Ian Jackson <
ijackson@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 (
rra@debian.org) <
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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