[Nanog-futures] Memberships, Bylaws and other election matters

[Steve Gibbard]

On Tue, 5 Oct 2010, Kevin Oberman wrote:

> 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.

They bylaws are silent on fee structures.  The idea was to leave that to 
the board.

One of the things that has been discussed is to give a discount on meeting 
registration to members, which could potentially be equivalent to the 
membership fee.  Doing so should address Kevin's concerns.

Is there any guarantee that will happen?  No.  Should we have codified 
that in the bylaws?  Maybe, but the general assumption has been that the 
board is more likely to be in touch with the current desires of the 
community, and bylaw flexibility is a good thing.

I think the experience so far has been that NANOG Steering Committees have 
been pretty responsive to the concerns of the community, and I suspect 
NewNOG boards will be going forward.  I think if the community agrees that 
meeting discounts to balance the cost of membership are a good idea, it 
will probably happen.

-Steve