IP accounts

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Hi Leo, et. al.!

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000 ljdeveau@glinx.com wrote:

> Thanks for your note on this matter re. sorting out IP accounts. This
> email is rather lengthy, but I wanted to work through your comments with
> everybody in tow as cced above :) . Maybe we should all meet soon
> (within the next two weeks max) to hammer our a strategy to pull all of
> these concerns together into an action plan that will see some concrete
> results by the end of February (?). 

Good suggestions.

> Chris wrote:
> 
> >There have been no IP accounts per se (in the sense of having something to
> >renew on an annual basis). The only (possible) exceptions to this have
> >been the people with VDNs who paid (a variety of) fees and (perhaps: I
> >don't know what administrative structures the office had/has in place)
> >were to have paid (in some cases) annual fees (in other cases VDNs were
> >set up on the basis of a one-time fee.
> 
> The intention of my earlier request to yourself and the IP Editors is to
> begin a process of trying to untangle the issue of how IP accounts were
> set-up with Chebucto in the past (ie, what they paid initially and for what
> services); also what their current status is now and how they should be
> maintained. This is all in an effort to truly reflect the mutual
> relationship and responsibilities between Chebucto and the IP member (be it
> financial or somekind of exchange in services - ie; 'powered by Chebucto
> Community Net' on their own website, some volunteer support in our office,
> or a regular membership fee, etc.).

The formal relationship has been governed (in a rather minimal way) by the
IP Agreement and subsequent Board and/or IP Committee decisions. For
instance, a long time ago the Board decided it would be a good idea for
all IPs to have some sort of formal thanks/acknowledgement of the CCN as
host on their home pages. The IP Committee put this into practice with a
request to all IPs to do this. This is formally incorporated as part of
the IP Response Letter which gets auto-mailed to all on-line IP
applicants. Most IPs have followed suite.

Other more involving 'mutual relationship and responsibilities' (and their
mechanisms) have at various times been discussed but not implemented.

> Until just recently, there has been no administrative structure set-up in
> the office to monitor IP accounts - other than what they paid initially.
> Further, there doesn't seem to be any kind of written contracts with the
> various IPs that indicates what our contractual understanding was when they
> first signed-up.

This isn't so. Every CCN IP has signed an IP Agreement which is on file at
the Office. Some time ago (I reported on this in one of my annual reports,
on-line) I went through the IP Database and in conjunction with Blaine,
found all IPs (there were a dozen or so stemming from the early days of
the CCN) for which no IP Agremments were in place. I followed up on all of
these until we had received them. Now there is a formal mechanism within
the IPDB that will not allow an IP to be created until the Office has
received the IP Agreement. As far as I know, this is it. I'm not aware
that for our VDN IP's (the only ones which were required to pay for
services) that anything further formal was signed.

As I indicated earlier, terms for this varied according to (at the time)
pervailing Board/administration policy/philosophy. I'm familiar with most
of these and could let you know (if someone will generate a list) what the
terms (at the time) were. I suggest, however, that we simply start from
scratch, determine what we will do from this point on, formalize it, and
then approach IPs accordingly.


> I can't imagine that Chebucto intended to provide IP support services in
> perpetuity based only on a one time fee - whether it was for a VDN or
> other services (?). 

The short answer is, yes! ;->

In the early days of the CCN the thought was that our 'content' (IP
material plus our own content) was one of the main drawing cards for
people to our site. We were both anxious to develop our own contant, on
the one hand, and ideologically committed to providing a a place for
information arising from the community. 

For this and other reasons the notion was to 'suggest' contributions (in
cash and services in kind). Still a good notion in my judgement: the
problem being that there hasn't been a mechanism to ask. As a friend of
mine in arts administration says "Never miss an opportunity to ask people
for money. If you don't ask, it surely is the case that you won't
receive."

> In a prelminiary review of some accounts, it's clear that there are some
> IPs that haven't paid Chebucto a cent for our services since they joined
> us. At the moment, that's not their fault because they haven't received any
> notice or encouragement to make some form of contribution back to Chebucto
> for our on-going support.

Exactly.

> But even if some of our IP support is provided gratis, I believe
> Chebucto still has to indicate on our account books the specific 'value'
> that has been exchanged and what we're getting in return.  Further, I
> believe it's important for the IPs to understand that specific value
> that they receive from Chebucto, whether they've paid for it yet or not
> :)

Indeed. My feeling has always been that, given our ideological commitment
to the community-based 'content' on our site, and that it is (in many
respects) an ace up our sleeves and a drawing card to the CCN, that we
should continue to prize it.

Our IP constituency represents a highly diverse group. Some are largish
organizations (buisnesses even) with a real cash flow and an ability to
pay for services: others have no funding or real resources to speak of at
all. Of our 'Top 15' IPs (in terms of URLs accesses):

	Clan MacKay Society of New Scotland
	Yang Style Tai Chi
	Teen Health Project
	Halifax City Regional Library
	To Kill a Mockingbird
	Metro Transit
	Natural History Resources
	Orchid Society of Nova Scotia
	Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia
	Ecology Action Centre
	Comics Media Archives
	Gardens and Gardening
	Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia
	Men for Change
	Cardiac Prevention Research Centre

Five (5) are essentially one-person labours of love; Four (4) are tiny
community organizations with small to infitesimal budgets; Two (2) are
outgrowths from academic research projects; Two (2) are substantive
non-profts; and Two (2) are large organizations with substantial budgets.

The ratio is probably not unrepresentative of our total (204) base of
functioning IPs. 

> There are also some legal implications re. our VDN support and how both
> parties expect that to be maintained.
> 
> If we accept the premise that Chebucto has essentially  two levels of
> membership - individuals and organizations, then once someone joins
> Chebucto in either of thes