[chapter-delegates] suggestion for voting, payment system and membership names

[Irwan Effendi]

Dear David and James,

I have read and fully understood the basis for the difference on views from
chapter side and board side.
The core of the problem is the failure from all of us to think as others may
think, a common problem in an organization with members from distant parts
of the world.

But, the key word of a successful management is always "compromise".
Therefore, I would recommend that we find some middle ground for the current
issue at hand.

First, let's take a look at the voting

HQ view:

The primary purpose of ISOC is to finance IETF and the development of
general internet community (this I grasp from both articles in isoc.org and
from James' comments on my previous mail)
Therefore ISOC would like to present the opportunity for individual members
who are willing and can afford to, a way of donating money to ISOC, and in
return, ISOC gives them the right to vote to elect people that they want to
see to be seated in BOT (for whatever reason they have).

Chapters' view:

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) foster the development of the web, and
all matters related to it. There is no question that W3C is controlled by
industry because the name itself (Consortium) has suggested it.
The Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering (IEEE) foster the
development of infrastructure technology and all matters related to it.
There is no question that IEEE belongst to the Academic organization, as it
is after all, an Institute.

Therefore, Internet Society, as the name says, should be more concern about
society rather than sticking to engineering A through Z. ISOC should belong
to the society, and the members of society (a.k.a. people) should have
something to say about where ISOC should be heading, and what it should put
it priorities. In other word, everyone should be able to vote without any
restriction.

Comments:

This is the difference that managed to get lost in the gap of culture and
language, plus the not so user friendly interface of the current navigation
structure of isoc.org. (I am betting that most on this list read less than
half of the total content and many managed to miss some pages because they
are not directly visible on the site map.)
ISOC was established to generate fund for IETF, but not all member were
aware of it prior to joining (it's not in the "all about ISOC"). I myself
only read about it today after reading all links I can find in the site.

Suggestion:

Enlarge the current organization structure by adding  an adhoc comittee.
This adhoc comittee will be elected directly by all individual members, that
way each member does have a voting right. The comittee will directly answer
to BOT, and its duties is to determine what is the current demands from
individuals from around the world and report the summary to BOT. This
comitte can also be tasked to judge which project proposals should be funded
by ISOC, or to perform specific tasks upon the demand of members, under the
limitation of the available budget set by BOT.
The best way to form this comitte is to delegate the nomination and election
process to chapters, therefore to avoid consumption of ISOC's budget. I
believe that the member of the comittee should be elected on the regional
basis, as recommended previously in this list.
The member of BOT can continue be elected by the current system in place.

Personally, I believe this is quite fair for everyone because the only
actual right that non paying member missed is the right to manage the money.
For those who feels strongly that non paying and paying member should have
equal right, locate the page about IETF, written by Vinton G Cerf, and you
will see that originally ISOC was all about fund (a.k.a. money)

Bottom line, either ISOC create something to appease the masses, or lose
them due to deep misunderstandings and dissatisfactions.



Payment system.

We already established that ISOC offers voting rights as benefits for money
donated to fund IETF, therefore I need not discuss further issue regarding
the possibility of mass purchase and similar things. In the sense of the
intention, there is nothing wrong with getting more votes for more money.

suggestion:

It is the current best practice in E-Commerce that any site wanted to offer
something for a price should provide as many way to place order as possible,
and should also provide as many way as possible to pay for the order

ISOC should start receiving payment by:
- international money order
- tele transfer
- western union
- e-bullions
- pay per call
- vouchers sold through chapters

regarding voucher sale, ISOC can also use this to foster e-commerce between
countries that can not use credit card. Both ISOC and chapter can earn small
comission on the trade, and that can be use as source of fund for chapter's
projects.
If HQ likes this idea, don't need to worry about the exchange system, we
have it.


Names

Use as neutral names as possible. We already see what happened if we use
names that denotes ranks. Many dislikes "associates" and when I said that in
Indonesia people don't mind the "professional member" name, it flies back
directly to my face :)
Another example:
Donating member, although it may sounds neutral, we may have people getting
upset later because their hard work is not being considered donation enough.

sugestion:
non paying
global member or regular member

paying
premium member or funding member (both premi and fund specifically says
money)


Global member was good, and still is.
Verified member, I believe is also good because it does not denotes any
ranks

------------------------

Additional note:
The membership system we designed for Indonesia can be handled by one
person. Keep in mind that this is not an entirely new system, I have used it
for an association of alternative healing organizations of over 78000
members (how many times the current members of ISOC is that ?) and there has
been no major problem so far. Manual work is only required when sending out
membership card and when receiving the photograph (to make sure it's not a
picture of a dog or a monkey). And no, the membership card is not free, we
charge Rp. 5000,- (about 60 cents) for printing and postage. They can choose
to pay this in form of money or in form of stamp. The leftover is enough to
pay the salary of the staff ( well, you'll need more than that in the U.S.
though, maybe USD 1).

I hope that this email is useful to help restore the integrity of this
organization

Best Regards,

Irwan Effendi