Bob,

 > The only possible justification I've seen was that of 
 > Janis, who was worried that private telephone numbers 
 > and email addresses could become public and presumably 
 > lead to a flood of calls and messages.

My email-address is in clear sight in the nodelist, has been for years,
it's ¨publically known and in a zone like ours it has been very useful for
¨individuals on awkward p{at}th-lines trying to reach the ZC. Not everybody is
¨as friendly as you and I to route mail ... any mail ... from anyone to
¨anyone unquestioned.

My phone-number is freely available in the phone-book, so anyone calling
¨their local long-distance operator and asking to look for my number in
¨"Mortsel" in "Belgium" will get that number. If you go
to ¨http://www.skynet.be and click on "witte gids" (=white pages)
it's also ¨there for everyone to find (taking into account that my first
initial is an ¨"E" and not a "W").

Writing that information publicly in a conference is another matter of
¨course. Those dedicated to find the data _will_ find the information. And
¨let me tell you, over the years I've received many phone-calls from
Germany ¨re: Fido.
 
Take care,

Ward

--- OPMED 3.00