[Mailman-Users] HELP!!! Removing WebArchive Messages?

[Mike Avery]

On 14 May 2003 at 11:59, E M Recio wrote:

> Mike Avery said:
> > In a business environment, you could be in a world of hurt.  When a
> > luser craters a  critical system, it's the system admin's tail on
> > the line.

> > When a luser wipes a message in a mailing list that needs to be
> > preserved for  accountability (S.E.C. etc) reasons, it could cost
> > the company millions.

> > I think in most business environments, the answer is "no, we don't
> > want employees re- writing the corporate history".
 
> I wonder what the costs are to an organization (non-profit) are when a
> vulgar email gets cataloged by a search engine, or a propspective
> donor comes across it. That's what we're really worried about. Or for
> harasment/legal counsel issues, we would need to take things off of
> there too. But I agree, that deleting the files permanently would be a
> bad idea for the latter. Hence the reasons we have the 'tar' command!
> :)

I suspect that the bottom line is... the users shouldn't be allowed to do it, that legal 
counsel should be consulted to establish guidelines (that should be perdiodically 
reviewed) as to what may be removed, and how to cover yourself when removals 
occur.  

Of course, if you're worried about search engines cataloging your mailing lists, you'll 
have to move fast to insure the offensive message doesn't get cataloged and cached by 
google or someone like that.... perhaps putting a robots file in place to block scanning 
and cataloging the mailing list would be a good idea.  As well as email usage guidelines 
for the staff and volunteers at the non-profit org.

Mike
-- 
Mike Avery                            
MAvery at mail.otherwhen.com
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