response 101 of 186:

Nov 18 06:40 UTC 1996

I agree with Mark.

response 103 of 186:

Nov 18 11:49 UTC 1996

So if, say, I write a check for $12 (or $120) and tell Mark that half is for
a membership for me & half for Grace, it couldn't be accepted?  It's the same
ID, after all ... but it *does* have both our names on it.

response 105 of 186:

Nov 18 18:22 UTC 1996

In Dave's example, I would think it should count as IDs for both them, 
since both names are there on the check. I see no problem if Mark 
accepts that ID for both.

Valerie's example is more troubling. While I agree that it would be nice
 to accept memberships for children based on the parent's ID, one
wonders  how to decide and how many children to believe are there. It
wouldn't be  a big deal to ask for a modicum of evidence that the
children exist.

I don't have the answer folks. I am not so much crusading to change 
things as I am trying to point out how we are being inconsistent, and 
how badly we need a policy.

Would you suggest that if a person said they wanted to pay for 
memberhips for Husband wife and each of 10 children, that we should take
 the money and let them all vote without any assurance that these 
children exist? The answer I am hearing from many is "Yes, we trust them
 on this, no matter how many children they claim." In that case I would 
still like to talk about this at the board meeting, if only to be sure 
that the majority of the board agrees with this policy.

Personally, I believe that at some point you have to stop trusting. If 
this is so, we are placing this entire onus on the treasurer, and he 
isn't going to do it. It isn't fair to ask him to.

response 107 of 186:

Nov 19 03:36 UTC 1996

If someone wanted to cheat on the voting process do you really 
think we could stop them?  If someone was bound and determined
to show ID for ten kids they would and could do it.

Rule one about rules:  don't make 'em if you are willing to
enforce 'em.  Exactly how would you suggest we enforce this
one, Steve?  

Keep it easy for folks to be members, expect they'll take care of the
system, and only address real problems.  Right now we may have a problem
with some folks misunderstanding they only get one vote.  Why not
communicate that a little better and then see how it goes before getting
into a tangle of rules and enforcement procedures? 

It would be highly inappropriate for any new policies or enforcement
procedures to go to a Board vote on Wednesday (regarding this issue). 
*Specifics* should be put forth and discussed here first with the Board
members voicing their opinions and the users having a chance to critique
any proposed policies. 

response 109 of 186:

Nov 19 07:13 UTC 1996

Exactly - we shouldn't try to get evidence that people are who they say they
are unless we are willing to really follow through and make our ID practices
much more thorough than they are now.  I don't think we should do that, and
I don't see what it would accomplish to ask someone to prove that their
children exist.

In one case I can think of lately, we had a child who became a member using
a parent's ID, and then a few months after that the parent became a member
too, using the same ID.  I was, frankly, delighted, and I thought that was
pretty nifty.  Should I have turned around and asked the parent for more ID
just because that check had been used already?  It had her name on it, after
all (the parent's I mean).  I think that would have been rude and
inconveniencing.

I don't have a problem with two accounts sharing the same ID.  I don't think
we should go any farther that saying that we should simply have a different
real name associated with each account.  In fact, this whole thing could
probably have been avoided if I had just put "Magical Education Council of
Ann Arbor" in my table of members, where Kami's name is now.  I wasn't aware
until Steve pointed it out that the convocat account actually belonged to that
organization, and not to Kami herself.

response 111 of 186:

Nov 19 08:02 UTC 1996

Mark slipped in.

Having acquiesced on the question of trusting the purchaser of multiple
accounts to be buying them for separate individuals, I mostly go along with
all that

The problem I have with calling the "Magic Education Council" the owner of
convocat is that it is not a person. Only people can be members (according
to our bylaws). This is probably bad. But fixing it is a bylaw revision, and
another topic altogether. Definitely not what I'm proposing here.

Am I wrong on this? If we can establish that organization as the owner of
account convocat (using Kami's ID) then we do not have an existing violation
of the 1 person 1 vote convention. that would make me happy.

response 113 of 186:

Nov 19 22:02 UTC 1996

Let's not confuse "person" with "human being."  A "person" includes
a corporation or other association; a "human being" or an "individual"
refers to a biological entity.  Do I want to know what the bylaws
say?  No.
        Both organizations and human beings should be allowed to have
Grex accounts.  Of course organizations can only act through human
beings, but organizations have an existence separate from the human
beings who act for them.

response 115 of 186:

Nov 20 16:22 UTC 1996

If a person wants more votes on a board of some company, he/she
buys more stock/.  I dont think there should be a limit on how
many memberships one person can buy or if they wish to vote with all
or none of thosememberships.

response 117 of 186:

Nov 20 16:34 UTC 1996

Richard, aren't you also the person who insists that everybody should be able
to vote, regardless of whether they have a membership?  How do you reconcile
your two positions?

response 119 of 186:

Nov 20 18:21 UTC 1996

I'm hoping this new thread won't distract Steve from answering Mary's question 
in #112.

response 121 of 186:

Nov 21 10:41 UTC 1996

Um, yes, Rane, I meant memberships.  I followed dpc's wording in #113
slavishly, without thinking.

response 123 of 186:

Nov 25 06:47 UTC 1996

Nothing could possibly stop me from answering Mary's question, although
my answer was delayed because I have not had the time to get back to this item
until now.

The treasurer associates the name of the responsible individual with each
membership account. My idea of enforcement is that if more than one account is
associated with the same individual, then only one should be voting. Since
it is the Treasurer whose job it is to assign accounts to the group "voters",
it is he who must enforce this rule.

When this thread began, both accounts "kami" and "convocat" were associated
with the same individual. "convocat" was not listed as being owned by the
Magic Education Council. There is some question whether an organization can
own a membership account, and I hope to have that resolved. I agree with dpc
and others that it *should* be permitted.

It is my understanding from the board meeting that the name on the convocat
account will be changed to its correct owner, "Magic Education Council". We
accepted their membership fees and made them a voting account, whether that
was correct or not. I am not interested in forcing them to give it up.
Hopefully we will specifically correct any omission that prevents memberships
from going to organizations.

Meanwhile, I am happy with this as we no longer are recognizing a single
individual as having two voting accounts. I would hope we would never do that
again. If we can't agree to make it legit for voting memberships to be owned
by organizations, then future organizational accounts should be of the
non-voting type, including convocat when it next renews.

I have given up any attempt to ask for ID when buying memberships for family.
If one person wants to buy memberships for everyone in his or her family, I
am willing to let them do so without proving the existence of those people,
so long as a separate name is assigned to each account. On the other hand if
the request appears to be suspicious to the Treasurer, I would have no
objection if he asked for confirmation that the people exist.