[Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system

Thu Feb 14 07:43:44 PST 2019

Hi Oliver,

Inability to download list/emails of members just complicates things – will have do it manually that will cause more time spent and errors.  In Georgia we don’t have hundred of members but still.

Communication via AMS messaging systems is not an option for us because it doesn’t’ support database in local language – Georgian in our case.  So have to export to local mailing system

BR,

Sandro

From: Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org> On Behalf Of Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2019 6:51 PM
To: Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>; Christine Saegesser <saegesser at isoc.org>
Cc: Chapter Delegates <Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system

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)
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Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD

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