My proposal didn't envision elections. Only three people are involved, so public campaigning, lobbying, and voting won't happen. If three reasonable people of good will can't agree, then they can go into a closet and do rock-paper-scissors until a winner emerges. Or they can share the Chair. Personally, I don't agree that the ALAC needs a single face, a single voice, a single person as a point of contact. Yes, we probably need a single email address -- ALAC-Chair@icann.org or something -- but the recipients of that email address should be the rotating Executive Committee, not one person. I think we will benefit, both functionally and in the eyes of the community, from being an organization with many voices, many faces, and both a real and perceived ability to work together in a relatively flat organizational structure that doesn't elevate any one person above the others. Bret On Jul 9, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:
With respect to this proposal, perhaps as the staff I could comment on the idea from the perspective of administrative overhead, and also perception outside the community:
Firstly, if the chair changes that often, you will have to have some way to select between the three regional representatives where more than one of them is willing to serve. This means more elections. Elections cause a fair amount of administrative overhead, and generally involve campaigning, lobbying others for votes, etc. This takes away time from policy discussions and other substantive work.
Secondly, as everyone is well aware, after spending years in procedural discussions and forming RALOs, those stakeholders outside of At-Large are very much looking to see how much policy work the community does. Having just finished forming all the structures, do you think that those outside of At-Large will see it as a good sign that you are turning immediately to desiging more administrative processes which involve elections?