I was chatting with some coworkers today and they told me about a discussion about Evergreen on the AUTOCAT mailing list. I decided to sign up because I had previously considered it and, really, what’s one more mailing list to join and then ignore?
After signing up, I had to laugh when I received the confirmation e-mail in my inbox which stated:
This list is confidential. You should not publicly mention its existence, or forward copies of information you have obtained from it to third parties.
Isn’t it time that this notice be removed from the confirmation message? I was able to find the sign-up form with an easy Google search, there’s a Wikipedia page about the list, and there are even archives up on GMane. I think the AUTOCAT has been out of the bag for some time…
It’s truly a shame. I don’t have mental bandwidth for (subscribing to) AUTOCAT, but occasionally I run into interesting conversations there. Open listserv archives would be beneficial to me; I wonder if the list has thought recently about what harm openness would bring them.
I’m thinking that it’s probably more of an (amusing) oversight than anything else. I know that there are some issues about quoting and message copyright (see http://www.cwu.edu/~dcc/Autocat/copyright.html), otherwise, I haven’t run into anything about keeping AUTOCAT on the same level of secrecy as the Freemasons.
That is kind of crazy and unfortunate. It might be worth signing up for the list and setting it to NOMAIL just so you can get access to the archives. I have an email account specifically for busy lists so I can pick and choose what I read and delete the rest. I used to set AUTOCAT to digest but would just delete it without reading the messages.
Laura,
You can get access to the AUTOCAT archives without having to sign up for the listserv at http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.education.libraries.autocat .
On a side note, I’ve found that GMail works best for busy listservs such as AUTOCAT. That still doesn’t change the fact that AUTOCAT owns my inbox and possibly my soul…
Oh, dear! I guess we’ll have to shoot all of you now, since you’ve outed AUTOCAT. We’re actually a CIA/KGB (insert your fave bugaboo here) front, you know! :)
Seriously, it’s a pity that no one thought to ask the listowners about this… wouldn’t that be a more productive approach than complaining? With over 5000 subscribers, AUTOCAT is hardly confidential — let alone secret! — and I suspect that the notice in the confirmation letter is nothing but an artifact of another time. I’ll see about getting it changed.
cheers,
- marc truitt (co-listowner, AUTOCAT)
The note in the confirmation message is an unfortunate anachronism. In recent years, under the current management ably led by Marc Truitt, AUTOCAT has become much less autocratic than it was in the past. With open subscription (I’ve signed on and off multiple times myself as need and desire dictates), and an open archive of postings (this was big), it’s about as open as you can get with a mailing list. So chill, people.
Hey Marc! Thank you for your good humoured response! I hope I didn’t offend.
I agree, it probably would’ve been more productive to e-mail the list admin. But then, I didn’t see the LISTSERV admin contact info on the AUTOCAT page when I signed up. Perhaps I was (as my wife would say) searching like a typical man… However, might I suggest adding your e-mail address to the Help page so that it’s easier to find?
http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SHOWTPL=REPORT-HELP-SUBS
Also, is there any desire to make the archives on the AUTOCAT site public, now that they’re already available via GMane?
Thanks again,
Warren