[Chapter-delegates] New ISOC MembershipSystem - Chapter setupand rollout

Sat Sep 17 08:28:06 PDT 2005

Re attached:

I fail to understand how you could have chosen anything but a UCS/Unicode based encoding for the data base, say UTF-8? In this day and age it gets to be extremkely difficult to find anything so out-dated that it would support ASCII only.

Sincerely, 
Erkki I. Kolehmainen
Tilkankatu 12 A 3, 00300 Helsinki, Finland
(09) 4368 2643, 0400 825 943; Int'l: +358 - 9 4368 2643 / 400 825 943
----- Alkuperäinen viesti ----- 
Lähettäjä: "James M Galvin" <galvin at elistx.com>
Vastaanottaja: "W. Majewski" <wladek at majewski.pl>; "Nelson Sanchez" <sanchez at isoc.org>
Kopio: <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>; "Jozef Halbersztadt" <jothal at isoc.org.pl>
Lähetetty: 6. syyskuuta 2005 16:28
Aihe: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New ISOC MembershipSystem - Chapter setupand rollout

> Wladek,
> 
> You have forwarded the last in a set of messages exchanged between you 
> and Nelson regarding the new membership system.  Unfortunately, this 
> one message is missing some context that would help others on this 
> mailing list.  I am going to respond instead of Nelson this time.
> 
> We understand that you are unhappy with the new membership system 
> because you can not use your native character set during input. 
> Several people have made this comment to us.  Unfortunately, when we 
> were choosing between membership systems one of the compromises we made 
> was to support only English at this time.  We are not asking you to 
> like that decision but please do understand it was a very difficult 
> decision to make.  We needed many features and services in this system 
> and we simply had to choose.  No system had everything.  We started our 
> review with almost 20 systems, several of which were open software.  We 
> selected the best one we could find.
> 
> We are hopeful that Go will enhance there system to support this in the 
> future.  It is probably the most significant comment we have provided 
> back to them about the system.  But until they make this change this is 
> where we are.
> 
> This is all visible to you because perhaps the most significant 
> enhancement to ISOC's membership system is this new Chapter 
> Administrator interface.  It provides you (and all Chapter Officers) 
> the opportunity to not only manage your own membership but to see what 
> ISOC has.  We have always worked with the limitation of using only 
> English.  We always knew it was a limitation but we managed.
> 
> We are asking you to please work with us and to help us to get by with 
> what we have for now.  This system has much to offer, even if it is 
> only in English.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jim Galvin
> VP Chapters
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --On Sunday, September 04, 2005 5:29 PM +0200 "W. Majewski" 
> <wladek at majewski.pl> wrote:
> 
> > 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
> > address 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
> >
> 
> 
> 
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