All-Blogs Membership Poser...

Technorati tags: Blogging, All Blogs, Membership, Survey

Walski just put up a new poll up an hour or so ago. Because where Walski is, Internet access is only available at the hotel lobby, the important stuff has to be done first, right? In any case, the poll is on the top of the left-hand sidebar.

The survey seeks your opinion, either as bloggers yourselves, or simply blog readers, on membership to All-Blogs, the official name for the National Alliance of Bloggers. At the last Pro Tem Executive Council meeting, we discussed several different possibilities on who can join All-Blogs. These have been condensed into the four choices you see on the poll. The fifth choice is if you think of another criteria - and if you do, please leave a comment to the poll after you have voted.

Needless to say, at the meeting, the Pro Tem council came to a unanimous inconclusion. While All-Blogs does promote bloggers to shed their anonymity, we also understand the need for some to remain anonymous. But since the Registrar of Societies (ROS) would probably not allow anonymous executive council members. Or even regular members (we are not sure at this point).

So, what say you?
(what the choices mean, in the full post)

The first choice, "All bloggers, regardless of whether anonymous or not, with equal membership rights", essentially means that membership is open to anyone with a blog, anonymous or not. This means anyone signing up as a member will have equal rights within All-Blogs, including the right to vote, or the right to hold office. Do bear in mind that this may not fly as far as ROS is concerned.

The second choice, "All bloggers, but office bearers must drop their anonymity", means that all bloggers are welcome, but those who bear office must drop their anonymity. This option might be okay with ROS, but still, we're not sure. Yet.

The third option, "Only non-anonymous bloggers - anonymous bloggers would be "associate" members", restricts full membership (including voting rights) only to those bloggers who make their identity known. Anonymous bloggers may still join but will be associat members only.

The fourth option, "Only non-anonymous bloggers" is obviously only making All-Blogs open to those whose identity is known. This option, by the way, is not one that is favored by the Pro Tem committee, as it will exclude many bloggers, which would defeat the purpose and aims of setting All-Blogs up in the first place.

Hope that you help All-Blogs on this, at least we have a feel for how the public in general, especially the blogging community, thinks about this. The last thing, however, that All-Blogs wants to have everyone perceive is to be doing the job of what the government proposes, that is to register all Malaysia bloggers - that is not at all the intent.