[Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
ocl at gih.com
Thu Feb 14 06:51:12 PST 2019
Dear Eduardo,
my email which triggered this whole discussion pointed out two things:
1. the inability to download a list of members in XLS/CSV format which
is a technical thing that might be triggered by policy - could it be
that Chapters are not allowed to download a list of their members for
fear of breaking GDPR rules?
2. the ability for some people to be "members" whilst selecting not to
receive any email - which is not a technical problem, but a policy
problem of chapters that raises two questions:
a. how in the world did people manage to end up selecting they do not
want to receive email, when the previous system did not have such an option
b. is a "member" who does not receive emails from the Internet Society
really a "member" or should they be deleted too?
Neither of these are resolved and I'd really like to discuss (2) as this
is a chapter policy issue.
Kindest regards,
Olivier
On 14/02/2019 14:15, Eduardo Diaz wrote:
> For what I have been reading, it looks that the email issue was solved.
>
> I will send a message today and see how it goes.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -ed
>
> On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 5:34 AM Christine Saegesser
> <saegesser at isoc.org <mailto:saegesser at isoc.org>> wrote:
>
> Hi Eduardo,
>
> Please let me jump in here. Sending an e-mail to the members of
> your Chapter that have agreed to receive communications should not
> be an issue.
>
> There’s a step by step guide on doing this on pages 23-25 of the
> Chapter Officer AMS User Guide (which is available via the AMS
> Dashboard if you are logged in as an officer - I’m also adding a
> link to the document here if this is easier to sort this out
> quickly: https://isoc.box.com/s/2n0cf5bf647yrrts8va6j4qcvb9pq9w5).
> I hope this is helpful.
>
> Please do let me know if you’d like to walk through the steps on a
> quick Zoom call.
>
> Best,
>
> Christine
>
>
> > On 13. Feb 2019, at 21:46, Eduardo Diaz
> <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com <mailto:eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> > This is all an indicator that the company behind this system did
> not have a good test plan to make sure basic functionality worked
> and that the data transferred was done correctly. In our case we
> have a big event coming up this Friday, 15 Feb 2019 and there is
> just no way we can remind our membership about it. Bad, Bad..
> >
> > Eduardo Díaz
> > Board Member
> > ISOC Puerto Rico
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 3:38 PM Greg Shatan <greg at isoc-ny.org
> <mailto:greg at isoc-ny.org>> wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > The New York Chapter is experiencing the same difficulties.
> However, I do believe we were warned that, if members did not opt
> in during the opt in process, they would be deleted from the
> database and their membership in the Internet Society and any
> chapters terminated.
> >
> > It’s unclear to me whether only those members were deleted.
> Regardless, we lost a massive amount of members. If they were
> deadwood, that seems like a correct result, but it seems like
> there were some live ones in among the deadwood.
> >
> > Whether it was legally necessary to go the opt in route is a fun
> question, but also an absolutely moot point, since it’s all been
> done (over many months with repeated warnings, emails and
> exhortations).
> >
> > Another anomaly: There were also members listed in the old
> database with expiration dates. I believe they stayed in the
> database even after the expiration date, and it appears that some
> of these expired members did opt in, so they survived the
> transition to the new database. These members are now flagged as
> inactive (or words to that effect). It’s unclear to me how these
> should be (or should have been) dealt with.
> >
> > Those who opted in but declined to receive email (was that even
> an option?) are even more of a head scratcher. Email is our only
> official line of communication with members — sure they can visit
> our website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., but that is not
> the same thing.
> >
> > While we’re at it, the listing of “Roles” for Chapter leadership
> is very limited. Anyone who had a role in the old database that
> doesn’t exist in the new database was converted to “officer”. This
> happened to our representatives to ICANN At -Large and NCSG/NCUC,
> as well as liaisons from ICANN and from another organization —
> none of these people (with one exception) are in fact “officers”
> of the Chapter or our Corporation.
> >
> > Perhaps this was a “live beta”....
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Greg
> > On Wed, Feb 13, 2019 at 2:20 PM Y.Kargapolov <yvk2010 at gmail.com
> <mailto:yvk2010 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > +1 Ram
> >
> > This is the most reasonable move in the current situation.
> >
> > --
> > Yuri
> > ISOC IoT SIG
> >
> > Вы писали 13 февраля 2019 г., 18:56:04:
> >
> >
> > ISOC should consider reinstating the old AMS so that chapters
> can get back to functioning, download CSVs, etc., since the
> assumption that there would be fidelity in cross-over is not reality.
> >
> > This approach allows ISOC tech staff the time to identify root
> cause(s) and troubleshoot issues on the new system and test it
> without impacting chapters worldwide in their core operations.
> >
> > -Ram
> >
> > From: Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com <mailto:ocl at gih.com>>
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2019 12:09 PM
> > To: Chapter Delegates <Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> <mailto:Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>>
> > Subject: [Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I'd be interested in your comments, as I have realised (from the
> feedback received on today's Chapter Advisory Council Steering
> Committee) that the UK Chapter is not the only Chapter with
> Membership software problems. Throughout the week, I have been
> grappling with various problems brought forward by the new
> Internet Society membership system.
> >
> > Leaving small problems to the side, there are two main problems
> that the Internet Society UK England Chapter is facing:
> >
> > 1. The inability to download a list of all our members in Excel
> format. When we started using the ISOC AMS system, we transferred
> all of our member's details to the AMS. We even registered with
> the Data Protection Registrar, in case the details were going to
> be leaving the UK. Whilst the Internet Society runs the AMS
> system, we believe that we are the data controller. Now we cannot
> retrieve the data of our own members and the question comes as to
> "who owns members"? I remember this debate poisoned discussions in
> early 2000 when the Internet Society was about to collapse for
> lack of funds and at the end of the day, the matter was dug into
> the ground and full access to the membership records given to the
> Chapters about their own members. Now the new system makes things
> a lot harder for the Chapter to view and download records of its
> own members. This simply cannot be the case.
> >
> > 2. Emailing members using the system: here there are two main
> problems: first, it is now impossible to email a subset of our
> members, it's either all of them, or 1 of them, but there is no
> ability to select a subset of members, for example living in town
> X, and email them. Functionality loss - which I had already
> pointed out during the demonstration calls a few months ago, but
> it appears that someone has deliberately decided to ignore this
> important feature. That's a technical thing that should be fixed
> easily.
> >
> > The second problem, possibly more of a problem because I do not
> think that it is technical, but is a "feature" that was added, is
> that we now appear not to be able to email all of our members.
> With the decision of ISOC to go through the toughest regimes of
> GDPR acceptance by asking for explicit acceptance of GDPR terms,
> we went from 3400 to 1490 members. Whilst this is a pill that's
> difficult to swallow, I understand the purpose and conservative
> direction that ISOC took for this - the culture of "safety first"
> prevailing these days. That said, we now have another challenge,
> in that out of these 1490 members, we appear to only be able to
> email 1098 of them - because it appears that 400 of our "members"
> have "decided not to receive emails".
> > First, I think that the email opt out button is very badly
> marked, as it cuts you off all communication and signs you off all
> of the mailing lists that you might have subscribed to. In my
> test, I have managed to sign myself off email mailing lists
> without being able to find a way to put myself back on them - for
> example the Internet Policy..... But worse still, I have found
> that my own colleagues in the leadership team have opted out of
> emails - perhaps unwittingly.
> >
> > What good is a Chapter member that opts out of emails?
> >
> > How in the world will I get in touch with members that have
> opted out of emails? Are these people completely cut-off from the
> Internet Society? Are they receiving *any* communication at all
> from the Internet Society, or is it only the Chapter that is
> blocked from being able to email them? Do they know they have
> opted out?
> > To me, these 400 people that the Chapter cannot email are as
> good as dead wood - why not remove them from Internet Society
> membership as well?
> >
> > I'd be interested in your comments if you are faced with similar
> problems.
> > Kindest regards,
> >
> > Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
> > (personal views)
> > _______________________________________________
> > As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically
> subscribed
> > to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet
> Society Chapter Portal (AMS):
> > https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
> > _______________________________________________
> > As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically
> subscribed
> > to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet
> Society Chapter Portal (AMS):
> > https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
> >
> >
> > --
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>
>
> --
> *NOTICE:* This email may contain information which is confidential
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--
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
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