Jan Siren asked me offlist: "how do you propose, if elected, to
*improve* the means of communication among the membership?" and
asked me to post my answer to the discuss list.
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Great question. I'll post some of my thoughts and ask all others
accepting nominations to jump in with their ideas.
Simply put, improvement of communications among the membership
rests in two area: a mail list and a web site. Both of these
tools need to be used to their fullest.
WEBSITE
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The icannatlarge.org web site needs to be a dynamic tool for
gathering new members and communicating to the membership. It
should be updated continually with news about the domain name
world. Any member should be able to write an article and have
it posted to the site, after being 'vetted' by a small web-site
management committee of 2 or 3 members.
There's no need for the site to be static HTML code. Using
tools like Wiki or Blog type scripts would make updates an
easy process.
The web site should also clearly state what this organization
supports. Clear direction(s) we plan on going should also be
a permanent part of the site. Of course, determining what these
are is still a future project.
MAIL LIST(S)
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I think that this is the first line of communication among
members. At minimum I think there should be 3 mail lists
AND they should be run on a server under the control of the
web-site management committee. They should be:
1 - a membership announce list. Everyone who is a member
MUST be subscribed to this list in order to receive important
announcements. Only the web-site committee can post panel
approved messages to this list. Every 12 months the list will
should be 'cleaned' by removing members who's messages bounce.
Also, I'd want a confirming email sent every 12 months to
this list asking every member to respond in 60 days to note
their continued membership, or their name and email address
is dropped. This last measure can be eliminated the day this
organization starts collecting membership fees.
2 - a discuss list. This list is the free-for-all discuss
list, much like the current "atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de"
address now in use. Anyone can subscribe to this list, but
only members can post to it. It should be monitored by a
committee of at least 3 members that keep order on the list.
Under some clearly defined rules, they would have the
ability to halt the posting privileges of any member for
abusing their posting rules. These decisions should be checked
and could be appealed to the full Panel, but this committee
still has the ability to take action.
3 - an open list. This list would be sponsored by the atlarge
and open to anyone and everyone. It would not be monitored
or controlled in any way, but would not be the 'official'
discuss list for the atlarge. Non-members would be able to
voice their opinions and join in whatever conversations
they chose by joining this list.
Other mail lists could and should be set up for various
reasons as needed. The newly elected Panel should have a
separate list that anyone can monitor but only Panel members
could post, in order to do their business in the public
eye but without non-member noise. If and when a membership
or voting committee is formed they also should have their
own mail list, again one that's open for anyone to monitor
but only them with the ability to post.
All lists run and/or sponsored by the atlarge should have
public archives and be under the server control of the
web-site committee.
Joop asked: "If you would become a candidate, would you
commit to interacting with the members who are not on this
list via the Forum?"
Whatever site is the official site of the atlarge, and
for now that's "icannatlarge.org", will be the site I
concentrate on and use whatever tools are there to work
with the membership on projects. Simply put, if a forum
is on the atlarge site, I'll interact with and on it. I
don't like the current split domains and think it's not
best for the organization in the long run. This has
nothing to do with who owns or maintains either one,
I just think there should be only one point for all
information.
Hugh,