Margaret  wrote:

>I feel that it is very very useful to have the Lactnet archives open.
Many times I have referenced Lactnet posts **by citing the URL for the
original post** in order to provide background info and/or a variety
of viewpoints on a given topic.  Many wonderful supporters of
breastfeeding are not Lactnet subscribers, yet can still benefit from
this fantastic resource via the archives.  Yes, there is a lot of
personal information in there too, but it's generally of a type that
could hardly be used to harm anyone.<

I was just going to mention the archives when I read Margaret's post!

I have mixed feelings about this.
Right now it is quite possible for somebody to access the archives
both to get info on a particular subject and/or to see everything that
a particular person has written to Lactnet. This means that even if we
were to have a closed list, in order to make it completely private we
would have to limit archives access to subscribers only. I don't know
if it is possible to do this with our present software, but it is
certainly possible with lists like Yahoo Groups. (I am not advocating
Yahoo, just giving an example.)

I have no problem with asking present member to re-subscribe, but how
on earth are the list mothers going to weed out *undesirables?* Who is
to say that "Mary Jones" is not really "Fred Smith?" We can certainly
check credentials like IBCLC and MD and LLLL, but that is incredibly
time consuming, and what about those with no credentials? Moreover,
having a credential does not necessarily tell us about that person's
affiliations. Will we require everyone to be given a reference by
people that the lists moms have verified?

The mind boggles...

norma, who was very impressed with Dr. Michal Young's presentation on
helping minority women to breastfeed at this morning's
video-conferenced Grand Rounds.(SUNY ALBANY) The best part was the
emphasis on the risks of not breastfeeding.

Norma Ritter, IBCLC, RLC

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