[Chapter-delegates] New ISOC MembershipSystem - Chapter setup and rollout

[W. Majewski]

Nelson,

> 1. I am sorry that you are not able to enter your name using Polish
> language characters.

(...)

 > ... we think that the system is sufficiently ready to be rolled
 > out to all members.

Are you serious? How you imagine rollout of membership system without 
ability to input and store members' names and adresses?

> 7. Most chapters will not be billing their members for chapter membeship
> levels.  Do you have paying membership levels?

Yes, we do. We want to send a coherent message to our members. I would 
prefer to avoid a necessity to explain to them why they need to pay 
chapter's duties after they went through registration at ISOC'c webpage 
and have seen a message saying "no  membership duties for this chapter".

> We may be able to add additional description/text to clarify how this works.

So chapter's officers are not trusted enough to edit their own chapter's 
description by themselves?

> 8. This is by design.  We expect individuals to maintain their own
> profile data (name, email, postal address, etc).

How that can be done without ability to enter one's proper name i adress 
and with user interface in English only?

> 10. Expire date. The expire date refers to a member's yearly individual
> membership.  All memberships are yearly memberships and they are renewed
> for an additional year.  You cannot change the Expire date through the
> chapter administrator pages.  Chapter memberships are automatically
> renewed by a back office process.

Is there a requirement for yearly re-registration in ISOC's bylaws or 
rules of membership? If not please hide this field from public view.

> 11. Member history is not available through the chapter administrator
> pages.

So what is the whole system for?

> 12. We have back office processes to check for duplicate emails.  This
> is an ongoing process and duplicates get deleted and the individual
> member contacted.  However, often times it is very difficult to
> determine if individuals with exactly the same names but different
> emails are duplicates.  For instance,  two people with exactly the same
> names John Smith (common names in the US) but different emails, could be
> different persons. The chapter administrator is able to cancel members
> and that is also a way to help us resolve duplicates. 

Did you ever maintained a database?

During last 10 years I maintained several databases with 10.000 - 
3.000.000 entries describing persons (including customers' databases of 
leading national webshops and teachers' database for Ministry of 
Education) and I have some experience in spotting duplicates and 
inconsistences. It is why I asked about "checks and warnings". 
Membership system should provide tools to spot suspected duplicates and 
errors and to report them to those who can validate them - in our case 
to membership officers of local chapters.

> 13. The chapter administration pages have mechanisms to "export" out to
> text formatted files.  These files can be used by the chapter
> administrator to import to local systems.

What for? Most chapters have more accurate and comprehensive data. There 
is no need to import members' data FROM central to local databases 
especially without their history and metadata included. What would be 
useful is mutual synchronisation or feeding the central resource from 
local frontends.

>  In reality, we expect all individuals to sign up to ISOC membership 
> using the new Membership System.

Are you serious? How can they do it without interface in their own 
language and without a support for proper spelling of their names and 
adresses?

> To be member of a chapter, a member must first be a member of
> ISOC and have properly registered using the new Membership System. 

"properly registered using the new Membership System" is an oxymoron.

> 14. I am not sure I understand the need for the comments field.  Can you
> please explain where and how this would be used?

I understand that it is your first attempt to use business machines to 
store the data. Do you use a "adress book" included in your mailer? Is 
there an "notes" field and is it usefull for you?

In most registers you need a fields to store two kinds of free-format 
data: internal meta-notes by admins ("this field needs verification"; 
"data validated by phone"; "name is in a female form but entered title 
is Mr.  Re-check required") and additional supporting data ("willing to 
help with Internet fiesta"; "works part time with Amnesty 
International"; "deep expertise in field of web availabity for blind 
users"; "gave an excellent speech during the camp for gifted kids and 
next day he was able to gain an attention of a campers from challenged 
families with a simplified version of the same talk").

The most basic and urgent need is a way to mark a personal record with 
note about one's status in chapter's membership system: "member since 
XX.XXX"; "duties paid up to ZZ.ZZZ"; "not registred in local system, 
needs to be mailed" etc.

> 15. The GUI is currently in English.  We will look into how this can be
> enhanced for localizing the user interface.

It is a basic feature not suitable to be considered for 'enhancement'. 
Either system is prepared for international use either or it is as 
useless as one you got after two years of efforts.

> 16. You can update the chapter profile (name, address, email) in the
> chapter administrator pages.

That's all one can do about profile?

In my opinion a failure of membership system project needs an urgent 
attention of ISOC board.

Regards

Wladek