[Chapter-delegates] Problems with new membership system - lets remove the dust

Fri Jun 14 11:17:04 PDT 2019

Dear fellow delegates,

now that the dust has settled an covers the floor half a meter high a few thoughts on the AMS ...

I wonder what the design goals for the new system were wrt support of groups within ISOC like e.g. chapters. Especially for groups that have a lot of volunteers doing the work the system should work for them and not require that they work for the system. In general there might be two main approaches one could take:

    *Approach 1:*

    AMS is able to support most of the admin work of a chapter. If the support is at least nearly as good as an eventually existing local chapter admin system, it can substitute it.

    *Approach 2:*

    AMS is mainly tailored for ISOC.ORG requirements and AMS offers chapters and groups an interface to feed required membership data into AMS (while respecting their local privacy legislation).

To be fair: *approach 1* is hard to implement. Too many different needs around. E.g. a few of features I'm using today: four membership classes, automatic members fee invoicing, payment tracking, automatic fee reminder system, online fee account information for every member, semi-automatic processing of direct debits, automatic processing of New Chapter Membership Applications (sending an information mail about chapter work, chapter charter and fee requirements to the applicant, provide her with a form where she can apply - if she still thinks she should), WEB based archive for meeting notes, selective members mailings, ...,  Other chapters may have other requirements and other features in their admin systems. So a one size fits all would rather not be feasible.

I would agree that some chapters, who don't have an admin system in place, might welcome AMS as kind of a "better than nothing" solution. But even for those AMS should respect at least a few usability principles.

So what about *approach 2*? Here my very easy and simple solution (KISS design) - which should work at least for those many chapters who have a working local admin system in place. Assertion: every chapter keeps record of their members' ISOC-IDs:

 1. the chapter sends a list of all ISOC-IDs of its members to AMS twice to four times a year.
 2. AMS reads the list and tags every ID on the list as "is member of chapter ...".
 3. Every ID that has a "is member of chapter ..." tag but is not on the list will have the tag removed.
 4. AMS and local systems are in sync.

Advantages:

  * it is dumb simple to implement (takes 15min max for an average DB system) - well, may be 2hrs with a web upload interface.
  * can be automated on both sides (ISOC and chapter) - preventing errors
  * a list of possible errors (e.g. invalid ISOC ID) can easily be generated and can be treated manually
  * only chapters can tell who is their member and this is an easy way to let ISOC know
  * will probably comply with all local privacy regulations - since no private data is exchanged

There might be cases were chapters don't have the ISOC-ID of a member. In this case they are trapped - even today. Since AMS wouldn't allow them to figure out if Alice is a ISOC member and what's her ISOC-ID. If this isn't changed it would require some manual work on side of ISOC anyhow. (Not being an AMS aficionado, I wonder if my assumption wrt to this case is right.)

Did I miss something? If so I'd be happy to learn. But let me be clear: as long as things are as they are today I'll stay "hands off AMS". I'm not insane enough to invest hours and hours of manual work over and over again - threatened by poorly designed interfaces and lame response times - to do things that the computer could do easily, better and faster without much implementation effort. If anybody would direct me to do so I would rather quit my job.

Best regards

Klaus
[who once thought that ISOC was about making people's live better by providing guidance for sensible use of technology]

Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond schrieb am 12.02.19 um 18:09:
> 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. 

-- 
Klaus Birkenbihl
Treasurer and Board Member
Internet Society German Chapter (ISOC.DE) e.V.
c/o ict-Media GmbH
https://www.isoc.de

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