They added to the body of knowledge and didn't bitch when someone else quoted them. And they definately did get quoted.
But I bet they didn't have a transcript of what they said at Joe's Bar and Grill published in the paper.
There are certain expectations of privacy established through custom. I'm not
talking about the "right to republish" here. Copyright law covers that.
I'm talking about courtesy and decency. While a newspaper reporter probably
has a right to republish something he overheard in a pub, chances are that his
editor would require a fact-finding mission first to verify the truth of what
was said before publishing it, especially if it was embarassing or damaging.
We have certain privacy expecations in society. Yes, legally, there appears to
be no difference between the CB and a node. I'm not interested in arguing this
along that axis. I'm just talking about expectations.
I expect that my CB chat
will be transitory, viewed by the audience that I expect is there (as seen
by a glance to "other users") and then disappear into the ether. So I treat it
like I would a pub-style conversation, where I get loose sometimes and don't always
think about my facts or opinions... I'm just chatting, I can fix it back up in a minute
or two if someone disagrees.
On the other hand, I expect that a node is more permanent (like a Usenet message
or a column I write), so I think carefully about what I write, make sure it'll
make sense in the context presented, and usually reserve opinion and controversy
unless I'm responding to something I strongly disagree with. In other words,
I write what I expect will be quoted and my name attached to it.
Some people here (perhaps you) are requesting me to change my expectation
about the CB (pub to me), to
presume that there's not only the temporal attendees, but a microphone connected
to a loudspeaker outside the building. I'm sorry, but if that were to happen to me
explicitly in a pub, I'd probably stop talking. And if it happened to me implicitly
in a pub, I'd raise bloody hell as I did here, because it violates what I consider
to be the scope of my audience.
So that's why I feel violated when the transcript was quoted. I thought I was talking
in a pub, and someone published a pub chat in a newspaper. Further, I thought
we had already agreed not to do that, but as I've seen now, that's not the case.
I'm glad we're getting a chance to discuss it now. What I'd like to see is a resolution
(soon) that codifies the expectation. Either:
- We agree that CB is transitory (like a pub), and agree not to publicly log it
(or get permission before reposting a log), or
- We agree that there is no difference between a node and the CB, and that conventional quoting rules apply, or
- We agree to something else.
My mistake for presuming #1 was already in place.
So can we get this resolved soon? Leaving it ambiguous as it appears to be now
really doesn't work for me.
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker