At 17/06/2007 04:58 AM, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
Alan Greenberg ha scritto:
To me, this sounds like for all practical purposes, it will be virtually impossible to reject an ALS application. That makes the ALAC a rubber stamp. Even if there were a case of a region applying their own set of rules to accept "their friends", and even in the face of DD rejecting an application, it will be almost impossible to stop the approval.
On this, I think that my approach has changed over time.
When we started, there were no accredited ALSes, so we were setting the standards. By approving the wrong type of ALSes (e.g. for profit entities, astroturf groups etc), we could easily have given way to capture of the entire effort. This was why it was made relatively difficult to approve an ALS.
At this point in time, I feel that the biggest risk - as in all established constituencies, and the GNSO shows some cases - is about the people who are already in trying to prevent newcomers from joining, so to preserve their current role of leadership inside the constituency. On the other hand, as you have a relatively broad membership (and it will only grow), the effect of including one or two mischievers will not be as relevant as in the beginning; and the character of the constituency is already set, so groups that don't fit will tend not to join anyway. So I think that now it should be made relatively difficult to reject an ALS; perhaps 3/4 of explicit "no" votes is too much, but in the new rules I think that we should lean towards inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness; and also, we should prevent our understandable lack of time from delaying applications for months, as it regularly happens.
I agree in principle, but the 3/4 explicitly voting No is simply too large a barrier. Given that we are partially looking at rules BECAUSE we have had participation problems, Getting 3/4 actual No votes would be virtually impossible, and we should just make the rules say that to be an ALS, you need to apply, and you will be accepted. Because the two are effectively the same. We could publish a "Certified ALS template" on our web site and they could fill it in themselves!
Also, the idea of a "regional opinion" was developed when ICANN had no regional liaisons, and there literally was no one but the local ALAC members who had contacts over the place, understood local languages, and was able to gather more information. I tend to see it as not scalable - as the application flow increased, in more and more cases we had to do without it. On the other hand, ICANN now has regional liaisons in place, and while I agree with you that some of their DDs in the past were not as thorough as one could desire, they are paid professionals and so should find (and be allocated) the time to do the work properly. I don't think that we can realistically rely on the RALOs to evaluate applicants, and also, from a conceptual "checks and balances" point of view, this would actually exacerbate the risk of capture inside a RALO.
I agree on the DD, written by paid, competent professionals. If we can be assured of that, the problem is less severe. But there is a potential conflict of interest. The regional people are paid to raise interest and involvement with ICANN, and to get to know the local people on a more personal level. It is difficult to separate yourself from that when/if it is appropriate to write a critical DD. Not impossible, but it is something that needs to be highlighted.
Perhaps we could still use a no objections process, but in which the filing of a preliminary objection could freeze the automatical approval for a limited amount of time, so that ALAC members have more time to evaluate whether to actually reject the application, and the filing of a certain number of objections (e.g. three) could take the application out of the automatical approval track and lead to an actual vote on the application, for example by majority.
Perhaps that is a good compromise. Although we do not want sitting on the ALAC to be an endurance test in handling paperwork, we should not take all responsibility out of the position. Alan
-- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------