On 20 November 2012 20:12, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
I'd also note that I've worked for several membership organisations and am a member of many more - none that I know of take any steps to verify memberships, even where someone is formally required to approve each member before admitting them. (And under what circumstances would we refuse membership? Not being on the electoral role doesn't mean someone doesn't exist...)
Well, yes. Standard practice is actually not bothering.
If we did do anything like this we would have to carefully consider whether the benefit in terms of preventing a potential, if somewhat hypothetical, democratic problem was actually bigger than any likely cost in terms of making it more difficult to join.
To be fair, it is literally true that we have seriously dedicated gibbering nutters who are out to fuck us up any way they possibly can; much more so than the run-of-the-mill small charity our size. But you're right that the very first thing to try is a larger, broader and more involved membership.
- d.