[governance] New membership database: choose your own username

[Lee W McKnight]

Jeremy,

I'm now confused by your categories. 

List subscribers who self-identify as members of civil society are eligible to vote if they've been on the list a  couple months; list members who joined more recently have to wait for the next go-round; list members who do not self-identify as cs are ineligible.  Right?  We need not call them 'lurkers,' if such folks want to speak up we can listen right.  

Your second category of people whose status may have changed over time is more a problem, possibly, for a nomcom considering whether a particular possible volunteer is a suitable rep of cs in this or that volunteer capacity.    

If there was a sudden influx of folks from a particular sector then we might worry about ballot-stuffing....which we have in the past; but somehow we muddle along anyway. So present safeguards seem to work well enough there.
At least that's my understanding.  But if you feel we need to make things more complicated than that....you better join that charter amendment group you're suggesting before doing so : )

Otherwise, just focusing on cleaning up duplicate and defunct email addresses is the main thing right; building out a more comprehensive database on list members is...maybe... a good thing but I'm note sure it is a top priority given plenty of other things to do.  My 2 cents, and I am definitely not volunteering to join you on your charter amendment committee.

Lee
________________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.cpsr.org [governance-request at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Jeremy Malcolm [jeremy at ciroap.org]
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 10:31 PM
To: Deirdre Williams
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] New membership database: choose your own username

On 02/01/2011, at 9:12 PM, Deirdre Williams wrote:

"Official IGC members" are those who subscribe to the list, NOT those "who voted in the last coordinator elections". The definition in Jeremy's message seems to me to be a fundamental change in the intention of the charter.

There are so many different levels of membership in the charter that it is indeed confusing:

* Those who self-identified as members and voted in the last coordinator elections, who are the only members entitled to vote on charter amendments.  These are whom I was referring to above, though maybe "full" would have been a better choice of words than "official".

* Those who self-identified as members prior to the last coordinator election, who are (perhaps?) also still members, but can't vote on charter amendments.  The charter is ambiguous about whether you have to renew your self-identification every year.  In favour of this view, a member may have moved into government service  since their previous self-identification.  Against, even if you do work for government, you may feel that you can still self-identify as an IGC member in your personal capacity.

* Those who participate in the mailing list, but have never self-identified as members (whom I called "lurkers"). So, I disagree with your point that there is no such thing as a non-member lurker.

But, I agree that it would be better to completely review the charter, if only we had a willing group of members to undertake this task.

--
Jeremy Malcolm
Project Coordinator
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599
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