Re: GR Proposal: Declassification of -private
On Wed, 23 Nov 2005 16:55:09 +1000, Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> said:
> On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 08:15:21PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
>> Does Author A's mail get outed anyway as part of author B's
>> response? In other wrods, shall the declassification committee
>> redact quotes in mails the primary author has said is OK to the
>> publish, but in the scenario the quoted authors do not wish their
>> words to be made public?
> I would assume and expect so; at the very least that comes under the
> "comments by others who would be affected by the publication of the
> post will also be taken into account by the declassification team"
> clause.
Thanks for the clarification. Thinking more about this, I
think we can get a tighter proposal going forward. I have been
thinking about the kinds of reasons for not wanting to have a post to
-private published. I came up with two major (reasonable) scenarios:
a) The post contained sensitive material.
In this case, if a reasonable case has been made for the
material being sensitive, and one that the declassification
teams accepted, then the material should be redacted from the
post, and every post it has been quoted in. If it is sensitive
in one post, it is sensitive in another.
b) I do not want to be associated with the post in question
In other words, if this showed up in google it may hurt my
future job prospects post ;-). In this case, the post can be
published, just every identifying bit about the author needs
be redacted from this post and the quotes.
This latter action would, in my opinion, allow more of some
informative, though heated, discussions to be available to posterity
<grin>.
I like the proosal as it stands, but I think the following
improves upon it.I hope people pardon me for not rushing into this,
but trying to hashing out a proposal before flying into a series of
alternates).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
In accordance with principles of openness and transparency, Debian will
seek to declassify and publish posts of historical or ongoing significance
made to the Debian Private Mailing List.
This process will be undertaken under the following constraints:
* The Debian Project Leader will delegate one or more volunteers
to form the "debian-private declassification team".
* The team will automatically declassify and publish posts made to
that list that are three or more years old, with the following
exceptions:
- the author and other individuals quoted in messages being reviewed
will be contacted, and allowed between four and eight weeks
to comment;
- posts that reveal financial information about individuals or
organisations other than Debian, will have that information
removed;
- - requests by the author of a post for that post not to be published
- will be honoured;
+ - If the author makes a resonable case that some material is
+ sensitive, then that material is redacted from that post and any
+ other post where it has been quoted
+
+ - If the author indicates he does not wish to be associated with a
+ post, any identifying information is redacted from that post,
+ and any quotes in subsequent posts, but the rest of the material
+ is published.
- posts of no historical or other relevance, such as vacation
- announcements, or posts that have no content after personal
+ announcements, or posts that have no content after
information is removed, will not be published, unless the author
requests they be published;
- comments by others who would be affected by the publication of
the post will also be taken into account by the declassification
team;
- the list of posts to be declassified will be made available to
developers two weeks before publication, so that the decisions
of the team may be overruled by the developer body by General
Resolution, if necessary -- in the event such a resolution is
introduced (ie, proposed and sponsored), the declassification
and publication of messages specified by the resolution will be
deferred until the resolution has been voted on.
---
I Think the proposal above still allows the opportunity for
the delegates to make good decisions, while providing them some
firmer guidelines in some of the common use cases.
> The other potential issue is private mails to a developer that get
> forwarded on by that developer; the original author oughtn't be left
> of the loop. There's a similar case if a developer posts "So-and-so
> told me that ...". I'm not confident I can guess all the scenarios
> in advance, but I think there's sufficient opportunity for the
> delegates to make good decisions and for the developers to check
> them over.
Right. These cases are still left to the delegates judgement
in the modified proposal above.
manoj
--
Never laugh at live dragons. Bilbo Baggins [J.R.R. Tolkien, "The
Hobbit"]
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
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