KineJapan member list

[Aaron Gerow]

Several of you have suggested the following:

> May I suggest that the moderators of KineJapan refrain from 
> periodically posting the complete list of KineJapan members.  The list 
> of addresses can be too easily misused, unfortunately.

This is certainly something we can discuss and I would like to hear 
opinions about the pros and cons of this.

I for one did not receive any of CineAsia's mail at either of the 
addresses through which I subscribe to KineJapan, so I am suspicious 
about whether anyone misused the KineJapan membership list. This may 
have resulted from the use of some other list, but one can't be sure. 
Certainly, there has always been the danger that someone might use the 
KJ membership list, but as far as I know, there have been no cases in 
our 10 or so years of existence of someone misusing the list. Perhaps 
this is the first case (or it may not be), but this has not been a 
recurring problem at all.

We originally decided on posting the list for a couple of reasons. The 
first was simply to build the Japanese film community: it would be nice 
to have a list that anyone could use to see who was doing Japanese film 
and how to contact them. I use the list periodically to find the 
address of someone I need to contact and in that sense it is very 
helpful. The other reason for posting the list was to make membership 
open. When we were thinking about starting KineJapan, we decided for 
the sake of ease and spontaneity not to make it a moderated list, where 
all mail must be checked by a moderator before going out to the list. 
In order to avoid obnoxious mail, we thought we should try to avoid the 
anonymity which does allow people on message boards to regularly 
slander others: KineJapan would be a list where everyone knows each 
other and thus where everyone has to take a sort of public 
responsibility for their statements. This may not be the only reason, 
but so far, KineJapan has been a wonderfully civil mailing list: in our 
10 or so years, I've only sent out about 4 or 5 warnings and 
unsubscribed one or two people. (Or maybe we Japanese film fans are 
just better people?!)

In recent years, especially with lots of members, sending out the list 
has also been a good means of weeding out dead addresses and getting a 
better sense of how many of us there really are.

At the same time, KineJapan has grown beyond our wildest imagination: 
we now have over 600 members. With so many people--and some subscribing 
under fake names--just posting the list no longer guarantees openness 
and publicity. And certainly there are chances it can be abused (I 
sometimes warn people not to abuse the list when I send it out, but I 
don't do that all the time).

I can think of a number of options and I would like to hear comments 
from members on these:

1) Keep things as they are. Since this may be only the first case of 
abuse of the member list, perhaps this is not a serious problem.

2) Keep sending out the list periodically, but always add the warning 
that it should not be used for mass mailings, mailing list 
subscriptions, etc. Perhaps the number of times I send it out could 
also be reduced. In the early days it was practically every month, now 
it is only about 4 times a year.

3) Stop sending out the list, but still allow members to obtain it 
whenever they want. At this point, anyone who subscribes can send a 
simple message to the list server and get the member list. How to do 
this is explained in the WELCOME and INFORMATION messages.

4) Not only stop sending out the member list but also prohibit anyone 
but the owners from obtaining it through the list server.

Perhaps there are other options we can think of, but I would like to 
get a sense from the members of KineJapan which option they think is 
best. Since this is an issue affecting all the members, don't send 
comments to me, but to the list so that we can all read them.

I look forward to your comments.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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