Re: [Membership] ICIIU Comments on M.A.C. Recommendations of 4-26 -99

[Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>]

Roberto Gaetano a écrit:

> What about inviting ICIIU Members to join individually the At-Large
> Membership, and join as ICIIU the NCDNH Constituency?
> ICIIU will get a vote in the constituency, and Members get an individual
> vote in the At-Large.
> I am assuming that other similar organizations (ISOC, AUI, ...) will follow
> a similar path.

Yes, I suppose that makes sense. And it should work out alright, so
long as all follow the same path. The trouble is, if as you suggest
the supporting organizations of ISOC were to get separate votes in
the NCDNHC, while the supporting organizations of the ICIIU didn't,
that wouldn't be very fair, would it? You seem to be suggesting
this. But, as a matter of fact, the organizations supporting the
ICIIU initiative aren't members of ICIIU, which is only facilitating
a sign-up for the constituency, so they will each want their
separate vote in the NCDNHC, as I suppose the supporters of ISOC
will also ask for. There's going to be trouble about all this,
that's for sure, because of the ambiguous organization/individual
dichotomy. And I don't se the At-Large resolving it, only making it
worse.

> While I recognize that the risks you point out are real, I think that if the
> membership is not only At-Large but also "large" ;>), i.e. in the order of
> magnitude of the thousands rather than of the hundreds, the system will work
> reasonably 

Impossible without proxy- and/or online voting. If the only people
who vote are those who are present at the international meetings, we
all know already exactly who they will be: the same ones who are
always there, because they know about it, have sufficient
motivation, and can afford the travel expenses. Thousands of
At-Large members? I doubt it very much.


> (in particular if we *do* have membership fees, even if nominal).

But they don't want membership fees. I suspect they think that fees
will reduce even further the number of people who get involved,
which may be true. But without fees, and a voting membership of
around a hundred (the "usual suspects"), if each one has one vote
there are going to be board members elected with ten or fewer votes.
That will be a guarantee of partisan and special-interest voting of
the board.