[p2p-research] is the use of an opt-out consent request ethically offensive.

[Dan Brickley]

Hi Michel,

On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 7:25 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> some of you may have gotten the invitation letter to join a new mailing
> list, which I forwarded a few days ago. These invitations are sent out in
> batches by Sam.

[snip]

Ok so this is something of an aside, but if growing the new mailing
list is key, how about rationalising the list of URIs in your email
signature (and the standard signature for this list too, perhaps).
Lots of people get to read this and it's a nice low-hassle way of
drawing people in...

> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
> Think tank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

There's quite a lot going on there already, including two different
links for the Foundation, a Think tank, a collection of social network
activity stream sites, and a mailing list (this one). It's almost a
Web page in itself. If this url list were shrunk down to a
'Foundation' and 'Personal site' couple of URLs, it would make room
for a simple clear 'call to action' link, eg. "Join our announcements
mailing list for monthly updates <url>" or similar.

I can see why opt-outs upset people. One way to balance that is to
begin very clearly up front with "You are receiving this mail because
you have previously expressed an interest in X. If you are no longer
interested, or are receiving this in error, <url>".

cheers,

Dan

ps. re pulling other people into groups, the recent Facebook fuss
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/207305/facebook_groups_prank_shows_problem_with_default_optin.html
might be interesting.