4 Aug
2025
4 Aug
'25
10:55 a.m.
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This was an effort to
make information easier to search, to find, to link to, and to share. However, the days
of free information online have changed. AI bots are now scraping the web for data to
train on and privacy is more of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives private. The biggest
reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI training/scraping. This means that
you’ll need a free account on the new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier to the archives
would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade off between privacy and
accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the archives at
groups.io <http://groups.io/> private, we cannot make them public again later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
8 Aug
8 Aug
9:49 a.m.
It may be able to do an old-style boolean search for keywords. There is no
modern, natural-language search capability, like you get from Duckduckgo,
Google, Bing, etc.
--jh--
On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 3:59 AM Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Laurie Pietravalle wrote:
Hmm I don’t like that! No real search capability.
Maybe I need to
consider changing my vote if that’s true
It isn't true.
Groups.io has a Search that supports exact phrases (using double quotes,)
exclusions (using minus/dash,) wildcards (using *) and Boolean operators
(e.g. AND, OR and NOT.) You can also filter by date.
https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/5430
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
3:59 a.m.
Laurie Pietravalle wrote:
Hmm I don’t like that! No real search capability.
Maybe I need to consider changing my vote if that’s true
It isn't true.
Groups.io has a Search that supports exact phrases (using double quotes,) exclusions
(using minus/dash,) wildcards (using *) and Boolean operators (e.g. AND, OR and NOT.) You
can also filter by date.
https://groups.io/g/GroupManagersForum/wiki/5430
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
7 Aug
7 Aug
6:33 p.m.
Hmm I don’t like that! No real search capability. Maybe I need to consider changing my
vote if that’s true
Laurie Pietravalle
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
On Thursday, August 7, 2025, 9:56 AM, Seth Seeger via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Don makes a good point - it's only new posts that would be affected. One option is to
see if we can leave the old archives up to preserve links.
Seth
On Aug 6, 2025, at 9:34 PM, Don Veino <sharedweight_net(a)veino.com> wrote:
[many good prior posts trimmed out for brevity]
This may be obvious to some and not others, but a decision to "go private" will
really only affect new posts, as whatever has been public is already out in the wild and
will remain so. As an example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160224183004/http://lists.sharedweight.net/pi…
Note this is another public web property and just a single example of what is also likely
held in "dark" archives elsewhere.
As another consideration, what we post and discuss here is by its primary nature a public
thing, ultimately presented to a wide community at events typically open to anyone. The
group of people on copy in the group is large and therefore expectations of privacy should
be low to nil?
As much as I distrust the motives of many organizations behind AI, I feel a robust search
function like that currently available through Google, et al, is a valuable resource.
Unless the groups.io search can replace that, I'm more inclined to keep the current
public policy.
-Don
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 10:56 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This was an effort to
make information easier to search, to find, to link to, and to share. However, the days
of free information online have changed. AI bots are now scraping the web for data to
train on and privacy is more of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives private. The biggest
reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI training/scraping. This means that
you’ll need a free account on the new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier to the archives
would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade off between privacy and
accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the archives at
groups.io private, we cannot make them public again later.)
Thank you,Seth & Chris_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
9:55 a.m.
Don makes a good point - it's only new posts that would be affected. One option is to
see if we can leave the old archives up to preserve links.
Seth
On Aug 6, 2025, at 9:34 PM, Don Veino
<sharedweight_net(a)veino.com> wrote:
[many good prior posts trimmed out for brevity]
This may be obvious to some and not others, but a decision to "go private" will
really only affect new posts, as whatever has been public is already out in the wild and
will remain so. As an example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160224183004/http://lists.sharedweight.net/pi…
Note this is another public web property and just a single example of what is also likely
held in "dark" archives elsewhere.
As another consideration, what we post and discuss here is by its primary nature a public
thing, ultimately presented to a wide community at events typically open to anyone. The
group of people on copy in the group is large and therefore expectations of privacy should
be low to nil?
As much as I distrust the motives of many organizations behind AI, I feel a robust search
function like that currently available through Google, et al, is a valuable resource.
Unless the groups.io <http://groups.io/> search can replace that, I'm more
inclined to keep the current public policy.
-Don
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 10:56 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote:
> Dear list members,
>
> Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This was an effort
to make information easier to search, to find, to link to, and to share. However, the
days of free information online have changed. AI bots are now scraping the web for data
to train on and privacy is more of an issue.
>
> As we move to groups.io <http://groups.io/>, Chris and I would like to make the
archives private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI
training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the new site to view the
archives.
>
> We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier to the
archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade off between privacy and
accessibility.
>
> If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the archives at
groups.io <http://groups.io/> private, we cannot make them public again later.)
>
> Thank you,
> Seth & Chris
> _______________________________________________
> Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
> To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net>
6 Aug
6 Aug
9:34 p.m.
[many good prior posts trimmed out for brevity]
This may be obvious to some and not others, but a decision to "go private"
will really only affect new posts, as whatever has been public is already
out in the wild and will remain so. As an example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160224183004/http://lists.sharedweight.net/pi…
Note this is another public web property and just a single example of what
is also likely held in "dark" archives elsewhere.
As another consideration, what we post and discuss here is by its primary
nature a public thing, ultimately presented to a wide community at events
typically open to anyone. The group of people on copy in the group is large
and therefore expectations of privacy should be low to nil?
As much as I distrust the motives of many organizations behind AI, I feel a
robust search function like that currently available through Google, et al,
is a valuable resource. Unless the groups.io search can replace that, I'm
more inclined to keep the current public policy.
-Don
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 10:56 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from
AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the
new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier
to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade
off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the
archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
5:29 p.m.
Let's add another consideration:
We talk about gender issues related to role terms, et al.
We have nonbinary and transgender callers.
We live in a country actively removing rights from non-cis people, and we
know from news that they are actively searching internet and social media
in a variety of ways to push right wing agenda (used against refugees,
visitors, students, government employee speech, etc).
We can debate how much of a reasonable concern that may be, but it's enough
of a concern for me to support making thinga private.
Julian Blechner
He/Him
Western Massachusetts
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, 2:08 PM Alan J Rosenthal via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
"Giant
capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine" might be the name for a
dance -- though the dance to live up to that title has not yet occurred to
me.
It should be almost identical to some existing dance, with two changes,
both of which make the dance less interesting, and one of which doesn't
fit the music.
Also, all of the dancers should have six fingers on each hand.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
2:08 p.m.
"Giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism
machine" might be the name for a
dance -- though the dance to live up to that title has not yet occurred to
me.
It should be almost identical to some existing dance, with two changes,
both of which make the dance less interesting, and one of which doesn't
fit the music.
Also, all of the dancers should have six fingers on each hand.
1:11 p.m.
"Giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine" might be the name for a
dance -- though the dance to live up to that title has not yet occurred to
me.
Roger
11:09 a.m.
OK, people seem to be fixated on my term "unsavory characters", which perhaps
may not be the best of terminology to use. I was trying to echo everyone else's
concerns about our list archives being public. The term "giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine" seems to be pretty unsavory to me. I am not trying to bring in
additional issues. I am also probably more cautious about stuff being on the internet for
reasons, because there are bad people out there. It was not my intent to bring in any
additional issue unrelated to anything y'all have been talking about.
Perry
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 11:01:10 AM EDT, Jeff Kaufman
<jeff.t.kaufman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Perry,
Could you elaborate on "unsavory characters can use AI to access our list and do
stuff with it"? I get the concern Maia and others have about not wanting to make
things easier for people who are making AI models (and I'm very conflicted here,
including thinking there's a serious chance that the AI companies get us all killed)
but is your "unsavory characters" concern trying to bring in additional issues?
The archives are currently public, which you can see by
visiting https://lists.sharedweight.net/hyperkitty/list/contracallers@lists.sharedwe…
while not logged in.
Jeff
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:47 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I don't think that AI is a current worry on the list right now? I mean, if a public
set up means that unsavory characters can use AI to access our list and do stuff with it
that is causing the concern of others, it's all related, I feel.
I actually didn't realize that anything was public *now*. I thought that I had access
to archives because I am a member. Is that not the case?
Perry
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:41:58 AM EDT, Angela DeCarlis
<aedecarlis(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Perry, have we had problems with unsavory characters accessing our list as-is? Assuming
not, let's not complicate this discussion with less relevant concerns! 🙂
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care one way or the other - but there
seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being private. I know that there
are many benefits to it being public, but "public" means that all sorts of
unsavory characters can access and do whatever with it, and that's enough for me to
keep it private. There's no financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who
wants the info should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those benefits are
maintained if you make it private and have people join the group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway us one way
or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism
machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an obvious good.
I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the current hype is overblown and
dangerous and I'm just hoping the current bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to avoid having
your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having the listserv be public to
nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. However, I will be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the
plagiarism machine is the express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.--Maia
McCormick (she/her)917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There is the
archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I would suggest that even if
the archives are made private, so that only group members can access them, that the groups
should still be listed in the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking
for dance related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the intention
is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed
in the directory and links to the groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS
members can log in and then apply to join one or more lists.
Jonathan
From: Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links
to the archive.
Jonathan
From: Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
To: 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: List archives Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
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11:02 a.m.
The Contra Callers archive is currently public. Anyone can access it here
<https://lists.sharedweight.net/hyperkitty/list/contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net/>
without logging in. You can look at specific threads and share links to them with other
people, even ones not on the list.
By contrast, the ECD list is private. If you try to access it here
<https://lists.sharedweight.net/hyperkitty/list/ecd@lists.sharedweight.net/> you
must log in to view it.
Both approaches seem to work OK, though I will say I have occasionally run into
frustrations with the private list. It's hard to rustle up old threads because
built-in search doesn't usually work when I try it (maybe groups.io will have a
functional built-in search?) and it isn't indexed by search engines because it's
private. I have also occasionally wanted to share threads with friends who aren't on
the list and ben unable to do so.
Harris Lapiroff (he/him)
Dance Caller and Organizer
Boston Intergenerational Dance Advocates Board (Cambridge MA)
Pinewoods Camp, Inc Board (Plymouth MA)
https://chromamine.com/contra/
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, at 10:47 AM, Perry Shafran via Contra Callers wrote:
I don't think that AI is a current worry on the list right now? I mean, if a public
set up means that unsavory characters can use AI to access our list and do stuff with it
that is causing the concern of others, it's all related, I feel.
I actually didn't realize that anything was public *now*. I thought that I had
access to archives because I am a member. Is that not the case?
Perry
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:41:58 AM EDT, Angela DeCarlis
<aedecarlis(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Perry, have we had problems with unsavory characters accessing our list as-is? Assuming
not, let's not complicate this discussion with less relevant concerns! 🙂
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care one way or the other - but there
seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being private. I know that there
are many benefits to it being public, but "public" means that all sorts of
unsavory characters can access and do whatever with it, and that's enough for me to
keep it private. There's no financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who
wants the info should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those benefits are
maintained if you make it private and have people join the group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway us one way
or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism
machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an obvious good.
I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the current hype is overblown and
dangerous and I'm just hoping the current bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to avoid
having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having the listserv be public
to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. However, I will be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the
plagiarism machine is the express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
__
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net There are 2 different elements of a group that
can be made private. There is the archive of past messages and then there is the group
itself. I would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only group
members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in the Groups.io
directory. That would mean that people looking for dance related groups could find them
and apply to join. Of course, if the intention is that only CDSS members can join the
groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the
groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links
to the archive.
Jonathan
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
> How would I access these lists if you change to private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net 
11 a.m.
Hi Perry,
Could you elaborate on "unsavory characters can use AI to access our list
and do stuff with it"? I get the concern Maia and others have about not
wanting to make things easier for people who are making AI models (and I'm
very conflicted here, including thinking there's a serious chance that the
AI companies get us all killed) but is your "unsavory characters" concern
trying to bring in additional issues?
The archives are currently public, which you can see by visiting
https://lists.sharedweight.net/hyperkitty/list/contracallers@lists.sharedwe…
while not logged in.
Jeff
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:47 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I don't think that AI is a current worry on the
list right now? I mean,
if a public set up means that unsavory characters can use AI to access our
list and do stuff with it that is causing the concern of others, it's all
related, I feel.
I actually didn't realize that anything was public *now*. I thought that
I had access to archives because I am a member. Is that not the case?
Perry
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:41:58 AM EDT, Angela DeCarlis <
aedecarlis(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Perry, have we had problems with unsavory characters accessing our list
as-is? Assuming not, let's not complicate this discussion with less
relevant concerns! 🙂
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care one way or the other -
but there seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being
private. I know that there are many benefits to it being public, but
"public" means that all sorts of unsavory characters can access and do
whatever with it, and that's enough for me to keep it private. There's no
financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who wants the info
should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those
benefits are maintained if you make it private and have people join the
group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra
Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway
us one way or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an
obvious good. I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the
current hype is overblown and dangerous and I'm just hoping the current
bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to
avoid having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having
the listserv be public to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of
feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine. However, I will
be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the plagiarism machine is the
express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There
is the archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I
would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only
group members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in
the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking for dance
related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the
intention is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they
shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the groups could be
available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu> <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the
months are links to the archive.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com> <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>;
'Michael
Fuerst via Contra Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io
in 2020. The archives for them are not private and they at listed by month
at the bottom of the page for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go
to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown,
but there are no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
10:47 a.m.
I don't think that AI is a current worry on the list right now? I mean, if a public
set up means that unsavory characters can use AI to access our list and do stuff with it
that is causing the concern of others, it's all related, I feel.
I actually didn't realize that anything was public *now*. I thought that I had access
to archives because I am a member. Is that not the case?
Perry
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:41:58 AM EDT, Angela DeCarlis
<aedecarlis(a)gmail.com> wrote:
@Perry, have we had problems with unsavory characters accessing our list as-is? Assuming
not, let's not complicate this discussion with less relevant concerns! 🙂
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care one way or the other - but there
seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being private. I know that there
are many benefits to it being public, but "public" means that all sorts of
unsavory characters can access and do whatever with it, and that's enough for me to
keep it private. There's no financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who
wants the info should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those benefits are
maintained if you make it private and have people join the group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway us one way
or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism
machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an obvious good.
I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the current hype is overblown and
dangerous and I'm just hoping the current bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to avoid having
your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having the listserv be public to
nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. However, I will be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the
plagiarism machine is the express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.--Maia
McCormick (she/her)917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There is the
archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I would suggest that even if
the archives are made private, so that only group members can access them, that the groups
should still be listed in the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking
for dance related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the intention
is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed
in the directory and links to the groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS
members can log in and then apply to join one or more lists.
Jonathan
From: Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links
to the archive.
Jonathan
From: Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
To: 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: List archives Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
10:46 a.m.
+1 maia
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025, at 10:44 AM, Joe Harrington via Contra Callers wrote:
If it's private, the group will no longer be
searchable in any really sensible way. I just skimmed the topics in the Groups.io manual,
and search isn't even mentioned. You can probably get a keyword search, but any
topical or natural-language search such as you'd run on a modern search engine,
including safe ones like DuckDuckGo, won't work anymore. This also means that callers
who don't know about the list, and there are many, many of those, will not discover it
through searching for a calling topic.
--jh--
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care one way or the other - but there
seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being private. I know that there
are many benefits to it being public, but "public" means that all sorts of
unsavory characters can access and do whatever with it, and that's enough for me to
keep it private. There's no financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who
wants the info should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those benefits are
maintained if you make it private and have people join the group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway us one way
or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism
machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an obvious good.
I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the current hype is overblown and
dangerous and I'm just hoping the current bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to avoid
having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having the listserv be public
to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. However, I will be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the
plagiarism machine is the express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
__
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net There are 2 different elements of a group that
can be made private. There is the archive of past messages and then there is the group
itself. I would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only group
members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in the Groups.io
directory. That would mean that people looking for dance related groups could find them
and apply to join. Of course, if the intention is that only CDSS members can join the
groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the
groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links
to the archive.
Jonathan
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
> How would I access these lists if you change to private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
10:44 a.m.
If it's private, the group will no longer be searchable in any really
sensible way. I just skimmed the topics in the Groups.io manual, and
search isn't even mentioned. You can probably get a keyword search, but
any topical or natural-language search such as you'd run on a modern search
engine, including safe ones like DuckDuckGo, won't work anymore. This also
means that callers who don't know about the list, and there are many, many
of those, will not discover it through searching for a calling topic.
--jh--
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care
one way or the other -
but there seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being
private. I know that there are many benefits to it being public, but
"public" means that all sorts of unsavory characters can access and do
whatever with it, and that's enough for me to keep it private. There's no
financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who wants the info
should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those
benefits are maintained if you make it private and have people join the
group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra
Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway
us one way or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an
obvious good. I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the
current hype is overblown and dangerous and I'm just hoping the current
bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to
avoid having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having
the listserv be public to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of
feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine. However, I will
be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the plagiarism machine is the
express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There
is the archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I
would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only
group members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in
the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking for dance
related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the
intention is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they
shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the groups could be
available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu> <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the
months are links to the archive.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com> <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>;
'Michael
Fuerst via Contra Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io
in 2020. The archives for them are not private and they at listed by month
at the bottom of the page for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go
to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown,
but there are no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
10:41 a.m.
@Perry, have we had problems with unsavory characters accessing our list
as-is? Assuming not, let's not complicate this discussion with less
relevant concerns! 🙂
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM Perry Shafran via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
My personal view is that I personally don't care
one way or the other -
but there seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being
private. I know that there are many benefits to it being public, but
"public" means that all sorts of unsavory characters can access and do
whatever with it, and that's enough for me to keep it private. There's no
financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who wants the info
should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those
benefits are maintained if you make it private and have people join the
group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra
Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway
us one way or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an
obvious good. I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the
current hype is overblown and dangerous and I'm just hoping the current
bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to
avoid having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having
the listserv be public to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of
feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine. However, I will
be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the plagiarism machine is the
express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There
is the archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I
would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only
group members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in
the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking for dance
related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the
intention is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they
shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the groups could be
available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu> <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the
months are links to the archive.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com> <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>;
'Michael
Fuerst via Contra Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io
in 2020. The archives for them are not private and they at listed by month
at the bottom of the page for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go
to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown,
but there are no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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10:24 a.m.
My personal view is that I personally don't care one way or the other - but there
seems to be enough concern by others to push the list to being private. I know that there
are many benefits to it being public, but "public" means that all sorts of
unsavory characters can access and do whatever with it, and that's enough for me to
keep it private. There's no financial cost whatsoever to membership, so anyone who
wants the info should be approved before they get access.
I'm sure there are benefits to having a public list, but I think those benefits are
maintained if you make it private and have people join the group.
Perry Shafran
On Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 10:12:01 AM EDT, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway us one way
or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism
machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an obvious good.
I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the current hype is overblown and
dangerous and I'm just hoping the current bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to avoid having
your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having the listserv be public to
nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. However, I will be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the
plagiarism machine is the express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.--Maia
McCormick (she/her)917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There is the
archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I would suggest that even if
the archives are made private, so that only group members can access them, that the groups
should still be listed in the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking
for dance related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the intention
is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed
in the directory and links to the groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS
members can log in and then apply to join one or more lists.
Jonathan
From: Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links
to the archive.
Jonathan
From: Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
To: 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: List archives Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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10:22 a.m.
+1 to Maia
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 at 7:11 am, Maia McCormick via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's
necessarily strong enough to sway
us one way or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an
obvious good. I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the
current hype is overblown and dangerous and I'm just hoping the current
bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to
avoid having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having
the listserv be public to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of
feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine. However, I will
be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the plagiarism machine is the
express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not
CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private.
There is the archive of past messages and then there is the group itself.
I would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only
group members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in
the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking for dance
related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the
intention is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they
shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the groups could be
available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu> <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the
months are links to the archive.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com> <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>;
'Michael
Fuerst via Contra Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to
Groups.io in 2020. The archives for them are not private and they at
listed by month at the bottom of the page for each Group. E.g. for my
Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are
shown, but there are no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
10:11 a.m.
Just my two cents, not an opinion that's necessarily strong enough to sway
us one way or the other but figured I'd share:
I really don’t feel excited about feeding the giant capitalist dystopia
plagiarism machine. I don't see "improving the capability of LLMS" as an
obvious good. I think that LLMs are good for a ton of things, but the
current hype is overblown and dangerous and I'm just hoping the current
bubble pops before it does more damage.
I agree that if you exist on the Internet these days, it's pretty hard to
avoid having your content fed to LLMs; and I think the benefit of having
the listserv be public to nonmembers may very well outweigh the costs of
feeding the giant capitalist dystopia plagiarism machine. However, I will
be pretty grumpy if we decide that feeding the plagiarism machine is the
express reason WHY we are leaving the listserv public.
--
Maia McCormick (she/her)
917.279.8194
On Wed, Aug 6, 2025 at 5:22 AM Mo Waddington via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There
is the archive of past messages and then there is the group itself. I
would suggest that even if the archives are made private, so that only
group members can access them, that the groups should still be listed in
the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking for dance
related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the
intention is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they
shouldn't be listed in the directory and links to the groups could be
available in CDSS Commons where CDSS members can log in and then apply to
join one or more lists.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu> <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the
months are links to the archive.
Jonathan
------------------------------
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com> <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>;
'Michael
Fuerst via Contra Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io
in 2020. The archives for them are not private and they at listed by month
at the bottom of the page for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go
to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown,
but there are no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
5:21 a.m.
Some of us are UK based, so members of EFDSS not CDSS
On 05/08/2025 22:29, Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers wrote:
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be
made private.
There is the archive of past messages and then there is the group
itself. I would suggest that even if the archives are made private,
so that only group members can access them, that the groups should
still be listed in the Groups.io directory. That would mean that
people looking for dance related groups could find them and apply to
join. Of course, if the intention is that only CDSS members can join
the groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed in the directory
and links to the groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS
members can log in and then apply to join one or more lists.
Jonathan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
*To:* contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the
months are links to the archive.
Jonathan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
*To:* 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
*Subject:* [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to
Groups.io in 2020. The archives for them are not private and they at
listed by month at the bottom of the page for each Group. E.g. for my
Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6jEA1a6Er2YCQnai2kNjSMwFB65l8lSysasHxZnxWAwmAwH2cSfWqNeEG4wSDNCwz82fqN8Cg8LZa6z_yfaMrrI9N15Iu$>
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are
shown, but there are no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6jEA1a6Er2YCQnai2kNjSMwFB65l8lSysasHxZnxWAwmAwH2cSfWqNeEG4wSDNCwz82fqN8Cg8LZa6z_yfaMrrI3g-yj8$>
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list --contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email tocontracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net 
5 Aug
5 Aug
5:29 p.m.
There are 2 different elements of a group that can be made private. There is the archive
of past messages and then there is the group itself. I would suggest that even if the
archives are made private, so that only group members can access them, that the groups
should still be listed in the Groups.io directory. That would mean that people looking
for dance related groups could find them and apply to join. Of course, if the intention
is that only CDSS members can join the groups then I suppose they shouldn't be listed
in the directory and links to the groups could be available in CDSS Commons where CDSS
members can log in and then apply to join one or more lists.
Jonathan
________________________________
From: Sivier, Jonathan E <jsivier(a)illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:42 PM
To: contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: Re: [Callers] Re: List archives
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links to
the archive.
Jonathan
________________________________
From: Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
To: 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
4:42 p.m.
If you are a member of the group, and logged in, the numbers under the months are links to
the archive.
Jonathan
________________________________
From: Keith Elmo Eldridge via Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 3:35 PM
To: 'barbara153' <barbara153(a)aol.com>om>; 'Michael Fuerst via Contra
Callers' <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] Re: List archives
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q…
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://groups.io/g/Podger__;!!DZ3fjg!9gV8o9q6j…
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
4:35 p.m.
Barbara wrote:
How would I access these lists if you change to
private?
I moved a number of genealogical Mailing Lists from RootsWeb to Groups.io in 2020. The
archives for them are not private and they at listed by month at the bottom of the page
for each Group. E.g. for my Essex-UK Group go to: https://groups.io/g/Essex-UK
When the archives for a Group are private the message per month are shown, but there are
no links, just a number. E.g. https://groups.io/g/Podger
Cheers
Elmo
--
--Keith Elmo Eldridge
--Elmo(a)aphelia.co.uk
--Sheffield, England
--I am therefore I dance. I dance therefore I am.
4 Aug
4 Aug
8:55 p.m.
With that approach I'd be worried about a future in which the archives were
first made private but then no created-by-professionals summary was
actually created.
I'm also pessimistic about a summary capturing the wide range of
perspectives towards these dances that this list has historically
reflected. Not because of any intent to quash a diversity of opinion, but
simply because that's what this sort of project tends to do.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 8:29 PM Luke Donforth via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I'm in favor of putting the list in a private
archive and having CDSS
generate a resource(s) for ONS callers and others. I think a
created-by-professionals summary would be more useful than the
sprawling archive.
I'll chime in on the survey when that goes around.
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I'm strongly in favor of keeping the archives
public: I think AI bots
training on our archives is a *good* thing.
Historically, the way people found this sort of information was
searching. They would type in things like "how do I call contra dances",
"traditional dances for families", "equal turn dances with contra
corners",
etc, the callers list would show up, they would click through and read
things. This still happens, but we're very quickly moving to a world where
instead people ask questions to chatgpt etc. When people do that, I think
we'd rather them have as good information as possible, which means it's
better for the list archives to be included in the training data for these
models.
There are definitely downsides, especially with current models that do a
lot of making things up and don't link you through to the source of the
information, but I think these are mostly temporary: combining the best of
models and traditional search is a problem people are working hard on
solving.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
--
Luke Donforth
calling.luke(a)gmail.com
802-448-4533
Click here for publicity information.
<https://www.uvm.edu/~ldonfort/ContraPublicity/>
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Hi Mary,
The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over
all list. CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium
level service.
However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only
the list get costs money, not the individuals.)
Seth
On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis <keustis06(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
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To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us
from AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on
the new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only
barrier to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable
trade off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make
the archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again
later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
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contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
8:29 p.m.
I'm in favor of putting the list in a private archive and having CDSS
generate a resource(s) for ONS callers and others. I think a
created-by-professionals summary would be more useful than the
sprawling archive.
I'll chime in on the survey when that goes around.
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I'm strongly in favor of keeping the archives
public: I think AI bots
training on our archives is a *good* thing.
Historically, the way people found this sort of information was
searching. They would type in things like "how do I call contra dances",
"traditional dances for families", "equal turn dances with contra
corners",
etc, the callers list would show up, they would click through and read
things. This still happens, but we're very quickly moving to a world where
instead people ask questions to chatgpt etc. When people do that, I think
we'd rather them have as good information as possible, which means it's
better for the list archives to be included in the training data for these
models.
There are definitely downsides, especially with current models that do a
lot of making things up and don't link you through to the source of the
information, but I think these are mostly temporary: combining the best of
models and traditional search is a problem people are working hard on
solving.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
--
Luke Donforth
calling.luke(a)gmail.com
802-448-4533
Click here for publicity information.
<https://www.uvm.edu/~ldonfort/ContraPublicity/>
Hi Mary,
The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over all
list. CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium
level service.
However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only the
list get costs money, not the individuals.)
Seth
On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis <keustis06(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from
AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the
new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier
to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade
off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make
the archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again
later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
5:36 p.m.
How would I access these lists if you change to private? Can you walj me through the
process? I am not tech savvy. Thanks Barbara GoldsteinSent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message --------From: Michael Fuerst via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Date: 8/4/25 2:25 PM (GMT-05:00) To: Seth
Seeger <seth(a)tofutavern.com> Cc: Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> Subject: [Callers] Re: List archives
"The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI training/scraping.
" privacy - privacy of what? The world knowing someone's having stated
a dislike of a robin's chain following a swing?protect us from AI
training/scraping Do we need protection from having our true colors
publicly outed either as a Luddite who opposes or a radical who advocates for
positional calling? 😆🤣 On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 10:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra
Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:Dear list members,Since the
beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This was an effort to make
information easier to search, to find, to link to, and to share. However, the days of
free information online have changed. AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train
on and privacy is more of an issue.As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make
the archives private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI
training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the new site to view the
archives.We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier to the
archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade off between privacy and
accessibility.If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the
archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again later.)Thank you,Seth
& Chris_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
2:34 p.m.
Hi all,
Thank you for your input! I had not considered any possible good sides to AI looking at
our posts. I'll put together a poll and post it as soon as I can.
Seth
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, at 11:50 AM, Jeff Kaufman wrote:
I'm strongly in favor of keeping the archives
public: I think AI bots training on our archives is a *good* thing.
Historically, the way people found this sort of information was searching. They would
type in things like "how do I call contra dances", "traditional dances for
families", "equal turn dances with contra corners", etc, the callers list
would show up, they would click through and read things. This still happens, but
we're very quickly moving to a world where instead people ask questions to chatgpt
etc. When people do that, I think we'd rather them have as good information as
possible, which means it's better for the list archives to be included in the training
data for these models.
There are definitely downsides, especially with current models that do a lot of making
things up and don't link you through to the source of the information, but I think
these are mostly temporary: combining the best of models and traditional search is a
problem people are working hard on solving.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> Hi Mary,
>
> The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over all
list. CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium level service.
>
> However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only the list get
costs money, not the individuals.)
>
> Seth
>
>> On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis <keustis06(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
>>
>> Keith Eustis
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>>> Dear list members,
>>>
>>> Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This was
an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to, and to share.
However, the days of free information online have changed. AI bots are now scraping the
web for data to train on and privacy is more of an issue.
>>>
>>> *As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private*. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI
training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the new site to view the
archives.
>>>
>>> We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier to
the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade off between privacy
and accessibility.
>>>
>>> *If you have concerns about this change, please reply!* (Once we make the
archives at _groups.io_ private, we cannot make them public again later.)
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>> Seth & Chris
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
> To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
2:25 p.m.
"The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI
training/scraping. "
privacy - privacy of what?
The world knowing someone's having stated a dislike of
a robin's chain following a swing?
protect us from AI training/scraping
Do we need protection from having our true colors
publicly outed either as a Luddite who opposes or a radical who advocates
for
positional calling? 😆🤣
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 10:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from
AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the
new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier
to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade
off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the
archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
12:49 p.m.
I'm less well-versed on the pros and cons of AI in this context, especially
compared to some folks here like Jeff and others. I did want to say,
however, that I can't tell you how many times I've pointed a new or
learning caller to the archives of this list. Particularly, the archives
are amazing for folks who are most interested in calling rarely at
non-dance-oriented community events, and/or who live farther away from
established contra dance communities (shout out to the folks on this list
who sometimes chime in from Australia!). I know the barrier of making a
free account seems small, but when it's yet another thing to figure out as
a new ONS caller, I think it will significantly impact the accessibility of
the archives.
Thank you Seth and Chris, and any lurking CDSS Board Members (past or
present!) for continuing to support this resource with care and
thoughtfulness. It really is invaluable, and I hope that most of us
remember to not take it for granted!
Ang
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 12:22 PM Joe Harrington via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I'm with Jeff on this one. Please don't close
the list archives.
I've tried as recently as yesterday to come up with AI queries for
programming contra dances. No luck, yet! The models will have to train on
our discussions of good programming, the content of dances, etc., before
that works. The bad models are already being abandoned in favor of better
ones that give more accurate/truthful/cited responses. That's how markets
work.
The one downside I see is the potential for AI models to model us as
individuals, to sell predictions of our behavior and knowledge of our
associates to advertisers, companies, nefarious governments, and worse.
But, unless a person completely withdraws from online, they will succeed in
this one way or the other. That's an individual choice very much like
deciding not to use credit cards (you can do it, but you miss out on a
lot). If someone makes that choice, they can still follow along in the
discussions and benefit from them, even if they decide not to contribute.
Please keep the lists open! At the very least, you should pose the item
as a question, poll us, and follow the will of the group, rather than
presenting an all-but-fait-accompli, which is the appearance here.
I would particularly avoid any decision that is irreversible. If the
service will not let us make the archives public once they are private, use
another service! There are many out there. (I'm not saying it's a good
idea to make a list public that was private, I'm saying it should be up to
the members, not the service, whether to do so.)
Thanks,
--jh--
Joe Harrington
Contra dance caller and DJ
Organizer, Orlando Contra Dance
orlandocontra.org
FB: Orlando Contra Dance Community
Ig: orlandocontradance
contradancerjoe(a)gmail.com
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I'm strongly in favor of keeping the archives
public: I think AI bots
training on our archives is a *good* thing.
Historically, the way people found this sort of information was
searching. They would type in things like "how do I call contra dances",
"traditional dances for families", "equal turn dances with contra
corners",
etc, the callers list would show up, they would click through and read
things. This still happens, but we're very quickly moving to a world where
instead people ask questions to chatgpt etc. When people do that, I think
we'd rather them have as good information as possible, which means it's
better for the list archives to be included in the training data for these
models.
There are definitely downsides, especially with current models that do a
lot of making things up and don't link you through to the source of the
information, but I think these are mostly temporary: combining the best of
models and traditional search is a problem people are working hard on
solving.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Hi Mary,
The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over
all list. CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium
level service.
However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only
the list get costs money, not the individuals.)
Seth
On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis <keustis06(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us
from AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on
the new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only
barrier to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable
trade off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make
the archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again
later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
12:21 p.m.
I'm with Jeff on this one. Please don't close the list archives.
I've tried as recently as yesterday to come up with AI queries for
programming contra dances. No luck, yet! The models will have to train on
our discussions of good programming, the content of dances, etc., before
that works. The bad models are already being abandoned in favor of better
ones that give more accurate/truthful/cited responses. That's how markets
work.
The one downside I see is the potential for AI models to model us as
individuals, to sell predictions of our behavior and knowledge of our
associates to advertisers, companies, nefarious governments, and worse.
But, unless a person completely withdraws from online, they will succeed in
this one way or the other. That's an individual choice very much like
deciding not to use credit cards (you can do it, but you miss out on a
lot). If someone makes that choice, they can still follow along in the
discussions and benefit from them, even if they decide not to contribute.
Please keep the lists open! At the very least, you should pose the item as
a question, poll us, and follow the will of the group, rather than
presenting an all-but-fait-accompli, which is the appearance here.
I would particularly avoid any decision that is irreversible. If the
service will not let us make the archives public once they are private, use
another service! There are many out there. (I'm not saying it's a good
idea to make a list public that was private, I'm saying it should be up to
the members, not the service, whether to do so.)
Thanks,
--jh--
Joe Harrington
Contra dance caller and DJ
Organizer, Orlando Contra Dance
orlandocontra.org
FB: Orlando Contra Dance Community
Ig: orlandocontradance
contradancerjoe(a)gmail.com
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:51 AM Jeff Kaufman via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I'm strongly in favor of keeping the archives
public: I think AI bots
training on our archives is a *good* thing.
Historically, the way people found this sort of information was
searching. They would type in things like "how do I call contra dances",
"traditional dances for families", "equal turn dances with contra
corners",
etc, the callers list would show up, they would click through and read
things. This still happens, but we're very quickly moving to a world where
instead people ask questions to chatgpt etc. When people do that, I think
we'd rather them have as good information as possible, which means it's
better for the list archives to be included in the training data for these
models.
There are definitely downsides, especially with current models that do a
lot of making things up and don't link you through to the source of the
information, but I think these are mostly temporary: combining the best of
models and traditional search is a problem people are working hard on
solving.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi Mary,
The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over all
list. CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium
level service.
However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only the
list get costs money, not the individuals.)
Seth
On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis <keustis06(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from
AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the
new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier
to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade
off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make
the archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again
later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
11:50 a.m.
I'm strongly in favor of keeping the archives public: I think AI bots
training on our archives is a *good* thing.
Historically, the way people found this sort of information was searching.
They would type in things like "how do I call contra dances", "traditional
dances for families", "equal turn dances with contra corners", etc, the
callers list would show up, they would click through and read things. This
still happens, but we're very quickly moving to a world where instead
people ask questions to chatgpt etc. When people do that, I think we'd
rather them have as good information as possible, which means it's better
for the list archives to be included in the training data for these models.
There are definitely downsides, especially with current models that do a
lot of making things up and don't link you through to the source of the
information, but I think these are mostly temporary: combining the best of
models and traditional search is a problem people are working hard on
solving.
Jeff
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025 at 11:36 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi Mary,
The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over all
list. CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium
level service.
However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only the
list get costs money, not the individuals.)
Seth
On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis <keustis06(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from
AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the
new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier
to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade
off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the
archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to
contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
11:36 a.m.
Hi Mary,
The "Free for 30 days" that you see is a tier of service for the over all list.
CDSS is funding this community so that we can afford the premium level service.
However, individual user accounts on the site are always free. (Only the list get costs
money, not the individuals.)
Seth
On Aug 4, 2025, at 11:06 AM, Mary Keith Eustis
<keustis06(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers
<contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>> wrote:
> Dear list members,
>
> Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This was an effort
to make information easier to search, to find, to link to, and to share. However, the
days of free information online have changed. AI bots are now scraping the web for data
to train on and privacy is more of an issue.
>
> As we move to groups.io <http://groups.io/>, Chris and I would like to make the
archives private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from AI
training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the new site to view the
archives.
>
> We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier to the
archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade off between privacy and
accessibility.
>
> If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the archives at
groups.io <http://groups.io/> private, we cannot make them public again later.)
>
> Thank you,
> Seth & Chris
> _______________________________________________
> Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>
> To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
<mailto:contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net>
11:06 a.m.
It seems the free account is only for 30 days. Am I missing something?
Keith Eustis
On Mon, Aug 4, 2025, 11:02 AM Seth Seeger via Contra Callers <
contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Dear list members,
Since the beginning, the archives for this list have been public. This
was an effort to make information easier to search, to find, to link to,
and to share. However, the days of free information online have changed.
AI bots are now scraping the web for data to train on and privacy is more
of an issue.
As we move to groups.io, Chris and I would like to make the archives
private. The biggest reasons are member privacy and to protect us from
AI training/scraping. This means that you’ll need a free account on the
new site to view the archives.
We feel this is a good change for our community. Since the only barrier
to the archives would be subscribing, we think this is a reasonable trade
off between privacy and accessibility.
If you have concerns about this change, please reply! (Once we make the
archives at groups.io private, we cannot make them public again later.)
Thank you,
Seth & Chris
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net
15
days inactive
19
days old
contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
32 comments
21 participants
participants (21)
-
Alan J Rosenthal -
Angela DeCarlis -
barbara153 -
Doe Taryn -
Don Veino -
Emma Azelborn -
Harris Lapiroff -
Jeff Kaufman -
Joe Harrington -
Julian Blechner -
Keith Elmo Eldridge -
Laur -
Luke Donforth -
Maia McCormick -
Mary Keith Eustis -
Mo Waddington -
Perry Shafran -
Roger Durham -
Seth Seeger -
Sivier, Jonathan E -
sjapartments＠gmail.com