On Monday 2. October 2017 10.13.24 Daniel Pocock wrote:
Proposed motion: The GA recognizes that the widespread use of the word "Join" on the FSFE web site may have caused many fellows and volunteers to believe their payment made them a member of the incorporated association. The GA resolves that a notice should be published on the web site clarifying the situation, the notice should be sent to everybody who completed the form to "Join the FSFE" and any future communication, through the web site or other marketing materials should make it unambiguous whether people are being solicited to join the incorporated association, volunteer their time or become a financial supporter and also making them aware of the alternative roles they can have in the organization.
I support what you are trying to achieve here. Other organisations label such roles as "supporters". For example:
https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/
In such organisations, one may be left with the impression that the organisation primarily wants donations to help their work. There is no indication that anyone is "joining" as some policy-influencing participant. (The organisation given above does also have some volunteer activities, however. It also hosts projects that have their own democratic directions.)
Again, the FSFE should be clear about what it wants from people who "join" (money, time, expertise), and the organisation should be a venue where contributions of whatever kind are maximised. I specifically started my involvement with the FSFE instead of continuing to contribute to the FFII (if people even remember that) because of the more obvious indications of collaboration within what the FSFE were doing: it seemed more like a community of people acting together than a way of financially supporting those who needed to influence policy-makers for some stated reason.
As you note in one of your other motions, there are various threats to Free Software that need to be resisted directly by organisations like the FSFE. The FSFE could provide a venue for people to collaborate in this regard so that, for example, people might know where they would discuss and even work on alternatives to proprietary communications technologies.
Unfortunately, current venues of discussion (like this mailing list) are limited to providing an audience towards whom people may pitch their ideas and products, worthy or otherwise, with the effect being at best that people feel that they are "doing something" if they voice their support or go off and pledge some money. That may fit in with some people's vision for the organisation, but it isn't what I had in mind when I signed up.
Paul