Site Wording

[Adan]

Suggest change from... "Due to the Student Union's External Website Policy, most of the information about our society can be found on our BathStudent Page instead of this site."

To...

"Due to corruption within Bath University Student Union's management, the contents of this website have been scrapped. This was previously a well-maintained, up-to-date resource for those seeking information on the society, that had twice won best society website award (1999-2000 & 2001-2002). However, the now president of BUSU pushed through an unconstitutional 'External Website Policy', which resulted in the closure of many society websites except for those which he personally used (e.g. the gay society). This policy was never voted for, and faced significant opposition at the societies GM, alas, the selfish, deceitful, egotistical idiots over in 1E implemented the policy anyway. An alternative policy was also suggested which addressed all of the supposed issues that were associated with external websites, but was completely ignored by BUSU representatives.

R.I.P Sci-Fi & Fantasy Society website 1997-2011"

[Lisey]

Whilst some things may be true, it's a mark of superiority to remain polite and respectful... Let's not piss the SU off, shall we?

[Adan]

I don't respect them, and I wasn't impolite unless the truth hurts the dear old souls. Being overly nice is the cause of the problem.

"some things may be true" <- I assure you, they all are.

[Twitchy]

Presumably the LGBT site gets around the policy in some way other than personal preference?

But yes, the SU wanting to take a vote on it, that vote being contested, and them pushing it through anyway was really, really crap. Didn't realise it was Howells though.

[Lambada]

The reason I heard that the LGBT society were exempt was due to their need to maintain anonymous mailing lists, which given the sensitive nature of their lists, is perfectly acceptable, and is not something that BathStudent can provide.

[Adan]

Their site just sends a request for you to join a BUCS mailing list anyway (i.e. not in any way anonymous). It would be trivial to implement the same functionality on a bathstudent page. In fact, they could probably set up a way of subscribing yourself automatically - I've seen the option on the list config pages somewhere. That would be far more anonymous than it sending an email to them, and then having them manually add you to the list (giving them ample opportunity to see who you are in the process).

[Lambada]

Their site just sends a request for you to join a BUCS mailing list anyway (i.e. not in any way anonymous). It would be trivial to implement the same functionality on a bathstudent page. In fact, they could probably set up a way of subscribing yourself automatically - I've seen the option on the list config pages somewhere. That would be far more anonymous than it sending an email to them, and then having them manually add you to the list (giving them ample opportunity to see who you are in the process).

Except that you don't have to sign up with your BUCS account. You can use any email address you want, that way any messages you post can't be tied into your University life at all (unless you want them to be).
Add into that that messages aren't shown as 'from' your e-mail address but just from a generic account. The committee can see the e-mail that you sign up with, but that is all, and given that they are trusted by the members hardly an issue.

Sure, equivalent functionality could be implemented on bathstudent, but it isn't at the moment; and the email lists, unless I'm much mistaken, are routed through MSL servers, thus meaning they could see the recipients e-mails. I'm sure they have the best of intentions, but the fewer parties involved, the easier it is to keep anonymous. Besides which, the could be implemented argument would exclude everywhere from having an external website.

[Adan]

Dear Sam, sign up to my anonymous mailing list!
https://lists.bath.ac.uk/sympa/info/test-scifi-list

My downfall is a presumption of background knowledge on the part of SU apologists.

[Lambada]

Done.

Signed up with my personal e-mail samuel[NOSPAM-AT-NOSPAM]samuel[NOSPAM]walker.me.uk without signing in with my BUCS ID, and the Uni do not have that email associated with me.
EDIT: Just sent a message as well.

[Adan]

It is moderated . Wouldn't want people signing up just to abuse poor sci fiers after all! So what is stopping the gay soc from doing the same and achieving an even higher degree of privacy in doing so?

[Lambada]

Full moderation would discourage people from posting, and make people wonder whether their posts were being held for a very long time.
I also fail to see how it would increase privacy. As it is, the committee can see only the e-mail addresses of their members. Members can only see the posts, with the From E-Mail replaced with a generic one. Full Moderation wouldn't increase privacy in any way.

In addition, with the LGBT list, people are manually added by the committee. Those who haven't gone through the manual signup process cannot post to the list.

But all that is beside the point, I have demonstrated why LGBT have kept their external website, and given reasons for why their mailing lists aren't done through bathstudent, and shown that my claims are true with the list that you created. That is sufficient to allow them an external website under the policy.

[Adan]

Sorry, red herring. Moderation can be turned off. I only have it on to stop people spamming me via that list, and I only mentioned it to explain why your message didn't go through.

The increased privacy comes from not having committee need to see the emails at all unless they explicitly look. Admittedly only preventing accidental disclosure but that's still a step above the current method and less work to boot! If you want to moderate membership then have an open posting policy it's still less work since it's yes/no click rather than copy and paste! All without an external website .

Try again.

[SittingDuck]

Ok, we've had enough of this, I think. It's really quite petty.

Que sera, sera and all of that.

This is going to be locked.