[Koha-devel] Social Engineering, was: How to gather better popularity data?

[MJ Ray]

Breeding, Marshall wrote:
> A most interesting response.  So being listed in the lib-web-cats
> directory is damaging to a library?  And being listed in Koha
> community's own wiki would not be? [...]

Being listed *with provider details* in lib-web-cats increases the
security risk to a library.  The same is true of the wiki, so I
suggested an optionally-anonymous popcon-style system which would not
necessarily carry that risk.

It would also provide better information about our effects than the
subset who accept the increased risk of lib-web-cats.

Going by discussions on IRC, it seems that many public libraries feel
that freedom of information is more important than this security
measure.  Also, the US in general has a much weaker approach to
privacy than Europe (which I suspected and was part of why I destroyed
my dollar credit card when I returned home!)

[...]
> It feels odd to be criticized for efforts that I believe provide
> benefits to the broader library community.  Including a disclaimer
> does not imply that the data are being used unethically.

So what's the disclaimer there for?  I wondered if it was because a
risk of damage from unethical use wasn't news to you.

There are also the other problems of lib-web-cats we've discussed
before like not being free software or open data, the product/supplier
confusion and not showing which PTFS-supported libraries (if any) use
Koha and which use the Liblime ILS which reportedly forked from Koha
before 3.2.

Anyway, I find it odd whenever library community resources have
restrictions on commerce, freedom or openness.  Even odder when their
promoters appear all hurt when social enterprises, libertarians or
horizontalists suggest developing nicer alternatives.

Hope that clarifies,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire for various work through http://www.software.coop/