http://www.rahulgaitonde.org/2006/12/thats-going-too-far-dostpost/ Thu, 22 Sep 2011 21:55:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 http://www.rahulgaitonde.org/2006/12/thats-going-too-far-dostpost/#comment-167 David Gardner Fri, 15 Dec 2006 10:06:00 +0000 http://www.rahulgaitonde.org/2006/12/09/thats-going-too-far-dostpost/#comment-167 Dear Rahul Gaitonde, My name is David Gardner, and I am one of the creators of DostPost.com. I am writing to thank you for evaluating DostPost. We are a small operation and I'm excited that an individual with an immaculate education such as yours has taken the time to review our site. I would like to briefly address the content of your 8 December post. You are correct that under the Terms of Use, DostPost could conceivably act in the way you describe. This, however, is not our intention. It is our goal to connect academics so that we may all learn from each other. We see ourselves not as "gate keepers" or "owners" but rather facilitators. And in our role as facilitators, we do not wish to benefit financially from the academic or intellectual work of others. Nor is it our intent to allow other members to profit from the work of others. If we have given the impression that we plan to benefit from the academic work of others, then that is incorrect. I'm delighted that you mentioned the Creative Commons. We are strong supporters for what it stands for and provides. And we are well versed in the works of Mr. Lawrence Lessig, the creator of Creative Commons. In fact, we are such strong supporters of the open source movement that one of the co-founders posted a paper abstract that he wrote to the Project Vault in DostPost that discusses the advantages of open source electronic voting machines. He posted the paper on 1 November 2006. It has been in our plans to include the Creative Commons licenses as part of DostPost for many months. Right now DostPost is composed of a trio of friends. While we are growing rapidly, we have found ourselves without enough hours in the day to implement everything on the site that we'd like to do. Regrettably, one of the things that had been temporarily been pushed to the back burner is implementing Creative Commons licenses. But I assure you that we will provide DostPost members with the extra "security" that Creative Commons affords very soon. I understand your point but do not necessarily agree that we are trying to demonstrate command and control over the content of others. We have, in fact, provided a platform for the interaction of academics that puts the power in the hands of the members. This is evident with the privacy settings on DostPost. Members can decide which type of members can view certain aspects of their profile, for whom their name will turn up for in a search, and of course, who can view the academic work that they have posted. Upon posting an item, members can choose who can view it -- only their friends, friends of friends, only other members from their respective university/college, or everyone on DostPost. From these selections, every DostPost member can post items in such a way that it matches their privacy desires, item by item. I hope that what I have written shows that we have taken your comments to heart and are working to make all parts of the website reflect our true mission and intent – to enable our members to learn from each other. Best regards, David Gardner gardner@ dostpost.com PS – By the way, have you considered posting a paper that you have written on DostPost? You are well informed and articulate, and we would enjoy reading a piece by you! Dear Rahul Gaitonde, My name is David Gardner, and I am one of the creators of DostPost.com. I am writing to thank you for evaluating DostPost. We are a small operation and I’m excited that an individual with an immaculate education such as yours has taken the time to review our site. I would like to briefly address the content of your 8 December post. You are correct that under the Terms of Use, DostPost could conceivably act in the way you describe. This, however, is not our intention. It is our goal to connect academics so that we may all learn from each other. We see ourselves not as “gate keepers” or “owners” but rather facilitators. And in our role as facilitators, we do not wish to benefit financially from the academic or intellectual work of others. Nor is it our intent to allow other members to profit from the work of others. If we have given the impression that we plan to benefit from the academic work of others, then that is incorrect. I’m delighted that you mentioned the Creative Commons. We are strong supporters for what it stands for and provides. And we are well versed in the works of Mr. Lawrence Lessig, the creator of Creative Commons. In fact, we are such strong supporters of the open source movement that one of the co-founders posted a paper abstract that he wrote to the Project Vault in DostPost that discusses the advantages of open source electronic voting machines. He posted the paper on 1 November 2006. It has been in our plans to include the Creative Commons licenses as part of DostPost for many months. Right now DostPost is composed of a trio of friends. While we are growing rapidly, we have found ourselves without enough hours in the day to implement everything on the site that we’d like to do. Regrettably, one of the things that had been temporarily been pushed to the back burner is implementing Creative Commons licenses. But I assure you that we will provide DostPost members with the extra “security” that Creative Commons affords very soon. I understand your point but do not necessarily agree that we are trying to demonstrate command and control over the content of others. We have, in fact, provided a platform for the interaction of academics that puts the power in the hands of the members. This is evident with the privacy settings on DostPost. Members can decide which type of members can view certain aspects of their profile, for whom their name will turn up for in a search, and of course, who can view the academic work that they have posted. Upon posting an item, members can choose who can view it — only their friends, friends of friends, only other members from their respective university/college, or everyone on DostPost. From these selections, every DostPost member can post items in such a way that it matches their privacy desires, item by item. I hope that what I have written shows that we have taken your comments to heart and are working to make all parts of the website reflect our true mission and intent – to enable our members to learn from each other. Best regards, David Gardner gardner@ dostpost.com PS – By the way, have you considered posting a paper that you have written on DostPost? You are well informed and articulate, and we would enjoy reading a piece by you!

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