Lineland (fwd)

[Kathleen Fitzpatrick]

Just to throw in my 2 cents, as someone unaffected by the whole fracas (I
tend to lurk anyway, and the noise Jules made just kept me even more
silent):

All issues of the "legality" of use of these posts to the list (or, for
that matter, the use of them for profit) are only a
small part of this issue.  Perhaps someday we will all resolve that
listservs are public conversations, and thus their content becomes public
domain.  Perhaps.

But the fact remains that, if you're going to quote (or just repeat)
something that someone said to you in conversation in a book,
it's common courtesy to ASK permission.  That permission may not be,
strictly speaking required.  But it's the right thing to do.

I'm on a number of other academic listservs, the content of which has
frequently been used for articles, dissertations, etcetera -- and all of
these writers have made a point of asking permission of the posters.  It's
surprising to me that, amongst his other rationales, Larson claims to have
thought about "netiquette."  Because all standards of netiquette by which
I operate would have led me to precisely the opposite conclusion.

Kathleen