[GSBN] private vs public archives (was: Calibration of Balemaster probe)

[Bruce King]

Thank you, David.  And, especially, thank you Bill.  You do us all a  
very great favor, over and over again.

greetings to all,

Bruce King
(415) 987-7271
bruce-king.com

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On Nov 8, 2009, at 9:10 PM, Bill Christensen wrote:

At 3:41 PM -0500 11/8/09, strawnet at aol.com wrote:
>
>
> This makes me wonder if there might be a way to automate a kind of  
> differentiation of posts - some of which would not automatically be  
> archived in the public sphere - perhaps using a key word in the  
> subject line of posts that contain info not intended for wider  
> distribution. I don't know how feasible that might be, but I would  
> hope we might find a way to preserve both the openness of the flow  
> of information and exchange and also preserve something of a more  
> private/tighter community sharing when that is appropriate. On the  
> other hand, I don't want to see more burden placed on Bill C for  
> additional work.
>
> Either way, I just want to say how much I have appreciated and  
> continue to value the existence of this list, the archives, and  
> especially the members and their contributions. Kudos to Bill for  
> all his work to keep this list functioning and for making the wealth  
> of information that has been generated and shared here available to  
> so many people.
>
> Warmest regards to you all,
>
> David
>

I can't think of an easy way to implement a separation of private vs  
public archives.  Even if we were to figure out how to define some  
subject line tag that magically put certain posts in a protected area,  
my guess is that most on the list would soon forget it or forget to  
use it.  It's not like there's a whole lot of discussion here that  
really needs to be kept private, and when there is it's probably best  
just to use direct email to discuss it with the relevant members  
offlist, and to discuss it on the list with the private parts left out.

Regarding the instant searchability, it's not necessarily that  
instant.  Google indexes sites at varying frequencies.  GSBN doesn't  
get indexed all *that* often, despite how important any of us think  
our work is.  In fact, I just did a completely non-scientific study by  
searching for various phrases from posts to see how far back I'd need  
to go before coming up with a match.  August 19th matched; September  
9th didn't.  (there was one other post in that span of time which I  
didn't test, on Aug 21st.)

So we probably have an average buffer of at least a month before  
anything posted on GSBN shows up in Google.

Of course anyone who knows of the GSBN archives can pull them up as  
soon as the post goes through, and as Derek pointed out that would be  
before any of us received them in our own mailboxes.  I doubt there  
are forces of straw-evil out lurking out there watching our every  
move, so it doesn't seem like we'd really need to worry about it much.

I think we're all pretty aware of the need to be discreet about  
certain aspects of our discussions - we don't give out owners' names  
when discussing catastrophic failures which may involve insurance  
companies, for instance.

As for me, I'm just happy to keep y'all connected.

Bill "fly on the wall" Christensen

-- 
Bill Christensen
billc at greenbuilder.com

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