On the visualization thread, i was psyched to see “Social Circles” – a tool to watch mailing lists. I’m just a bit wary of how it is set up, given that it asks you for a mailing list to watch. I’m also a bit weirded out that i can see the converation patterns of other people in other mailing lists. I think that it is a bad bad bad idea to assume that all mailing lists are meant to be public.
Social Circles: Visualizing email list traffic
Danah Boyd links to social circles, a tool from marcos weskamp that can subscribe itself to a mailing list and…
I hear you… But turn that concern inside out. I appreciate things like this because they point out just how public certain things are (in this case, mailing lists). This spreads consciousness of the fact that anyone can monitor your public mailing list activities. We have a choice: (1) Ashcroft, Gates, Kim Jung Il, and [insert rich and scary person’s name here] hoard the ability to do this stuff while most people are ignorant that anyone has this capability, or (2) everyone can do this stuff and most people are aware that it’s going on, and are therefore more thoughtful about what they reveal and where they reveal it…
Bring it on.