🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Merel (pete@zip.com.au) wrote:
: EFA already seems to represent me in all the respects where I feel a
: need to be represented as an Internet participant. 

EFA has a very important role in the social/political sphere -- but what 
ISOC-AU could offer (as ISOC can because of its association with the
IETF) is an involvement in the *deployment* of the Internet, the nuts 
and bolts, the protocols, the engineering/mathematical/research demands 
and possibilities -- all those boring techie bits :-)

It could be something to bridge the abyss between the technical
imperatives of a working Internet, and the people who use it, at all
levels.  There is naturally some overlap with social questions, but
it's really a different sphere.

: And by this I don't mean a
: great chunk of legal gobbledygook like the memorandum and articles of
: association on the ISOC-AU web page :-)

Let's not be deliberately naive here.  You must be quite aware that
formal bodies like Societies and Associations have to have that kind of
"legal gobbledygook" to be set up properly.  And the objectives of
the body have to be defined within that legal framework -- it doesn't
take a lot of effort to read the 8 points of objectives in the
Memorandum of Association, and they are what have to be clarified by
potential members -now-.

: But I understand, of course, that this is infant days for ISOC-AU, and
: I'll refrain from critical comment of it until details of its real
: purpose and function emerge.

It might be more constructive to help define the purpose and function
in the first place.

Kate Lance