[Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system

Thu Feb 14 07:24:09 PST 2019

Hi Olivier.

About your first issue I would like to propose a question. The GDPR applies
to the EC. To my knowledge, this rule (law, regulation) is not enforced in
the US and many other countries. Therefore, why apply a country specific
rule to all chapters?

On the second issue, I completely agree. You cannot participate as a member
in the Internet Society without receiving emails from the chapter and ISOC.
This option, if made available, should be accompanied by a statement
indicating something like "*if you choose not to receive emails your
membership will be cancelled*".

Just my 2 cents,

José R. de la Cruz
jrdelacruz at acm.org
Vice President, Puerto Rico Chapter

On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 10:51 AM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
wrote:

> 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>
> 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>
>> 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> 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> 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>
>> > Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2019 12:09 PM
>> > To: Chapter Delegates <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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>> > _______________________________________________
>> > As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
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>> Chapter Portal (AMS):
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>>
>>
>
> --
> *NOTICE:* This email may contain information which is confidential and/or
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> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> --
> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhDhttp://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
> _______________________________________________
> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
> Chapter Portal (AMS):
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