Dear Farzaneh, all:

On Jul 23 01:57, farzaneh badii ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

> Here is a suggestion:
> 
> I believe the way to resolve this issue is: organizational rep who is an
> individual member should decide whether s/he wants to be the official
> representative of the org. If s/he wants to be the official rep, then s/he
> needs to forfeit their individual membership, to prevent double voting. If
> they are willing to be "additional rep" of their organization who cannot
> vote in the elections, then they can keep their individual membership. That
> way, they can freely participate in their individual capacity whenever they
> need to while at the same time be able to represent their organization (but
> not vote).
> 
> Is this suggestion against the charter?

I think this could be doable without charter change, with some caveats.

Specifically, I don't think that could be made automatic, with
immediate effect or a mere secretarial function, but it could be added
to the member removal procedures of the EC.

Key paragraph in NCSG charter is this (at end of 2.2.5):

"An individual who is a member of or employee of a non commercial
organization, which is itself a member of the NCSG, may apply for, or
retain membership, in the NCSG only under the first criteria for
individual membership, i.e. be an individual noncommercial
registrant. Such membership is subject to Executive Committee review."

So the EC has the power to remove such members, but it'd have to
review and decide each case separately and follow the approved member
removal procedures.

> or does it not solve the problem?

Depending on details, it might introduce other problems. In particular
timing issues. Some organizations move slowly and might have trouble
finding a new representative at a short notice, for example if all their
members who are interested in NCSG are already individual members and
would not want to lose their membership.

One way around that would be leaving the EC leeway so they could, for
example, allow such dual role on the condition that the individual
voluntarily refrains from voting with their individual vote while
representing the organization, or make an exception in a case where
it is known the organization actually explicitly directs their vote.
Or an exception could be made temporarily until the organization
has had enough time to find another representative.

So at this point that would be my suggestion: review the member
removal procedures (actually I think that process is presently under
way, unless they've been approved while I was too busy to notice) and
add text about how the EC should handle this situation. Details are
debatable but at least the EC should be able to remove a member who
seems to be "gaming the system" this way.

> Also, let's not get ahead of ourselves. There is no "serious
> compromise" in the system.

Yes. This is not all that big a problem, I don't see any major
disaster looming whichever way we do it, nor any reason to rush it.

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen