[Local-Maine-Schools] Hazards and benefits of discussing this publicly

[Dick Atlee]

Brian Hubbell wrote:
> Several people commented that they were worried that by having this
> discussion in full open view to other citizens and legislators across
> the state we somehow risk making our concerns seem self-centered or,
> perhaps worse, risk weakening our voice through airing any internal
> disagreements.

This IS a valid concern.  It is very easy to make the archived past 
correspondence available to only the subscribers.  As of now, there's 
nothing to prevent anyone who wants to from subscribing, but it DOES 
limit the scope of general access.

When the list was set up, I chose to make the archives public because if 
seemed important that legislators (in particular) understand where 
people were coming from.  But the primary purpose of the list was to 
facilitate discussion among us, and if a significant number of people 
feel constrained to not participate, or to do so "offline", resulting in 
a non-discussion, I can see it might be a lot better to cut off general 
access to the archives.

If you feel you would be more likely to share your thoughts if the past 
correspondence were restricted, please let me or the list know, and if 
there seems to be significant sentiment in that direction, we can flip 
the switch.  Thanks.

Dick