Al Heigl

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Al Heigl is a former member of American Mensa who was the webmaster of the Minnesota Mensa chapter. In 2006 he was brought before the National Hearings Committee on charges of acts inimical to Mensa stemming from a dispute with the local group over whether he continued to be its official webmaster, and he was expelled from Mensa.

Webmaster controversy

While he was webmaster of Minnesota Mensa, Heigl got into some conflict with other officers of the group over differences of opinion regarding the direction the website should go; some officers wanted more graphical flashiness, while he was more concerned about the site having lots of information, using standards-compliant HTML, and being compatible with all browsers, things that are sometimes sacrificed to achieve visual excitement. He also disapproved of the group setting up a site for the St. Paul AG "behind his back", doing things he disapproved of such as using a .com domain for its address (implying a commercial entity). At one point, Heigl issued orders to national office staff regarding what site to link from the national site, in a tone others regarded as inappropriate.

In 2002, Heigl was removed as webmaster, but he claims he reached an agreement to retain the position. For a time, there were two "competing" local group Web sites, one by Heigl and another by the new officially-appointed webmaster. Ultimately, Mensa took control of the domain name Heigl's version of the site had been posted under using the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP). In 2006, charges of acts inimical to Mensa were brought against Heigl before the National Hearings Committee due to his actions regarding this Web site, resulting in his expulsion from Mensa after the hearing outcome was confirmed by the American Mensa Committee.

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