On Tue, Dec 01, 2015 at 01:50:05AM +0000, I wrote:
With respect, I don't think anyone could seriously think that the power to sack the Board or remove directors is remotely effective as a means of addressing the concerns in this debate, whether your concern is ICANN's overreach (as David would have it) or ICANN's failure to act (closer to Bradley's concern). Whatever be the purpose of these community powers, I don't think it can be this.
To which Andrew Sullivan replied:
Why not? [snip] If we have a problem where the community agrees that the board is permitting the corporation to act inconsistently with the community's understanding of the mission, surely the community should be able to force the board to change its behaviour. This would seem to me to be precisely the point of such community powers.
I agree entirely. I didn't mean to suggest that the community powers should not be usable (or that they should not be used) in response to such a scenario. I merely meant that relying on them as the sole means of recourse would be untenable. The possibility of direct individual challenge under the IRP is also essential if ICANN is effectively to be held to account.
The arguments I've seen on this list have been all of the sort, "What if someone ignores this part, and just concentrates on that part?" In other words, the arguments are all of the form, "What if someone interprets this incorrectly?"
I must say, I have found myself thinking the same thing, not only now but also when we went round and round talking about "services".
It is not possible to "get the Mission text right" if the requirement is that nobody could possibly misunderstand it, if only because humans are ingenious at ignoring inconvenient text whenever that turns out to be convenient. So what we must do is get the text right enough so that anyone properly disinterested will interpret it correctly; and ensure the community has enough power to that, if interested parties get their hands on the levers, those hands can be pulled back. I think the draft text we have accomplishes both of these goals.
Again, I agree. Perhaps I am being too penickety in reply to your posts; we are in near complete agreement I think. -- Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523 Head of Public Affairs | Read the LINX Public Affairs blog London Internet Exchange | http://publicaffairs.linx.net/ London Internet Exchange Ltd Monument Place, 24 Monument Street, London EC3R 8AJ Company Registered in England No. 3137929 Trinity Court, Trinity Street, Peterborough PE1 1DA