Dear all,
I did not forward this to the list straight away as I wanted to discuss the suggested actions with the troika. As you see, jiscmail, which provides these email
lists has had a complaint about racist epithets being used on the radstats list. It has looked at the messages on the list and concluded that ‘the position that the language used is not appropriate for any list on the service’. This is a major disgrace
that this is the jiscmail list for radstats, a group whose aims include supporting positive social change. Jiscmail wanted to put a stop to this conversation, but I had already declared it closed, despite which someone has recently sent another message. As
far as jiscmail’s suggestions go:
1.
We could move to a moderated list. This would involve someone in a lot of work and potential accusations of censorship. Does anyone think we should do this?
2.
Delete the offending messages. This would not be a major task. What do members think?
3.
Send individual warnings to the offending subscribers. I hope they know who they are without a warning and are thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
Best wishes, Alison
From: Jisc Service Desk [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 29 August 2018 11:38
To: Macfarlane, Alison
Subject: Complaint about racist epithets on radstats list (Ref:IN:00344039)
Hi Alison,
JiscMail has received a complaint about recent posts and language used on your mailing list - RADSTATS.
I'm aware that you know of this and have read your post to the list reminding subscribers about JiscMail service policy. We're here to help and assist in any way that we can. With any complaint we need to fully investigate and come to a satisfactory outcome.
JiscMail service policy states: List owners are specifically responsible for:
Understandably some of the offending posts occurred over the bank holiday period and there was a delay in viewing and taking action to combat this. JiscMail takes the position that the language used is not appropriate for any list on the
service, and we'd like to put a full stop to the conversation on the RADSTATS list.
Possible future actions:
Remove the offending messages: You may choose to remove messages by logging in and accessing your list. Selecting the monthly archive of August, then on the right side of every message is a recycle bin button, clicking this will delete a message from the online
archive.
Enable moderation on the mailing list: Moderating posts would mean you can choose whether or not to publish emails to the list. We can help if you wish to enable this.
Send the offending subscribers a written warning: You may choose, if you deem necessary, to send a warning to those who posted the messages.
I'll be monitoring the list for the foreseeable future for the content of messages, and should there be any occurrences of similar language, we'll step in again. I've let the subscriber who contacted us know we'll be discussing the matter with the owner of
the list (you). Let me know your thoughts on the matter and above options?
Thanks,
Dan Etherington
JiscMail Helpline