[HANASHIR:15417] Re: Dealing with Fools

[Ros Schwartz <ros_schwartz...>]

Here's a different angle on the "fools" issues.  To Edward:  I don't 
know how to resolve this problem, I am just raising it as an issue to be 
considered.

While I find this group an excellent resource to work out many many 
sorts of difficulty ... it makes me very nervous when too many personal 
details are included in a letter, which could clearly identify an 
individual.

I live about a three-hour drive from Edward Katz, and though I have 
never met him or his congregation, it's a small enough world that I 
could have.  And it's not impossible that his cantor - or even the 
conductor he describes - could one day sign on to Hanashir, search its 
archives, and find out exactly what Edward _really_ thinks.

Email is an extremely risky form of personal communication, because of 
its ease of misdirection, and its permanence on some people's servers or 
computers.

Three cautionary tales, about emailing personal info.

1.  I once wrote a long letter about person X, to person Y, in the 
middle of the night, when I was extremely tired.  In my sleepy state, 
when I went to fill in the address, I _almost_ clicked on person X 
instead of person Y.  Now there would have been a tale to be told!!!

2.  Another time - when I was more awake - person A emailed me about her 
concerns about person B.  This time I was extremely careful to be 
tactful in my reply ... which was lucky ... since person A then, in 
haste, left my comments attached at the end of her reply back to person B!

3.  Certain viruses pick out random files from your hard drive, and 
email them out to random addresses in your address book.  Someone I know 
had confidential email concerning their synagogue made public in this 
way, it was very unpleasant.

So ... now I try to be very careful of what I put into writing. 
Delicate matters, I prefer to handle by telephone, which is less subject 
to misunderstanding - less subject to misdirection - and much less 
permanent.

- Ros

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