2017-03-06 15:01 GMT+01:00 Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet@xxxxxxxx>: > On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 13:45:37 +0100, Henrik Danielsson wrote: >>We could simply deny the AUR username request it for the same reason, >>or no reason at all. Since some people seem uncomfortable about what >>could be derived from a potential correlation of publicly available >>data, that's most likely the safest way to go. > > Even if all users would agree to hand out a username list, why risking > a possible issue for some research, that seems to gain nothing for the > Arch community and as far as I can see even not for human kind? To be > honest, I can't name a real issue, I only could imagine very abstract > issues. I don't understand that research at all. Much likely nothing bad > would happen by handing out a list, but to avoid a "Now, why didn't I > think of that?"-issue the easiest solution seems to reject such > requests in general, at least as long as it's not obviously that the > research is "good" (what ever this means) for the Arch community and/or > human kind or the universe in general. Well, there's probably a lot of research results we did not know the positive [or any] effects of beforehand. I also doubt we'll find some drastically new improved way of life because of this, but not all research aims for that. Satisfying curiosity would be enough reason for most research IMHO. Learning there is nothing there is also learning.
