KineJapan member list

Arne Fahje arne at fahje.dk
Mon Feb 20 04:34:44 EST 2006


Hi Aaron,

  I would also think, that over 600 members make it hard to entrust the 
question of proper use of this list to members self-conduct (but maybe 
this makes me a continental european). Even if this is the first 
incident of this kind, I would prefer to prevent future incidents from 
happening. It is also very easy to set up or cancel any number of eMails 
with providers like hotmail, yahoo or gmx. So, knowing the eMail address 
does not constitute a guarantee of openness by itself. The fact that 
there have been only little disturbances on this list might mostly be 
due to the good conduct and high level of interest of its members. That 
is likely to continue, I think. Hence I would definitely prefer option 
3. Letting members have the list upon request seems to be reasonable to 
me and only a slight infringement of the open culture of this list.

This is also the only mailing list I subscribe to and I hardly ever 
participate in message boards etc..., so I think it is the most likely 
source for them to have obtained my address from, as also so many other 
members of this list have received the CineAsia mails. At times there 
were also quite many mails from CineAsia in my mailbox, so I agree that 
it was hazardous.

But maybe Emilio could communicate the discussion on this list to 
CineAsia people and see if there is any reaction from their moderator or 
  other responsible person.

Arne



Aaron Gerow wrote:
> 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
> 
> For list commands, send "information kinejapan" to
> listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Kinema Club: http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Markus/Welcome.html
> 
> 


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