Dear CLICK4HP Subscribers,
I am copying to this list a statement by one of my research colleagues
with regard to the behaviour of the Yahoo! based egroups service. It is of
modest length but touches on a set of serious issues with regard to how
open electronic spaces are used to service difficult areas in population
health. The colleague set up a research network using an egroups service.
Without notice Yahoo!/egroups closed down the group with the loss of the
service, the subscriber list, the posting archives and the documents
posted by participants. It is clear that Yahoo/egoups didn't investigate
what the group was doing and Yahoo!/egroups refuses to respond to queries.
The incident raises a number of troubling questions about how the
community spaces of the internet, how-so-ever provided, are subject to
arbitrary control. Here is a bit of background on my involvement with this
group of researchers and a statement by the lead researcher, Laura Maria
Agustin, about the unfortunate behaviour of Yahoo!.
I am a Principal Researcher in a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council (SSHRC) funded research network called EvNet. EvNet
evaluates the role of new (electronic) technologies in learning. Its
website is at http://www.evnetcanada.org . My research is on how
communities and organizations use these electronic spaces to learn. I
focus on communities of practice (e.g. travel medicine), communities of
interest (e.g. public health, health in development, labour in the global
economy) and communities of concern (women's groups working on the UN
women's agenda).
As part of that research I run a number of electronic lists from our York
University server. The communities use the spaces to "conduct their
business", which mainly consists of knowledge networking and "jut in time"
query learning. I watch the socio-electronic dynamics for lessons learned
and to design evaluation strategies and policy guidelines for online
learning communities, and for knowledge networking within organizations.
Here is the story of the IndustriadelSexo (Sex Industry) research network
set up on egroups. While the name would invite investigation, its
practices are laudable. It is clear that Yahoo!/egroups did not carry out
due diligence before wrongfully closing down the list and distroying
access to its archives and artifacts.
Sam Lanfranco, <[log in to unmask]> EvNet Principal Researcher on Learning
Communities
------ Incident Report from Laura Maria Agustin -----------------
My name is Laura Mara Agustn, I am a researcher and activist on migrations
of women from the third world to work in the domestic and sex industries
in Europe. As an educator, I worked in various programmes in Latin America
such as literacy and capacity building for adults before settling in
Spain, where at present I am under contract to write a book for Zed Books,
am doing a postdoctoral research degree at the Open University and working
as evaluator of projects for the International Labour Office and the
European Commission.
During my considerable travels and experiences in multiple countries on
both sides of the Atlantic, I have seen the isolation of groups and
individuals who work on prostitution issues, whether this is prevention of
HIV-AIDS or prevention of violence, awareness raising or concrete
legislative proposals. Everywhere, people lament their isolation, feel
they are 'the only ones' working on these issues and sorely need
information and outside contacts. Although there are a few e-mail
discussion lists used by such people, they are all in English and tend to
be specialised to one theme or another.
In mid-April of this year I set up an email list called IndustriadelSexo
(Sex Industry) at the UK egroups site http://www. egroups.co.uk. I sent
invitations to a number of people with a description that emphasised the
following: 1) the list was intended for people already working in some way
in the field, 2) it was for sharing information, contacts and ideas, and
not for arguing about whether prostitution is 'all right' or not, 3) the
list was for conversing in romance languages, which for native or
experienced speakers can be mutually deciphered. The list was not, in
other words, intended as an ideological tool or as a forum for those
outside the field to chat about it casually. By inviting people to speak
in other languages than English, I opened the door to all those who don't
feel comfortable writing in English but I did not exclude English speakers
who were willing to write in romance languages.
After a couple of months, and through personal networking and multiple
messages from me to groups all over Europe and Latin America, there were
over seventy members in about twenty countries subscribed to the list.
People were writing in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Cataln.
Nationalities of participants included Brasiilian, Mexican, Ecuadorian,
Peruvian, Argentinian, Honduran, Colombian, Dutch, German, Spanish,
French, English, Italian, Canadian and more. Among these participants were
doctors, academic researchers, community outreach workers, prostitutes/sex
workers, managers of European NGO projects. Nearly everyone who wrote to
the list expressed their gratitude at finally having a place to talk.
On July 17, there were over two hundred messages in the archive. On July
19, the list had disappeared from the egroups website. No amount of
writing to the various help/support/feedback options listed on the egroups
and yahoo sites elicited a response. The only message I received which
appeared to come from a person said 'we cannot find this group in our
database'. Other members of the list wrote and also received no response.
When setting up a list, owners accept Terms of Service which allow lists
to be deactivated. I am told that one is advised that this is going to be
done, with a reason, but I received no warning. The result was that all
the archives, the documents that had been made available by individuals to
share with others, the latest list of members--all were erased and lost. I
was given no chance to save anything, no reason for losing everything and
no response to my queries about this. Since egroups/yahoo are becoming
well known for offering free email lists, they are likely to be tried out
by people with social and research projects like mine. Therefore the lack
of responsibility demonstrated is an important one to let people know
about, and I would like to make such a protest on behalf of all of us.
Many people on the list have since written to me about its importance, and
I feel a responsibility to set it up again. The 'field' in which this
group of social actors is trying to make progress is among the most
difficult in the world to negotiate. The press has been shown to play a
key role in this; articles circulate that fire up moralistic opinions, but
people rarely hear from the variety of individuals actually involved on
the ground. On the list I set up, actual prostitutes and migrants talked
to actual researchers and NGO members, across cultural and language
barriers. Attempts were being made to exchange information and help
without needing to be in perfect agreement about social theory or 'win'
arguments.
Sincerely, Laura Mara Agustn
Granada, Spain and Milton Keynes, England
- Laura Maria Agustin can be reached via <[log in to unmask]> -
Sam Lanfranco, CANCHID ListHOST/Admin
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Sam Lanfranco, Chair, SASIT email: <[log in to unmask]>
SASIT: tel: 416-736-5232 fax: 416-736-5188
Office: 416-736-2100 x33235 cell: 416-816-2852
Personal fax: 416-946-1087
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School of Analytic Studies and Information Technology
York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3J 1P3
-> SASIT: Bridging Liberal and Professional Studies <-
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