Published on: May 04, 2021
Dear members,
As you are aware, Editors Canada has been dealing with significant web and email service disruptions since our server outage on February 27.
To address these issues, we have changed IT providers and have taken an overdue look at our IT practices. One of the issues that has become clear is our email system is at its end of life. As a result, we have experienced several periods of email downtime over the last couple of years. We have also seen an overwhelming increase in spam. Due to the risks associated with this outdated system, we regret to inform you that we are ending editors.ca email services for members.
Why are you no longer offering editors.ca email?
Simply put, managing email accounts for members is not sustainable. While giving a free email address to any member seemed like a fantastic benefit at the time, the volume of accounts and accompanying tech support needs quickly grew out of control.
At present, there are more than 1,400 email addresses on our server, and many of them are mailbox accounts (accounts that allow people to receive and send email as an editors.ca address). None of the IT companies we spoke with were willing to offer tech support for all these mailbox accounts for an amount we could afford to pay.
Offering email addresses also created security and legal risks to the association as a whole, because we cannot be sure that they are all being used safely, especially now that we cannot provide tech support for them.
With this knowledge in hand, the national executive council (NEC) made the difficult decision to end email addresses for members.
What will happen?
As of Friday, May 21, 2021, people who currently use an editors.ca email account to send mail will no longer be able to do so.
As well, Roundcube webmail will be shut down.
What if I want to keep using my editors.ca address to receive mail?
Our IT provider can forward your existing editors.ca address to another account until Friday, November 26, 2021. If you choose to do this, you will receive email addressed to your existing editors.ca account in your personal inbox. You will reply from your personal email address.
If you would like to forward your editors.ca address to another email account until November 26, please fill out this form by 11:59 p.m., on Wednesday, May 19.
Our IT provider will begin setting up the forwarding addresses on Friday, May 21. They estimate it will take 48 hours to upgrade our email system, so editors.ca email should be forwarding to your personal inbox no later than Monday, May 24.
What do I need to do before Friday, May 21?
- If you currently use an editors.ca email account to send mail, you should start using another email address as soon as possible.
- If you use the Roundcube webmail client, you should save any emails and contacts you will need (for example, by forwarding them to another email account). After May 21, you will no longer be able to log into Roundcube and you will lose all access to your editors.ca emails and contacts.
- You should update your contacts about the change.
- You should update the email address you use to log into the Editors Canada website members' area and our Findjoo portal for managing your membership and renewal.
Why is this being done so quickly?
The server outage on February 27 caused a cascading series of problems that affected almost all of our web and email services. Our IT provider needs to address the problems with our email before it can fix other issues, like member access to The Chicago Manual of Style Online. It is vital that we act quickly so we can restore these other member services quickly as well.
We are sorry we can no longer offer email services to members. The decision to end this free benefit of membership was not one the NEC made lightly. Doing so allows members to find more reliable email service elsewhere. It also allows Editors Canada to direct our resources to fixing our web services and keeping them manageable and secure for the long term.
National Executive Council
Editors Canada