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Greetings Peter!
On Sun, 3 Jan 1999, Peter Morgan wrote:
> Happy New Year!
And to you! BTW, thanks for the fine and Xmas card! Started my wanderlust
juices flowing. ;->
> One more time (with gusto), as adopted by the Board as an interim measure
> until a representative IP committee can be established:
I'm not sure where the notion that there is no IP Committee arose,
however, I simply don't subscribe to it. The IP Committee just met last
month (December 10) with eight members in attendance and regrets received
from six others (minutes at
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Chebucto/IP/Minutes/dec-10-98.html). Just
because the chair of a Committee leaves does not, in my view, mean that
the Committee ceases to exist.
IP Training continues to work as before. The CNN Editors (13 members
strong) continues to work as before. All during the fall we have continued
to work on projects of our own design (Site Map, Featured IP,
administering current IPs, fixing bugs in the IP database, etc.) as well
as liasing with the Technical Committee and the Communications Committee,
etc. on mutual projects (FTP to IP directories, restricted-post mailing
lists, etc.).
Apart from the Technical Committee the IP Committee seems to me to be the
next most active committee in the CCN.
Further to this point the IP Committee discussed precisely the issue of
VDNs (as it has in the past) with the following conclusions (taken from
the minutes):
There was considerable discussion of this topic, particularly the
rate structures that the Board of Directors is proposing to charge
our non-business IPs. The IP Committee was unanimous in its
conviction that a $400 annual fee was:
Not what its understanding ever had been for this rate
structure. It was rather its belief that this fee should be a
one-time set-up charge;
That it was excessive and would put this feature out of the range
of the vast majority of our current Information Providers;
That it was out of keeping with what costs the CCN incurred in
implementing VDN's (i.e. the technical overhead in
implementing this was of a one-time nature: beyond that,
maintaining a VDN was scarcely more difficult than that any other
IP).
A rate of $400 as a one-time set-up charge followed by a $100 annual
fee was floated as something which represented a much more
realistic fee for non-business IPs and which many felt was much
more apt to be 'sell-able' to our IP constituency.
> NB: These are all ANNUAL FEES (why do I find myself shouting?) and I see
> their is no distinction for businesses
Fine. We did, however, go through a whole process last spring (ratified,
it seems to me, at that time by the Board) which did create a separate
business IP category. In my view distinguishing between these two makes a
great deal of sense, given my sense of the economic means of these two
groups and thus of having a membership instrument to distinguish between
them.
> Basic IP service: (what we currently offer)
> suggested minimum contribution of $50 annually
> limit on web space (to be determined and enforced sometime in the future)
> 2 mailing lists
> volunteer training and support
> other services as you could better iterate than I
>
> (WITHOUT resorting to shouting, I must point out that this means that IP's
> who currently do not pay anything, can continue not to pay anything. They
> will continue to receive all services they presently receive. How this can
> be construed as not affordable to an IP is beyond me.)
No one that I know is arguing this. ;-> My concerns have pertained to
virtual domains and costs thereof.
> IP Member
> - $200
> - above with "reasonable" space
>
> (This is the category we want current IP's, which can afford to pay, to
> contribute at. This represents less than an individual would pay for a
> commercial account with far less benefits)
>
> IP Member with VDN
> - $400
> - above plus:
> - VDN
> - organizational email address
>
> IP Member with Organization Package
> - $600
> - above plus 10 email addresses
> - contracted support (if necessary)
> - org takes responsibility for email addresses
>
> IP with Network Package
> - $1000 (to be negotiated depending on needs)
> - above plus 20 email addresses
> - 4 mailing lists
> - contracted support (if necessary)
> - org takes responsibility for email addresses
>
> PPP access is offered to all IP's paying a membership ($200 or more)
>
> We could certainly publish this fee structure, although my sense is we want
> to have a discussion with potential users and an email link serves us well.
But Peter, (equally without resorting to shouting ;->) these categories
are, at most, at a 'future projection' stage. They're not even close to
anything that the CCN could at the moment advertise, invoice for, etc.
What is 'reasonable'? What does 'to be determined and enforced sometime in
the future' mean? What does 'takes responsibility for Email addresses'
actually entail? How does PPP support factor into these categories? What
does 'contracted support' actually involve?
Before we start to advertise such categories we need to exactly specify
what all these terms and conditions mean. Why would an IP buy a 'Member'
category for $200 when (as it stands) it provides nothing more than a
'Basic' membership? If we want to introduce all these categories we need
to define exactly what we are offering - on every level - and consequently
that we can support what we offer.
The Office need a mechanism for invoicing on an annual basis. If these are
annual fees, how do we know when they expire and hence when to invoice or
what to do if an IP is in arrears? Operations needs to know how much quota
to allocate.
We don't have an administrative system to track different IP categories.
If an IP asks for more EMail addresses how does mailing-list
administration know if they are a regular VDN member, Organization Package
Member, or Network Package member? We don't have any way of indicating
such tiers in the IP database. How do IP people know what services/support
to provide to IPs?
There are also no tracks through the IP registration process that indicate
these differet categories and their terms and conditions. There is no
indication on the IP Agreement (which is our legal contract with our IP's)
of such categories. In fact, the clauses of the current IP Agreement
explicity prohibit commercial activity by IPs - something that we now no
longer maintain. This documents needs to be correspondingly revised (by
the Policy Committee? ratified by the Board?),
If we intend to make annual changes for a VDN what's our policy (and
action) on an IP that subsequently want to drop back down to a lower-level
tier? Do we nix the domain and end up with bouncing URL requests? What
about the 10-20 EMail addresses that the organization has taken
responsibility for? Do we close them down?
I'm not suggesting that every operational, administrative, financial and
policy issue has to be decided in advance, but at the moment none at all
are. The above categories are good starting points but at the moment
that's all they are.