Validating Institutional Members

Jan 23 11:26 UTC 1998

I was wondering to what degree people think we ought to validate
institutional memberships.  Right now we simply require that we have
either a corporate check or some person's ID.  That serves the primary
purpose of validation, namely it allows us to find a real person to blame
in case someone does something nasty with the account. 

It occurs to me that the institutional membership class might be used for
something other than what it was originally intended for.  I'm wondering
if people think we should allow this or not.

Suppose user John Smith has two accounts, johns and jsmith, and he wants
both of them to have internet privileges.  Could he pay for a regular
membership for johns and an institutional membership for jsmith, using
some creative institution name, like "John Smith Enterprises, Inc.", and
using a personal ID as validation for both?

In other words, should the treasurer make an effort to insure that the
institution behind an institutional account acually has some legal
existence?

response 2 of 96:

Jan 23 19:23 UTC 1998

That hasn't been the case up until now.  As far as I know, when I asked about
paying for two internet access accounts, I was told that I could have *one*
paying membership, but not two, and that only a membership would allow the
account to have internet access.  

This has come up several times in the past.  And I think we would be remiss
in allowing me to get a McGee and Associates institutional membership with
internet access, just because I am (and have been) in business for myself for
over 15 years.  

The camel's nose is pushing up the edge of the tent, folks.  

response 4 of 96:

Jan 23 19:36 UTC 1998

I wouldn't have a problem with that.  After all, Grex di decide at one point
that allowing validated acces to the Internet would be OK, but that we
currently didn't have the resources.

response 6 of 96:

Jan 24 00:23 UTC 1998

I agree with both Rane and Valerie and would hope that
any institution or corporation that wanted a membership
would be granted a single membership.  No matter if they
were incorporated or not, non-profit or for profit, the KKK
or Save the Nerds.

response 8 of 96:

Jan 24 07:37 UTC 1998

Would someone having a problem with Institutional members please describe
the camel?

response 10 of 96:

Jan 24 19:15 UTC 1998

Maybe I wasn't clear in #0.  There's no question that Colleen may have an
institutional membership in the name of McGee and Associates, a company
which has existed for 15 years.  We already have a situation like that,
where one human pays for both a personal membership and an institutional
membership, and provides ID for both.  You'll recall that that was what
started the whole fuss which culminated, last July, in the Institutional
Membership Amendment to legitimize the situation. 

What I'm trying to point out in this item is that anyone who wants two
*personal* accounts with internet access can now have them simply by
fabricating an institution name.  In fact, anyone can have 5 such accounts
by fabricating 4 institution names. 

This doesn't violate the one-vote-per-person rule.  It could result in
more money for Grex.  But it's not what we had in mind when we approved
institutional memberships.  (At least it's not what *I* had in mind.)  I'm
trying to establish whether we should: 

    a) Disallow memberships for fictional institutions, and require some
       proof of an institution's existence, such as a corprate check.

    b) Disallow memberships for fictional institutions, but take a "Don't
       ask, don't tell" attitude toward institutional existence.

    c) Allow memberships for fictional institutions, and actively
       encourage people who want multiple personal memberships to make up
       institution names for all but one of them.

Approach 'a' may be a problem if an institution is a (real) club which has
no bank account or legal paperwork.  Maybe we could agree to accept a
membership list as ID, or something like that.  But this is getting a bit
sticky. 

The U.S. military has kindly tested approach 'b' for us and found a lot of
problems with it.  For instance, we'd have to decide what to do if we had
it proved to us (or confessed to us) that an institution which held a
membership was fictional.  Plus it encourages a degree of tight-lippedness
between Grex members and the Grex board and staff, which is not something
we have ever wanted.

Approach 'c' will probably result in the most money for Grex, but it makes
me a little uncomfortable.  If we're going to allow people to have
multiple personal memberships, I wish we could allow them to do it without
subterfuge.

response 12 of 96:

Jan 24 19:29 UTC 1998

A whole lot about Grex depends on users doing the right thing by the
system on an honor system.  Individual membership asks for some proof of
identity but we've kept it so easy that if anyone wanted to take out false
memberships it would be extremely easy to do.  Instead of focusing on how
we can make it hard to cheat the system we've put our efforts into
recruiting users who respect what Grex is about and trusting each other. 

Why don't we just extend the same trust to organizational memberships. 
Make it clear the idea is one membership per organization, encourage
organizations to jump on in by making it easy to do so, and trust they'll
do the right thing. 

Should we ever find this trust thing doesn't work then address the
specific problem.  But so far it's worked real well and is a big
part of what makes Grex special.

response 14 of 96:

Jan 24 22:43 UTC 1998

You tell them it is not permitted. One account per person, or per
organization. Just as you ask for individual identification, ask for
equally valid organization identification. In the case of an organization,
a letterhead is often accepted, although nowadays they can be created
instantaneously - but I wouldn't worry about it. I agree with Mary that we
should work on trust, until we know it has been violated. 

response 16 of 96:

Jan 25 06:53 UTC 1998

I care, because I have (had..) hopes that attracting organizations to
support grex would be helpful. I've even gotten a few organizations that
use grex to join as institutional members. If the name is dropped, there
is less specific identification of these community-supportive organizations,
and I expect grex would get fewer. I certainly would no longer try to
get organizations to join, if they are mixed in with just a "non-voting"
category. That's doesn't seem to give much recognition to a class of
supporters.

response 18 of 96:

Jan 25 17:04 UTC 1998

This issue is one of the many reasons I've never been comfortable with Grex
comining membership and selling Internet access.

response 20 of 96:

Jan 25 17:38 UTC 1998

Know if you do that you'll be encouraging a policy which gives
those who can afford it more perks.  I'd much rather we said
something like, we really appreciate your *donating* to a good
cause, knowing your *gift* will allow others who maybe can't
afford it to be part of our community.  

We should do what we can to de-emphasize the feeling of 
members buying specific services.


My 2 cents.

response 22 of 96:

Jan 25 18:40 UTC 1998

Re #17: I don't see the problem. So what if you want multiple personal
accounts with internet access (for whatever reason). Grex does not offer
them. If you want to pretend you are just managing accounts for a lot
of fake organizations - well, there are many ways to screw this system,
but I just about don't mind because you would be supporting the system
more than those 14,000 non-supporters, and you would have to live with
the fiction. 

I'm interested also in the answer to remmer's question in #21.