discussion?

It also seems to me that in any declassification scheme the risk of 
declassifying a message which its author did not intend to ever become 
public is very high. Just consider that an objection also extends to any 
replies that quote (part) of it. Or maybe someone simply forgets to 
mention that condition.

I think it's safer to err on the conservative side and simply respect the 
privacy of the list unconditionally.