Published on 12, July, 2020
With the National Autistic Society's Annual General Meeting coming up in November, I was wondering how many of us here are members.
More information: NAS - Membership
Some thoughts behind my own reasons for having joined as an NAS member:
1. Although NAS membership isn't required in order to join this community, someone still has to pay for it - and, for me, being able to participate here feels, just by itself, worth the membership donation:
2. The benefits - to me personally - of being an NAS member, including:
3. Helping, in my own small way, to fund the huge range of services and help that the NAS provides to other autistic people and their families - as well as to employers, health and social care professionals, etc - along with campaigning and more:
The impact report is well worth a look for anyone who's not familiar with all of the charity's work. I personally feel very fortunate indeed that we have such a well-run charity advocating for us and our needs.
Bunny said:Online forums aren't cheap to provide or manage.
I mean I don't mean to rain on their parade but I run an autism related forum and it costs me roughly 70£ a year. Now it fairness it gets much less trafic but still. ... I certanly don't need 1000£ worth of training ... but then I'm a one man band more or less. And one of the selling points of my forum is the light touch moderation where most things are allowed provided they're not illegal.
Bunny said:Access to an exclusive, members-only Facebook group ("a great way to get in touch with autistic people, parents, carers, and professionals and receive and share advice").
Fair enough but that's of less value to those not really intrested in online events ... at least if NAS has no local branch near them.
Peter said:I mean I don't mean to rain on their parade but I run an autism related forum and it costs me roughly 70£ a year. Now it fairness it gets much less trafic
Running a small forum as (more or less) a one-person band, like you do, is an entirely different matter to running a larger one as a registered UK charity - as are the associated management and administrative processes and costs, including salaries and IT.
The NAS must also ensure initial and ongoing compliance with legislation and other requirements including, for example: the Charities Act 2011, Online Safety Act 2023, Defamation Act 2013, Digital Economy Act 2017, Ofcom guidance, UKIS framework, Communications Act 2003, voluntary codes, Data Protection Act 2018, the Information Commissioner’s Office’s Children’s code, and more.
As I said, the costs are significant.
Peter said:I certanly don't need 1000£ worth of training
No matter your opinion, if you were to become a volunteer moderator or administrator for this community, you would still need to go through the same c.£1,000 training programme as everyone else - for good reasons.
Regardless of training costs. I like this forum and the protections that it does it's best to offer, and am happy to contribute to a worthwhile charity and not just for what I can get personally out of it, but for others too,
Bunny said:Online Safety Act 2023
My understanding of category one and two of the online safety act because it may apply only to services with millions of users (Per month) I don’t think of this forum or mine qualify.
nothing in the charitys act specific to running an online forum. It has more to do with financial transparency for the most part and it’s part of the overall obligation of being a charity where are you run a forum or not.
most aspects of the data protection act are easy when you’re only retaining the date of a user puts on your site and where they can remove it at will. And it’s not at all clear that the data protection act would apply when people are posting exclusively on the pseudonyms since it’s generally only applies to identifying data.
The defamation act is a problem everyone has to worry about whether you run forum or not. If anything it makes running a forum easier because it provides a defence for website owners if they have a sensible complaints procedure for defamatory user generated content. It’s actually very common sense stuff.
but digital economy’s act mostly applies to Internet service providers rather than website operators.
The communications act mostly applies to users of websites and makes it easier to prosecute them for online harassment.
Believe me the Internet has a long tradition of lots of little forums which used to have a few hundred users at most and as long as they are not promoting or turning a blind eye to flagrant copyright abuse or the distribution of illegal porn they are mostly fine.