Re: [osbridge] Abridged summary of osbridge@googlegroups.com - 3 Messages in 1 Topic

[Anne Glazer]

Greetings! Think about privacy issues, i.e. whether the individuals
identified on the list would be surprised or dismayed to have their
contact info published. I assume no promises were given to them one
way or the other.
-Anne

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 8:16 AM, <osbr...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>   Today's Topic Summary
>
> Group: http://groups.google.com/group/osbridge/topics
>
> Publishing our list of user group contacts [3 Updates]
>
>  Topic: Publishing our list of user group contacts
>
> Selena Deckelmann <selen...@gmail.com> Dec 12 10:00AM -0800
>
> Hi!
>
> I'd like for us to publish our directory of user groups. Issues include:
>
> * Spam -> we need to do it in a way that encourages individuals to
> find their local groups, but doesn't enable more...
>
> Bram Pitoyo <bramp...@gmail.com> Dec 12 08:42PM -0800
>
>> What other issues are there with publishing it?
>
> Publishing it meaning designing a PDF or creating a searchable database of
> user groups?
> more...
>
> benh <ben.h...@gmail.com> Dec 12 09:36PM -0800
>
> Is this the doc that I helped with that one saturday? the one that had
> a bunch of user-groups, who was a good contact and if they had been
> contacted yet or not and if they responded?
> more...
>

[James Turnbull]

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Anne Glazer wrote:
> Greetings! Think about privacy issues, i.e. whether the individuals
> identified on the list would be surprised or dismayed to have their
> contact info published. I assume no promises were given to them one
> way or the other.

I can't speak to US Privacy issues but in Australia unless you
inform and get agreement for the public use of the data the inherent
assumption/expectation is that it will be kept private.

Regards

James Turnbull

- --
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[John Poelstra]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 12:28 PM, James Turnbull
<ja...@lovedthanlost.net> wrote:
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> Anne Glazer wrote:
>> Greetings!  Think about privacy issues, i.e. whether the individuals
>> identified on the list would be surprised or dismayed to have their
>> contact info published.  I assume no promises were given to them one
>> way or the other.
>
> I can't speak to US Privacy issues but in Australia unless you
> inform and get agreement for the public use of the data the inherent
> assumption/expectation is that it will be kept private.
>

I thinks these are good clarifications. I know the contact
information for all of the user groups I added to last years'
spreadsheet were straight from public websites (not from private
contacts). If we are simply aggregating this public information in
another public place I don't see that we are exposing information that
is private. Are there any legal folks on this list that can help us
know what the boundaries are?

John

[Selena Deckelmann]

Hi!

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 1:34 PM, John Poelstra <poe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I thinks these are good clarifications.  I know the contact
> information for all of the user groups I added to last years'
> spreadsheet were straight from public websites (not from private
> contacts).  If we are simply aggregating this public information in
> another public place I don't see that we are exposing information that
> is private.  Are there any legal folks on this list that can help us
> know what the boundaries are?

None (that I'm aware) of the information we collected was private. We
just aggregated it in one place.

I'm all for not exposing a list of email addresses to spammers. Ways
around this include:

* Setting up a spam-proof contact form that lets people contact user
groups/leaders, without exposing the user group/leader directly to
spam
* Just linking to websites (but not all groups have websites)
* Having someone inside the osbridge "organization" be the contact,
who then uses their best judgement to forward information along to
user groups

The last option has the advantage of keeping us in the loop (which has
marketing, and community/cohesiveness advantages). But requires
someone's time.

Regardless which solution we choose:

The goal here is to have a resource to which proto-speakers may be
directed to get experience speaking in front of technical groups. This
helps out the groups, which if they are like most user groups, have
trouble finding speakers. And it helps out our speakers, because they
get experience speaking. And it improves open source community,
because we're helping communicate which groups exist, and ultimately
members of various communities will talk to each other more.

:)

-selena


--
http://chesnok.com/daily - me
http://endpoint.com - work

[Anne]

IAAL (I am a lawyer). Unfortunately, this is a public message board
so I can't really get into advice . Sometimes websites state usage
rules that limit how downloaded information can be used, but otherwise
publicly available data is pretty much fair game. Privacy rules in
the US are different than Australia -- they give more leeway to use
information without express permission.
-Anne