[governance] New membership database: choose your own username
Ian Peter
ian.peter at ianpeter.com
Wed Jan 5 16:20:16 EST 2011
Shaila raises some of the more interesting questions around membership
and the most interesting of all if how anyone ceases to be a member. Quite
an important question, because charter amendments require a positive vote of
two thirds of ³members². - not just two thirds of participants in the vote.
Members certainly should include people who were members but didn¹t vote in
last elections, as Shaila points out. But members could then be construed to
include people who havent participated for years, because there is no way to
cease being a member even if you die currently.
These sorts of problems cant be solved technologically. Nor can the
administrative issues which surround a list which serves a dual purpose of
an open mailing list to discuss internet governance issues and also a forum
for decision making by the subset of mailing list members who would define
themselves as IGC members.
So it¹s not easy. However, I personally think that the series of technology
changes Jeremy had led over the last year or so have been great enhancements
which have made us more efficient. Its great to be able to vote on accepting
a position statement without flooding the mailing list with a hundred or so
YES messages and its good to have surveys, wikis and other tools to help
us develop positions and discuss them. So, on the whole, I think the changes
which have been introduced have been well worthwhile, and it is great to
have a co ordinator such as Jeremy with the requisite technical skills to
advance our use of on line tools. None of our recent co ordinators have had
these skills, so Jeremy is making a great contriubution.
This has been improved and enhanced by the input of others on this list
the recent changes did need some tweaking, and may need more to meet all
needs.
But the concept is good IMHO, even if unable to solve all our problems.
Ian Peter
From: shaila mistry <shailam at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, shaila mistry <shailam at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2011 11:27:55 -0800 (PST)
To: Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
Cc: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
Subject: Re: [governance] New membership database: choose your own username
Hi Jeremy
I have been a member of IGF for many years now, I have attended several IGF
s and have been part of WSIS since its inception. However for the last two
years I have not received the ballot to vote, in a timely manner. I did get
the ballot last time after a little scramble but am uncertain if it was
included.
I too am a little concerned about the intent and direction of the changes.
Having said this my concerns with the new format and criteria are as follows
1. How do we recognize members like myself who have been long standing
members. So if my vote was not included in the last elections, am I
"reassigned" ? how do I have this corrected so I receive the ballot for the
next election.
2. Then there are others who also may be long standing members,but simply
opt out of voting...does that diminish their status as members?
3. Then there are serious but non participating members who are observers
who also should be counted as member .
4. Then there are the true" lurkers' whilst most of us would like to open
up participation to all individuals who have genuine concern for our work, I
admit that there is sometimes an uneasy feeling of wondering who is just
lurking with a purpose of some " ill doing" .
So these categories of members raises some questions on what to put in place
* Should we have some broad eligibility criteria ?
* Should we have some sort of periodical scribe - un-scribe process ?
* Should we establish some " organizational' elements ?
* Should we have members discussion forum...blog pages or something ?
I personally have followed most discussions with great interest and have
found them to be very informative and thought provoking. Just havent always
been able to squeeze in my two cents worth. I would like to be more active
in this coming year and participate more as needed.
Warm regards to everyone and Happy New year to all !
Shaila Rao Mistry
President
Jayco Interface Technology
Jayco MMI
Input Technology With A Human Touch
Vice President Public Policy
National Association On Women Buisness Owners
Next Generation Convenor
International Federation on University Women
From: Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Sent: Sun, January 2, 2011 3:01:01 AM
Subject: [governance] New membership database: choose your own username
This is long, but important, so please read it.
Before the next poll or election is called, anyone who wishes to participate
will have to have an account in the new database that I have created to
record IGC membership. All those who voted in the last election will also
be entered into this database.
We are doing this because, until now, there has been no proper IGC
membership list, other than the list of subscribers to the governance
mailing list (which contains many non-member lurkers, duplicate
subscriptions and some defunct accounts).
The advantages of a maintaining a centralised database is that we can use a
single list of members (and potential members) for purposes including:
* mailing list subscription
* editing content on the IGC Web site
* determining eligibility to vote for coordination elections and charter
amendments
Also, we will finally be able to associate names and (optionally)
organisations with email addresses. Our inability to do this in the past
has been a problem for the coordinators.
I will be entering existing members into this database shortly, but I am
first giving everyone the opportunity to create their own database entry so
that they can choose their own username. If you don't choose your own
username, you will end up with a username like "john.doe". The username
won't be used on the mailing list, but will be associated with any content
you may create on our Web site, and possibly for other purposes in the
future.
To create your own entry in the IGC membership database please visit this
new page of our Web site:
http://www.igcaucus.org/user/register
When registering, please use the same email address with which you are
subscribed to the governance list. This is important because it will enable
me to flag you as an official IGC member (ie. one who voted in the last
coordinator elections), if indeed you are one. (If not, please register
anyway - especially if you intend to vote at the next coordinator
elections.)
Visiting the page above is also the way, from now on, to subscribe to or
unsubscribe from the governance mailing list. (Unfortunately due to
software limitations, your password for the mailing list Web site won't be
automatically set to the one you choose when creating your database entry -
you'll need to set it again when logging in there, or use any password you
may have had there before.)
Existing subscribers to the governance mailing list who have not voted in
the list election will not automatically be added to the database. So, if
you did not vote but are nonetheless an active participant, you should
register yourself using the link above. If you don't, your mailing list
subscription won't be touched, but you won't have access to participate in
polls or to add content to our Web site.
Thanks, and please let me know if you have any questions. You have one
month from now to create your own database entry if you wish, before I will
create entries for all the missing members.
PS. Since this email is long enough already, I'll be writing separately
about some of the other "phase 2" improvements to our Web site.
--
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
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