Thanks for the useful questions and comments, and thanks to
Tapani for his comments and his expertise. Rather than making a long
response I
would like to extract the key points [numbered] for follow up.
The objective is to manage these two processes while making
NCSG and its constituency groups, best practice users of the
Internet to. This
will reduce administrative demands on the various executives and
volunteers,
freeing up more time to deal with substantive and policy issues.
One overarching issue has to do with how much ICANN support
and involvement does NCSG want. Is it is an issue of trust, of
efficiency, or
of optics that suggests that little be hosted on ICANN servers? This
needs to be
discussed, and decisions arrived at. There are pluses and minuses
whichever way
one goes here. At the moment
there are at least
three independent server sites support NCSG and constituency
services.
1.We are in agreement with the
idea that there
should be one application form for NCSG that clearly states the
constituency (NCUC/NPOC/neither) membership options. The form can reside on NCSG, NCUC
and NPOC
websites and report back to admissions email boxes. With
regard to application improvements, there is no suggestion for over
engineering, and in fact the opposite. A clear and concise
application form will
expedite application by interested parties, and expedite the
admission processes
at both the NCSG and constituency levels. 2.Glad to hear that application
improvement is
being discussed, including a review of appropriate fields for the
admission
process, and what fields may be needed by NCSG, NCUC and NPOC. The
key point is that
fields should serve both the admissions process and the ongoing work
of NCSG
and the constituencies. Proposals for changes here (record forms and
fields) should be shared with
NCSG members to gather member feedback and draw on member expertise.
3.With regard to
maintaining
the membership database: Best practices for maintaining
the membership
databases should put membership updating in the hands of members.
While NCSG
and the constituency groups may always have to chase laggards with
faulty
membership data, the process should have self-administered
membership profiles,
to facilitate ease of member access and to free up executive time
and talents
for more important work.
4.The aution not adding fields
not directly
related to applications or aimed for specific purpose of course
makes sense.
Fields can be added when parts of the database are imported, for
local
(NCUC/NPOC) use. One way to facilitate that is for member profiles
to
contain fields for more information than just what is on the
membership
application. This doesn’t burden the application process,
facilitates profile
updates, and doesn’t take up NCSG executive time.
5.The question of where to host
the membership database
and services is important and part of the overarching issue
referenced above. Hosting it, or not hosting it at ICANN, has
maintenance
implications, access implications, and possibly political (optics)
implications.
6.The issue of database access
is not complicated.
Below the high level editing access, there can be only
edit/view/export access. NCUC and NPOC can export some/all of the
database and add whatever
they need. The NCSG Charter makes the NCSG EC and Chair responsible
for maintaining
and updating the membership database, but that does not mean that
they should use
valuable EC and Chair time to manually do what is an administrative
task. However that is done, membership
profiles would help. The current process of having members update
records by
contacting the NCSG chair is
needlessly burdensome and inefficient.
7.With
regard to where profiles should reside, that doesn’t really matter.
The prior
issue to be resolved is what services should be mounted at ICANN, or
elsewhere,
and how profile access should be managed. The profile approach
respects the
KISS principle, gives more power to the stakeholder, and reduces
labor demands
on the executive and administration.
The overall goal is to do these things efficiently and effective,
and free up executive and volunteer effort to deal with policy and
other matters of substance.