Cohousing-L Mailing List: Children in cohousing / Online security

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

On Nov 4, 2010 Ruth Fankushen <rfankushen [at] gmail.com>
posted to cohousing-L
Subject: Re: Did you or your children grow up in cohousing?

>Hello,
>
>My name is Ruth Fankushen. I have lived at Muir Commons in Davis,
>California for the past eight years. A group of fellow MA students in
>Psychology and I are conducting a *short* *survey* on how growing up
>in cohousing might affect one's social self.
>
>If you spent at least six years (before age 18) living in cohousing,
>or if you have a grown child or children who spent at least 6 years in
>cohousing, we would be very interested in hearing from you.
>
>The survey will be conducted by email and should take no longer than
>10-15 minutes to complete. Please send us the email address of the
>person who grew up in cohousing, and we will send you a link to our
>survey. All information collected will be kept confidential.
>
>Thank you for your time!

One subscriber wrote me off list wondering if I could verify that
Ruth was legitimate.  We are on the Internet where it is possible
to impersonate other people.  I contacted other people at Muir Commons
via alternate means but due to delays it took til today to get
confirmation.

As I said , in part, in my verification note:

> I have no reason to be suspicious but because of the nature of the
> request and the nature of the Internet this precaution seemed prudent.



I am convinced that Ruth is legit which is what we expected but felt
we should check.  Sorry this took so long.



---- Security online and on cohousing-L --------

The Coho/US page about Cohousing-L
http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-list
warns about the open, unvetted nature of Cohousing-L
in three of the four paragraphs on that page. This seems like
overkill to me but it is wise to use your judgement in participating
here.  Our archives are public and searchable so use judgement in what
you post to this public forum.  Also use care when replying, by default
(with most email programs) replies go back to the list.

This message is not intended to frighten anyone.  There is no reason
to be too concerned in my opinion.  I'm personally more skepical about
Facebook which millions of people use.

Fred, listserv manager, http://justcomm.org