ADMIN: More Membership Musings (Oh Boy!) (MEM)

[Cindy C.]

Hi, all!

Boy, these administrative issues are almost like *quicksand,* huh?  ;-)

I was thinking about the plight of our poor prospective members --
some of whom have been in a holding pattern for *months* IIRC -- and I
was wondering what we can do to sort ourselves out.

Let's see.  We have the straw poll about whether we ought to have an
open membership, which has been open for a week now.  The gist of the
results to date are that three people seem to favor an open membership
(Cindy, Dicey, Phyllis), three people wish to be selective (Ali,
Derannimer, Joy) with one person (Tom) watching the debate from the
sidelines for now.  That leaves . . . 

<counts on fingers>

. . . 31 people are still pondering their positions.  I'd say we are a
ways from reaching a decision on this one.  ;-)

Indeed, it looks like we may have a bit of gridlock.  Even if we
consider the opinions expressed among our members in the last few
months (excluding those who voted in the polls), we don't get much
closer to a consensus.  We can probably add Penny, Paul and Amanda to
the ranks of those who favor opening our membership (or who believe
our membership has always been open).  (Speak up if I've
mischaracterized your position, Penny, Paul and Amanda).  If so, then
that means there are six of us in favor of an open membership, with
three against and one abstaining.

But that still leaves a significant number of folks who either have no
opinion or who have yet to state it.  It seems to me that if we can't
decide whether we are or are not an open membership list, then we
can't get back to those who have expressed an interest in joining us.

I don't know about anyone else, but it does seem a bit rude to leave
these folks to languish in lieu of an answer, one way or the other. 
My own feeling is that if we are an open membership group, it would be
very unfair to take new FAQ members just from the ranks of HPfGU
members who are fortunate enough to know someone among the existing
FAQ members -- it would be more equitable to give all HPfGU members a
fair and equal shot.  On the other hand, if we are a closed group,
then we probably ought to set about promptly evaluating the candidacy
of each person who has expressed an interest (and determining whether
we need to or want to add to our ranks at all).  

So what do you think?  Is the current straw poll enough of a basis to
say we have a consensus to be an open membership?  

Or maybe we should just leave the status quo as it is until we decide
as a group to do something different?  In that case, someone ought to
write to each list member who has inquired about membership and let
them know that we aren't expanding the group right now, perhaps?  We'd
probably want to do this as soon as we have Sheryll's complete list of
people who have inquired about membership, just to make sure no one
has been missed.  I just hate to keep those people in limbo any longer
if we can avoid it.

Cindy


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