<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Steve comes up to you, says: "You've been looking around, so, maybe, if you keep your mouth shut as to where you got this information, I'll confirm what you suspect." He tells you about some promotions, some firings, and asks you not to tell anyone else - it's strictly a between-friends thing.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
And then Steve publishes exactly what he told you on the front page of the Des Moines
Register. Granted the
Register isn't exactly the
New York Times but it is still a
public news source. So is this forum.
Reprinting Steve's article in another paper without his permission or the
Register's publisher is a breach of etiquette (and, in that case, copyright), but not a breach of confidence. As I have noted in another thread, and others have noted here, this is a
PUBLIC board.
I think Tim acted hastily and discourteously in posting Dylan's remarks without getting permission and at least informing Antony. I think the best thing would have been for Tim to e-mail Antony asking for permission to
link to Dylan's post from his site, which would have also increased traffic to the board - always a good thing. But this was
not a private conversation among friends. It was a public post on the friggin'
INTERNET for pete's sake.
I think Tim, in his zeal to communicate the importance of writing letters to the sponsors, went further than he should. I think some of the folks here, in their zeal to protect Dylan, have gone even
further in attacking Tim. If Dylan didn't expect his remarks to be quoted, he wouldn't have specified
how they should be quoted, now would he?
Tim isn't right in claiming that he did
nothing wrong, in my view. He should have asked permission and/or linked to the message rather than quoting it in full. OTOH I think some of you guys need to put down the pitchforks and torches. What he
did do - posting the whole thing
with Dylan's disclaimer - isn't nearly the heinous act you're portraying it as.
Regards,
Joe
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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net
