Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes: > Andrew M.A. Cater writes, in an official statement of the Community Team:
>> Taking private communications and moving them onto public lists without >> consent is unacceptable at any time. > I would to clarify/contest this. This rule, as stated, is very > broad, unqualified, and absolute. Yeah, I agree. This has been a rule of thumb for as long as I've been on the Internet and I've always been uncomfortable with the absolute version. I've also seen it abused from time to time for nearly as long as I've been on the Internet. It's sometimes appropriate and even necessary to publish private communications. The reason why people cite this rule about not publishing private communications, though, is that it's shorthand for a lot of principles that I do agree with and that are tedious to spell out every time. It's therefore a good *default*, as long as people don't take it as an absolute that applies in every circumstance. Just off the top of my head, here are a bunch of reasons for normally not doing this: 1. Discussing things in public takes way more energy and is higher risk than discussing them in private, and sometimes people just aren't up to it. It's fine to disregard their opinion in this case if one feels strongly that the matter must be discussed in public, but dragging them into the public discussion against their will is a good way to alienate volunteers and drive them away from Debian. 2. Republishing messages in a different context inherently changes their meaning, and sometimes the meaning can change in ways that are deceptive. This can be done inadvertantly, even if the person who is republishing the message has no intention of doing this, because the person republishing is usually familiar with the other context and may not see how the message would read in isolation. 3. Changing someone's chosen venue of discussion from private to public is usually an escalation and is usually going to make people angry. Sometimes escalation is warranted, but it's always something to think twice about. All other things being equal, ideally we should not make each other angry while trying to solve problems! 4. Often the intention and hope with private communication is that the person you're corresponding with will point out where you're wrong or misguided and help you correct your thinking. If that communication is instead published publicly, it often feels like public mocking and shaming for things that you said in private in part because they weren't fully thought through. This, again, is a good way to alienate volunteers and drive them away from Debian. 5. Forcing someone's private position into a public forum will normally harden their position and make them far less willing to change it. This is a basic aspect of human psychology: The more publicly you have committed to a position, the harder it is to ever change it, because it becomes invested with your reputation and idenitty. It's therefore usually counterproductive to republish people's communications if you hope to be able to persuade them to your point of view. There are others. My personal rule of thumb is that I won't publish private communication lightly, and usually (almost always) I end up deciding that the benefits aren't worth the costs, but I do think it's sometimes appropriate. The one thing I don't have any patience for is if I think someone is intentionally abusing this rule to keep me from getting help or support. If the private email is already that hostile, I am willing to forward it to anyone and any forum I choose. This thankfully has never happened to me in Debian, but I've had it happen occasionally in other circumstances. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
