Yes, Paul
This is the most disturbing thing about the latest board intervention. Clearly, the board is still laboring under the mentality of the pre-reform ICANN, in which
the board had completely unchecked power (other than by the NTIA exercising a nuclear option) to dictate outcomes regardless of the bottom up process. The board apparently has learned nothing about why these accountability reforms were necessary and has not
internalized the attitudinal changes required to insstitutionalize a more accountable and balanced environment.
If the board’s attitude about this has not changed, and they are still assuming that _in this process_ they can unilaterally dictate change, then it is
not clear whether the reforms will work. It looks like the board forces us to constantly battle them in a highly conflict-prone process – and then wonders why people don’t trust them.
Second, and more importantly, this is really a procedural test of the community. If it cannot take, defend, and enforce a decision (whether an edge case or more
significant) against the Board’s abuse of the process then it leaves me with little confidence that =any = of the accountability measures we have identified are going to be effective. It takes fortitude to call a hierarchy to account. If we don’t have it
now, we are unlikely ever to have it.
Paul
Paul Rosenzweig