Who cares? [was gmane.org ad naseum]

[jposada]

>if you don't want your words used by others, then don't post
>to the list. It's really not that tough. Instead of sending to, cc'ing
>to or bcc'ing to the list, just send to, cc or bcc the people with the
>question. Or don't offer your input.

You make it sound like the purpose of the list is to create content that can
be repurposed for any reason anyone may want. Where does it stop. I thought
the purpose of the list was for the benefit of the people subscribing to the
list.

>Thanks by the way to the wide range of people who already pitched
>in to let me know "thanks for saying what we are thinking".

Yeah, yeah, I know...we both got them (BTW...what would a narrow range of
people be in this context?)

>For the record, I post a lot to this group. So do a lot of people who
>make their living selling the same support and services we offer here
>for free. To say that we don't get paid for it isn't totally true. It's
>good press.

Actually, while agree with Art, that wasn't my primary initial concern. My
concern was having my name attributed to a solution when it might not have
been the correct or best solution to the problem, which I've said several
time during this discussion since yesterday. I'd find it unusual if a list
member's problem to which you post a solution is the exact problem that his
corporate user is experiencing and documenting. To be honest, I'd mind less
if the original poster snipped my response, pasted it in his documentation,
and reworked the content to better apply the solution to the specific
problem. In a case of applying a solution to a problem I know nothing about,
I'd rather NOT be attributed to the solution. OTOH,  if credit is to be
applied, it can be selectively. What I'd like is Jakob contacting you or me
or anyone on the list, saying he's like to use one of our solutions in
internal documentation. 1) Is it OK? and 2) do you want credit? At that
point, it is up to any of us to set the condition. You may very well want
the credit and with what you do, I understand you would. That's fine...I'd
never miss an opportunity to market myself. However, I don't and I'd say use
the solution but don't use my name. That should be fine too. A direct link
removes that option as well as being the lazy way out.

However, for a reader of his documentation to see my post verbatim along
with whatever email address and user I was responding too, along with
misspellings and grammar errors, as a solution in a corporate document that
might only partially state the solution is not something with which I'm
comfortable.

It kinda reminds me a situation when I was growing up. Our backyard property 
line ended at a certain point. It faced a dirt road and about 2/3 of the 
width of the dirt road was on our property, At a certain point, my parents 
wanted to add a built-in pool and wanted to reclaim the property that had 
for several years been public access. Know what? We couldn't because by not 
restricting access on it ever, it had pretty much reverted to the public 
domain. If OTOH, once a year we had closed it off, even for a day, we could 
have closed it off permanently. Now, this was when I was 10 years old, so 
there may have been more to this or I'm getting it wrong, or somneone was 
paying off the town to enforce a rule that didn't exist. However, it did 
teach me that if you don't practice some type of ownership as a normal 
course of business, at a certain point, you loose all claim. I think this 
also affects trademark law,

In this case, you don't object to how any of our content is repurposed in
Jakob's internal documentation. The next time may come a situation to which
you do object. Maybe someone will come along who is writing a book that will
be commercially published and he wants to include a link to your post that
will end up appearing on a Borders or B&N bookshelf. However, you won't know
it until one of your clients brings your attention to it. Wouldn't it just
be better to retain just a little control over who sees what you are saying
in your posts?