Wiki Privacy

JimCoplien cc'd me on this correspondence. He'd picked up on the X-Url line of the unsolicited email which implicated wiki as the source of his address. We all put addresses into wiki expecting useful correspondence with our peers. I hope we continue to do so. Thanks to Cope for drafting a strong but still polite reply. I might just use it myself should I happen to notice the source of my junk mail. -- WardCunningham

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 Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:41:13 -0700
 From: Jaye Romo <jayer@andataco.com>
 Organization: ANDATACO
 To: cope@research.att.com
 Subject: Introduction
 X-Url: http://c2.com/cgi-bin/wiki?JimCoplien

 Cope,
 Please allow me to introduce myself and ANDATACO.  ANDATACO is the
 largest 3rd party provider of storage and backup solutions for the Unix market.
 For additional, visit our WEB site at www.andataco.com or call me 
 1-800-453-9696 ext. 1260
 Best regards,
 Jaye L. Romo

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Dear Mr. Romo,

I see you got my name from the WikiWikiWeb and used the electronic address posted there to solicit my business.

The WikiWikiWeb was set up by Cunningham and Cunningham as a forum for dialogue on important issues facing the design and programming communities today, engaging all who are interested in such dialogue. Using it for commercial solicitation, particularly in an area that is pretty far afield from the central design themes on this forum, is probably an inappropriate use of the resource. Such use imposes on the good will of those who are providing the forum as a public service. I'd suggest you refrain from further using WikiWiki in this manner. I suspect that many of the people who participate in WikiWiki will be of like mind, and that such solicitation will end being a disservice to you.

I think all comers are welcome -- even those representing commercial interests -- to participate in the dialogue there, and we'd appreciate your insights and involvement in the various topics there.

Thanks for your understanding.

-- Jim Coplien

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Is there a statement of acceptable use of the contents of the material here (including email lists, etc)?

Are there Acceptable Use Policies?

As WardCunningham wonders aloud above, I wonder how long an online community with such openness can last? Will the success of this community destroy it? (That's a CommunityDeath? pattern, ain't it?)

Its nice, IMHO, that there aren't a whole lot of formal rules - that tends to inhibit contribution and put off new entrants (like myself).

-- GabrielWachob

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The Acceptable Use policies at WikiWiki boil down to self-restraint and taste. Sadly, in the world at large, openness equates to vulnerability to vandals and overzealous vendors; the former use open communities as forums for "shitty" self-expression, and the latter for the huckstering of what is too often simply excrement, albeit in market-directed and finely wrapped form. I think it is quite a testimony to WikiWiki folks that we have not experienced any vandalism and little commercialism. Cope's restrained and kind response to Mr. Romo exhibits the spirit of Wiki at its best; inclusive, accepting, and expecting that its spirit will inform the words posted to it. -- DonOlson