[13406] in APO-L
Thoughts on the Internet/WWW Disclaimer
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Charlie Zimmerman)
Wed Dec 13 17:40:19 1995
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 16:38:32 -0600
Reply-To: Charlie Zimmerman <ESC1001@FNALV.FNAL.GOV>
From: Charlie Zimmerman <ESC1001@FNALV.FNAL.GOV>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
John Grossi had many questions about the Internet/WWW disclaimer
introduced on 12/4/95 by Dave Emery and the National PR
Committee. Randy Finder did a great job fielding many of those
questions, and being the "ghostwriter" who wrote the bulk of
that gem, I'd be glad to take a shot at answering some of them
myself. (And also any others you'd care to send my way.)
As Randy acknowledged, folks who don't care about accuracy
or even know about the disclaimer probably won't use it. That's
life, but at least we as APO have made a reasonable effort
to get the word out. Also, if you know a third party with
APO information in their web page, then feel free to forward
the disclaimer to them. Of course, I don't think we're
suggesting that EVERY appearance of the words "Alpha Phi Omega"
on the net deserves a disclaimer. Let's be reasonable - if
it's just a campus directory listing of organizations, then no,
there's no need for it. We trust your judgement here, which
leads to my next point...
John's right - we can't control how chapter's express themselves,
except when it would violate National policies and bylaws. Even
then, such action usually comes after the fact. If you take a
broad view, however, this can all fit under the very big umbrella of
risk management. We can ask, suggest, and provide guidance that we
hope will serve well our chapters, our members, and the National
Fraternity as a whole. When we take a pro-active approach, our
objective is to help prevent any problems that can come up down
the road. Sometimes I think that's the biggest service that
we can provide as RD's, section chairs, and national leaders.
As for communicating the disclaimer, APO-L was just the fastest
means of getting it out initially. It'll show up in print pretty
quickly. A national home page, a domain name (APO.ORG would most
likely be it), and other means of establishing our presence are
all under consideration. We just can't do it all at once, and
we need to make sure one hand knows what the other is doing as
new technologies are put into place. ("New" is a relative term.
Remember, the National Office has only had e-mail for just over
a year now. We're charging into the late 1980's...)
John had some concerns as far as whether we need more than a
copyright notice, and also questioned the reference to providing
a means to contact the National Office when it comes to extension.
As for the first point, it's not just a matter of copyright that
we're addressing - we also recognize that the electronic medium
is susceptible to error, omission, and changes. Not to mention
typos that pop up when documents are re-typed. That's why we refer
readers to the original, printed materials for authoritative
reference purposes. Likewise, we recognize that humans are the
best contact point for extension, recruiting and so on, but
if people viewing a web page want more information of a general
nature, we've listed APOHQ@AOL.COM which is, of course, read by
very human folks at the National Office. (And if you want to use a
HTML mail tag in your web page, please do!)
Again, thanks to John for the questions and Randy for his follow-up.
Also, thanks to all of you - especially Fuzz - who've incorporated
the disclaimer in your pages and documents. There's some great
stuff out there, and I'm NOT referring to my home page! :-)
Charlie Zimmerman
Region IX Director
Chair, Electronic Comm. Comm. - Nat'l PR Committee
Alpha Phi Omega
esc1001@fnalv.fnal.gov
