Proposed disposition - Re: Sinclair comments - Members review of Draft Proposed NCSG Charter

[Avri Doria]

Hi,

Thanks for this response.

I accept that your rewording is much better then mine, and will use that as the candidate change.

The topic of someone being an individual member as well as a member by virtue of belonging to an organization is challenging for me.

At one end of the spectrum, having one member of a university faculty when the university is also a member seems easy to accept.

On the other hand if 20 members of an advocacy NGO were members as well as their organization, it could produce a skew in the voting.  Yes, I know this is an extreme example, but it points to a problem.

I think up until now, it was an either or situation, but the individual membership category is relatively new and I do not think it has been considered.  The issue has not been specifically covered in the Charter, except in clause 2.2.5 (3) that says:

This person can join NCSG in his or her individual capacity. The Executive Committee shall, at its discretion, determine limits to the total number of Individual members who can join from any single organization (provided the limit shall apply to all Organizations equally).

Using you as the test case based on what you mentioned: If I follow the reasoning in the charter, while you could still join as an individual based upon being a non-commercial registrant, the membership criteria as a member of the University, assuming it became a member, would be questionable and might require review by the EC if someone wanted to remain an individual member solely on that basis.

But I admit there me some ambiguity.  If we want to avoid making an outright prohibition for such 'dual' membership we may need to leave such determinations (and there could be other border cases as well) to the EC.

Do we need some text to handle this issue.  something like:

2.2.6  Membership Issues

In all cases where eligibility for membership is unclear, the Executive committee shall make a determination based on the Mission and Principles of the NCSG as well as an interpretation of the membership criteria.  

Opinions?

thanks

a.


On 3 May 2010, at 22:12, Andrew A. Adams wrote:

> 
>> RS-5  2.2.5 On New Individual Members (Deletion)
>> 
>> 3. An Individual who is employed by or a member of a large noncommercial organization (universities, colleges, large NGOs) and it is too complicated or the Individual lacks the standing to get his/her organization to join on an organizational basis. This person can join NCSG in his or her individual capacity. The Executive Committee shall, at its discretion, determine limits to the total number of Individual members who can join from any single organization (provided the limit shall apply to all Organizations equally).
>> 
>> Delete:   and it is too complicated or the Individual lacks the standing to get his/her organization to join on an organizational basis. This
>> 
>> Proposed Handling:  Accept the deletion in principle, but change:
>> 
>> An Individual who is employed by or a member of a large noncommercial organization
>> 
>> to
>> 
>> An Individual who is employed by or a member of a large non-member noncommercial organization
> 
> I think this needs some careful wording to avoid confusion in the two uses of 
> the word member here (One refers to the individual being a member of an 
> organisation, the other to the organisation not being a member of NCSG). I 
> think this wording might cause confusion, so perhaps the wording:
> 
> An individual who is employed by or is a member of a large non-commercial 
> organisation (which is not already a member of NCSG).
> 
> Also, I would like a note making it plain that being employed by an 
> organisation which has legitimate grounds for being an NCSG member does not 
> preclude someone joining as an individual member on their own rights. So, for 
> example, I am employed by Meiji University (meiji.ac.jp) in Japan, a 
> non-profit private university. Meiji is entitled to join NCSG under the 
> proposed new constitution, but so am I. While I _could_ join under the above 
> clause I am a member of NCUC on the basis of my own domain registration 
> (a-cubed.info) and also as an academic working on the area of information 
> ethics, which includes IANA and DNS related issues. I'd hate to be forced out 
> because my employer joined NCSG as an organisation.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Profesor Andrew A Adams       aaa at meiji.ac.jp
> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and
> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
> 
> 
>