[OSM-talk] Summary of the irc meeting.

[Lars Aronsson]

Etienne Cherdlu wrote:

> The only way this is going to be a great project is to have a very
> inclusive membership.  We need as many members as possible.

I don't agree.  If we wanted that, we could have zero fee and send 
a free gift to all who join.  But what would that be worth to us? 
Some clubs that have a zero fee have 5000 members, but what does 
that mean when the chairman claims to speak for 5000 members?  
Does that mean 100 people with 5000 Hotmail addresses?

An annual membership fee (or a requirement on recent 
contributions) serves the function of removing air bubbles from 
the reported number of members.

I agree that passports and GPG signatures are overkill, but we 
should have some simple way to assure that nobody is voting twice.
A small annual membership fee, e.g. 10 UK pounds, will remove most 
of the fun from dual memberships.  However, I think we still need 
to say in the bylaws/constitution that dual membership is 
forbidden, so that we can exclude people who are caught with 
trying.

Any requirement on non-monetary contributions also needs to be 
recent contributions, e.g. within the 12 months before the annual 
general meeting.  And you would also have to require that no 
duplicate data can be uploaded or contributed.  Just logging in 
and moving 100 line segments cannot qualify for a vote.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se