I've recently been emailed by someone expressing concern over the
level of discretion within our group. I think this is as good a time
as any to address this along with other administrative issues that
have presented themselves since start-up. I'll just copy to all of
you my response to the initial email to me.

Thank you for bringing up the very important issue of disclosure, one
which we can start to discuss here and follow through in person at
another time.

Before beginning this group and while reading through material on the
main and L.A. S.I.N. websites, I was already starting to give some
thought to this issue. While it is not my intention, nor the
intention of SIN, to "out" anyone as HIV positive, in my opinion we
also have to respect the concerns of others who may feel
uncomfortable about being "hidden away" and further ostracized. We
have different comfort levels regarding disclosure of our status.
It's a deeply personal and private issue. Much as in coming out as
gay, we all need to choose to whom, when and how we disclose we're
poz. None of us should ever be made to feel that someone else will
do the disclosing for us. Further, there are a sufficient number of
groups already out there which do a great job of seeing that the
interests of the poz community are not ignored by either the gay
community as a whole or by the general community. SIN Vancouver is
not intended to replace them. SIN's purpose is to create social
settings where poz gay guys can attend and meet other poz guys
without concern or stigma. Keeping this overriding purpose in mind,
and remembering that those who choose may be more out about being poz
in other areas of our lives, I've taken the other SIN chapters' lead
and decided that as much as possible SIN Vancouver should have a mix
of "public" and "private" events. Further, from an organizational
perspective, I have decided that the only signs identifying us in
public will say "Men's Group". Finally, SIN Vancouver's
communication point is this Yahoo group site which people can join
entirely anonymously. While this level of anonymity may seem a
tad "closeted" to some of you, please remember that it's impossible
to un-do a disclosure. Once the cat's out of the bag, it's out.
That being said, this level of anonymity will not prevent some of us
(like me:) being more open later on in order to recruit new members.

That's the organizational end of things. From the point of view of
individual members, I think we should all commit at the beginning of
this group to avoid revealing anyone's status to anyone else.
Without wishing for people to become paranoid, the best policy is to
agree to avoid revealing the identity of anyone in SIN to anyone
outside SIN. In the grand scheme of things, Vancouver, and more
specifically its gay community, is small. Tongues will wag. The
seemily innocent comment you make to a non-SIN friend about another
friend in SIN may get repeated along, far out of your control. We're
here to help the friends we make in SIN, not harm them, no matter how
unintentionally.

Since I'm already typing and talking about administrative topics, let
me bring up another one. I've been corresponding with the directors
of other SIN chapters across North America about how much
to "moderate" this Yahoo Group site. As the "owner" (I love that
term :) of the site, one option I have is to leave it entirely open
for anyone to post any comment on the site so long as he's a member.
Another option I have is to make the site fully "moderated", that is,
only I can read postings on the site as they come in, then choose to
make them available as I see fit. My personal style is to make this
group as free from excess bureaucracy and procedures as possible. No
one wants to go to a social group where all they do is tinker with
procedures. It's also my belief that to survive, a group must chart
its own course from ideas provided by its members. What better way
for that to happen than through these online postings? On the flip
side, I recognize that an unscrupulous person could easily become a
member of a yahoo group just to post commercial spam or hateful
rubbish. This could do a lot of avoidable damage. What to do?

As you may already have sensed, SIN itself does not have any kind of
central administration. Bryan Levinson co-founded this group in L.A.
in 2002 to fulfill a social need among poz guys. Since then a
further 21 SIN chapters around the world have sprung up and all the
directors of these chapters are available to each other for input.
However, we're all independent chapters, completely separate from any
other organization of any kind. Our only commitment is to
facilitating better social settings for gay poz guys. This means
that while I'm able to talk to other SIN organizers across the
continent and get their feedback, I can pick and choose from among
their policies and procedures. Currently, there are no filtering
controls on the SIN Vancouver site. On the other end of the
spectrum, SIN L.A. chooses to make its site completely moderated.
Having given it the consideration I've written about above, I have
decided to take a middle road suggested by the Kansas City
organizers. As a matter of course when new guys join the website
they will be told that their postings will be monitored for 30 days.
At the end of the thirty days, if there have been no problems with
spamming or abusing others, the restriction is quietly lifted. I
think that this procedure should go a long way toward filtering out
junk while facilitating the free-flow of ideas.

That being said, let me just make clear now that any kind of
commercial/political spam or abusive language will not be tolerated
on this site. Violators of this policy will first be warned, then
banned. As well, please remember that anything you post in reply to
a posting on a yahoo site is automatically sent to all the other
members of the site. If you wish to say anything to a specific
member only, you will need to cut and paste their email address into
your emailer and send them your own email.

I recognize that much of this is me imposing my will on the rest of
you. However, I do have valid reasons for my decisions. Once we've
met, however, all of this can be put up for discussion if you wish.

I look forward to meeting as many as possible of you at our next
event. We have one vote for the Grove Inn, one for Sandy's and one
for Joe's Grill. Anyone out there want to break the deadlock or are
you all sick of voting? :)

Cheers,
Mark