Show membership categories

[cornelius]

We currently have a flat list of members on the website. We should indicate the different membership categories. This also should be reflected in the list of board members, where board members are representatives of certain membership categories.

[mxmehl]

I agree that we should separate the organisations, given that we have quite an amount there and one from each category.

However, I wouldn't explicitly mark the board members. Within the board, they have the same voting rights, and for each of them the affiliation is transparent, and therefore also the level their represent.

[cornelius]

I think the information by whom the board members are elected is important. And while the members have the same voting rights, the different member categories have not. So making it transparent which members the board members are representing without having to look up what category the member is they are coming from, sounds like it would make it clearer to everybody involved, how the board is constructed and what the background of the individual members is.

[mxmehl]

I see your point, but I am unsure about the wording "which members the board members are representing". Is it the official role of a board member to present their membership group, or is that one of multiple influences each board member has. They certainly also represent their organisation or the type of their organisation (e.g. infrastructure manager, academia, small company, non-European organisation etc), which isn't strictly connected to their membership group. So the transparency effect of your proposal is limited I think, although certainly not null.

Let's say we follow your proposal, how would you suggest this to be displayed on the website, e.g. for Erik. Would we add a separate line "Associate Members representative"? Or add a symbol next to Flatland that indicates the group? Or extend the line "Director" by "Director (Associate Members)"?

[cornelius]

You are right, that it's not clear cut, what being elected by a membership group actually means. It's people who are elected, so they bring in their whole view, but they also have some responsibility towards the people who elected them. That said, at the moment we don't have enough members yet, that we need elections, so the distinction is mostly theoretical.

For me extending the line Director and adding the membership category would be fine. Maybe it's enough to do that for the gold, silve, and associate members for now.

[mxmehl]

OK, so this would be how it could look like. I am sure this could be done programmatically to avoid mistakes and lower manual work when people/members change.

[cornelius]

For the Directors that's very good. For the chair and vice-chair roles I'm not sure, if might be confusing, because the chair roles are not bound to a membership category. Correct would be to state both, such as "Director (Platinum), Chair of the Board". Or is this getting too long?

[mxmehl]

I see your point, but I am afraid this will rather add confusion. The (vice) chairs roles should be directly visible. So it should rather be Chair, Director (Platinum), but this is a) long and b) a duplicate as a chair has to be directory.