urbanistika.ee - the first myth of the city is that it exists

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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

about privacy

an 'ideological' topic that for me grew out from the calendar proposal (and of course, more generally, from the whole subject of having a blog) and although there might be actually no problem at all i'd still like this topic to be discussed -
the privacy.
i've understood that till now the conception has basically been a blog that is in whole, (pardon,) saba ja karvadega, opened for everybopdy to see.
with all the things that may be too stupid for that (like us discussing about railways for example) and thus not very flattering to us and
with all the things that are too clever for that (like us discussing about railways of course) and as such could attract "academic espionage".

and then showing our calendar with all the preprepresentationmeetings to the publicity ....

in summer somebody asked me why estonians - while taking part in international projects - never tend to give out information. so i gave it a thought and could think of two (opposing) reasons:
1. letting other people know that you have some information is dangerous, a feeling conceived by the soviet time
2. keeping information to you gives you an advantage. a feeling kinda related to the postsocialist time. god knows who else may benefit if you share what you know.

heh. equally ridiculous reasons both. but i'm still made careful about publicity. so what about public and semiprivate spaces in the website (and private-private?)?
or if i am just personally lacking the "western-style" free and opened working skills, this blog would be exactly the place for practicing it?
what are your thoughts?

4 comments:

ines said...

i don't understand very well what you are talking about.
But...well...anyhow this blog might be interesting for all the students of EKA Urban Studies MA and other people just interested in the city as an issue to be studied, analysed or discussed. In my case, due to the distance, this future website and this current blog are just PERFECT...since they allow me to keep in touch with all of you and whatever is going on there about Urbanism.
Personally, i am willing to participate as much as i can.

Anonymous said...

Ines as repressentative of the "western-style" thought did not understand the problem :)
but actually I have been thinking about the same "hide-and-seek" attitude of estonians concerning owning information..

I think it is strongly connected with our history, which makes every estonian a little bit suspicious towards sharing information, because there might be somebody out there (KGB or foreign spy as Ines:), who could take advantage of our well kept knowledge...

concerning this web page I think this is quite delicate issue, what to share, with whom and who decides?

"Information is power" or "Share to multiply!"

Sukhdev Kaur said...

of course its not the same to share what I think about the stencils in the street than how it went with the presentation last thursday or whatever. there will be very different levels of privacy and publicness: most of them are open to be read by all, many of them are open to be posted by all, some are open to be posted only by us, some are completely private to the master students.

tonight we should discuss this issue in more detail, which are in which category

Anonymous said...

Hi.

Well, I failed as I tried to make me account. I'm not that technical after all.

I think that biggest part, this main blog (if it is possible) should be one-way-public - that everyone could read it. And comment. But if some stranger wants to put smth up, he/she should send it first. To Lilia or whoever is in charge.
There should be also some sub-blogs, protected with password (for example for lasnamäe) to discuss things, put up materials ect.
My main thought is that it should'nt be too complicated otherwise we'll get lost and also people who are interested.

Drink a wine for me today also!

K