Hi, On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 01:18:11PM +0000, Schaefer, Brett wrote:
In fact, the decisional model does expressly contemplate voting, i.e. tallying support or opposition among the decisional participants with specified thresholds, to climb the escalation ladder and exercise community powers.
I am really leery of having a discussion in which we parse the meanings of "consensus" and "voting", but I think there is at least an open argument that the escalation ladder and so on amounts to a way to determine community consensus. Moreover, the specification of thesholds are, after all, of the constituent SOs and ACs rather than of individual voters. Having already long ago decided that decision making in ICANN would be along constituency-defined lines (rather than the unitary "community" that we see in, say, the IETF), it seems self-evident that one needs a way to ensure that one interest group can't block everyone else. So regardless of whether one thinks that this is some form of voting, it's still a mechanism to find consensus.
Moreover, the GAC is now a participant in the Empowered Community (albeit with the carve out) and the advisory role has been altered, not maintained, by defining GAC consensus and elevating the Board threshold to reject GAC consensus advice to 60 percent. These are significant changes.
But there is a difference between "letting governments participate" and "letting governments decide". The proposal does the former -- I think correctly, because they too are part of the global community. It does not do the latter -- again, correctly, and in line with the NTIA criteria. Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com