List management: was [chapter-delegates] Latest ISOC WGIG statement

[Alan Levin]

Dear Jim,

On 6 May 2005, at 21:21, James M Galvin wrote:
> The message below suggests that ISOC public policy discussions should 
> occur in public.  I want to clarify what that means, i.e., to indicate 
> what ISOC's policy is with respect to the mailing list in question.

Kind thanks for your reply and clarity.

> That list is open to any ISOC member and, to that extent, it is a 
> public mailing list.  Similarly, the archive is open to any 
> subscriber. Note that any ISOC member can subscribe to the list and 
> elect not to receive messages so they can read the archive.
> That policy has been in place since the list was created.

Excellent. My apologies, I may have jumped to conclusions without being 
completely in the picture wrt this list. This makes things much more 
clear and I believe also highlights a shared need for mailing list and 
membership database integration.  (i.e. if the mailing list could check 
if the email address was already in the membership database then it 
would not need to be a fully moderated list).

> While ISOC does support openness and transparency in general, I am not 
> sure I understand the value of ISOC conducting this part of its 
> business in a completely transparent way, i.e., to allow anonymous 
> contributions to its public policy discussions.  Could someone say 
> more about how this would be helpful to ISOC and how ISOC would 
> benefit from such a change?

Agreed. No need for non-members to be able to subscribe. I was 
(probably incorrectly) assuming that since membership is open and free, 
there would not be anyone that was interested in joining the list that 
was not already a member.

> For now, we view that mailing list as a member service, and encourage 
> those members for whom public policy is important to participate on 
> that mailing list.

Excellent - in our next announcement - we shall mention the list to our 
members.

Kind regards,

Alan

> --On Monday, May 02, 2005 3:13 PM +0200 Alan Levin 
> <alan at futureperfect.co.za> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 2 May 2005, at 11:15, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
>> > At the same time, may I make the suggestion that ISOC policy
>> > discussions among members happen in public? I don't see a reason
>> > why  they should be kept private.
>>
>> I think we've mostly agreed on this as a default.
>>
>> ISOC-ZA support transparency wherever possible and if the label on
>> this list is to have any meaning than we support that it's opened -
>> for unmoderated subscription and publicly accessible archives - as
>> soon as possible.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Alan
>> ISOC-ZA chair
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
---------------------------------------------
Alan Levin
Tel: +27 21 409-7997