[p2p-research] Listmaster Announcement: Possible Migration to New List

[Kevin Carson]

Dear Members:

Over the weekend, this list -- along with all other mailman lists on
listcultures -- was suspended without the courtesy of a warning or
explanation, and without any subsequent apology.  Here's Michel's
account of it:


"Last Friday, we discovered that our messages were no longer
distributed and that the info page... informed us there were no longer
any lists available. We also discovered on an another page, that our
account has been suspended.

"The host of our mailman list has been listcultures.org, a domain
owned by Geert Lovink, and the list was created a few years ago by Ned
Rossiter, co-author with Geert of a book on Organized Networks. The
lists are operating on servers from the Belgian firm Alfahosting
<http://alfahosting.be>.

"It would seem that all the lists of listcultures.org have been suspended.

"Moreover, no warning, no explanation, has been given. After several
back and forths, we still don’t know why we have been suspended,
whether we are victims of collective punishment for the misdeeds of
another mailing list, or whether we ourselves did any wrong, albeit
unwittingly since we have no evidence from our own experience that we
did....

"But it seems to us that a unilateral decision by a commercial firm,
to suspend an account, without any reason given, no communication and
no due process, is not acceptable ethical behaviour and endangers the
communication rights of online communities. Suddenly, we find
ourselves without access to a very rich archive, and in the
impossibility to communicate with our sympathizers. With a unilateral
act, years of community building are endangered.

"Surely, for the future, we and others will be careful about dealing
with ,entities that have ethical guidelines, due process and a respect
for communication rights, and avoid those that have such a callous
disregard for their clients."


To what Michel stated I would add that we have received nothing in the
way of an apology, and no assurances that something similar won't
happen in the future.  This is an intolerable lack of consideration.

We have, consequently, taken steps to prepare for a possible migration
to a new list -- probably another mailman list -- effective Jan. 1.
This is provisionally planned to take place if the membership agrees
on it.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html