> Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 11:09:24 -0400 > From: Daniel Golding <[email protected]> > > 2010/10/5 Randy Epstein <[email protected]> > > > > > > > > > What worries me more is the lack of voter participation from the eligible > > voters. I really think this needs to be addressed in the upcoming year, > > possibly even going as far as putting an asterisk next to those who have > > voted in the previous election on the eligible voters page to encourage > > people (shame them?) to vote. Maybe a Get Out The Vote campaign is also > > needed. I realize voting is quite optional, but there are very few excuses > > not to vote. Something is wrong when an organization like ours has voter > > turnouts in the 5-10% range. > > > > > > > > Randy > > > > > That was one of the reasons driving paid membership. Most of the attendees > don't care. They DO care about getting what they pay for, which is a quality > conference. However, so few of the attendees either vote or participate in > governance, that even a small shift in the very large number of eligible > voters can cause unforeseen impacts. When you have 5% voter turnout, bad > things can happen. > > And, there are other stakeholders who never attend NANOG meetings, but > participate on the mailing list. There are still other folks who might > become "stickier" if they feel they have a stake in things. > > The one complaint that always hit pretty hard is that "my company won't fund > me to attend, but I still want to participate" - the old system locked those > folks out, and it never seemed fair. > > One concern that I've heard is paying for the $100/year for membership. From > what I've seen, that's almost always something that you can expense, because > its tax deductible for businesses. One other option I've heard requested is > to allow membership signup at time of event registration, to make expensing > the charge easier. That seems sensible.
I don't argue with the value of membership for non-attendees. This is a fine thing. But I suspect those who attend will always form the largest portion of those who actually participate in governance, whether just by voting or taking a more active role. I really don't want to disenfranchise these people by adding the cost of attendance. (Note that the "cost" includes travel (in most cases), a room (most cases), expenses, and the most costly in may cases, TIME. I feel quite strongly that anyone making that sort of commitment to NANOG should not be faced with an additional barrier to participating in governance, should they desire to do so. I think NANOG will lose more value here than they would ake from the membership fees. -- R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) E-mail: [email protected] Phone: +1 510 486-8634 Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4 EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751 _______________________________________________ Nanog-futures mailing list [email protected] https://mailman.nanog.org/mailman/listinfo/nanog-futures
