Roberto, I have long been of the view that ICANN will never countenance a constituency for individuals, not because such a move "might" alienate the Cross-Constituency folk -- the earlier DNSO Review process made clear their intent to never allow for such a constituency to be formed -- but rather because ICANN has no desire to allow for a space in its organization within which ICANN critics, hotheads, dissidents, troublemakers and the like can band together to aggressively bash ICANN on every occasion where such bashing is warranted. This is why we no longer have a General Assembly as a representative body. The GA chose to call for a re-bid of the ICANN contract with the DOC and were rewarded for their principled stand by being structurally eliminated in the 2002 ICANN Palace Coup d'Etat. Let's face it... ICANN doesn't tolerate criticism well. It seeks to eliminate or marginalize those that oppose its will. This also readily explains the behaviors of some in Senior ICANN Management subsequent to the criticisms that emerged in the JPA MId-Term Review. But we can talk about that privately at a later date. What you have proposed through the BGC effort has forced the BC-ISP-BC contingent to come to terms with the fact that unless they manage to somehow insert another body into the Non-Commercial grouping, Milton will get invariably get four votes (and this infuriates them). So, they have started looking for ways to temper what they perceive to be a bad situation. As they most certainly do not want an individuals constituency, a registrants constituency or a domain name holders constituency (whatever you want to call it) in their midst, they are hoping to construct an "at-large alternative" with your blessing. What will emerge in their proposal will not be an individual registrants group, but will likely be yet another Civil Society aggregate, some type of organizationally-based ALAC clone. At the end of the day we will not get an individuals constituency. You have noted the Board is not keen on the notion of endorsing an individuals group (and they have a prior history of ignoring petitons to that end); I have noted that the Cross Constituency (and perhaps others) will find a way to oppose, stall or otherwise impede such an effort as they earlier have done. Accordingly, I seek to protect the public interest by allowing the current nomcom appointees to represent the public voice. No, it wouldn't be a traditioanl constituency in that members would not be electing their officers -- they are, after all, appointees -- but the world of individuals could interact with these councillors and offer guidance (of course, the nomcom councillors would always be at liberty to vote their conscience). In my proposal individuals at least have a chance of having their views advocated; in your proposal an individual registrants constituency (as opposed to an organizational amalgam) will never emerge -- you're trying to sell a fantasy to those that understand the politics as well as you do, and we're not buying the sales pitch. No one is trying to sabatoge your plan. Your plan on behalf of registrants is not playing out as you expected, and it certainly won't result in the emergence of an individuals constituency. The deck has already been stacked against that option. Perhaps I am a more of a realist than you (which I why I have offered up a reasonable alternative). We don't need a milquetoast Civil Society grouping in the GNSO. What we need are voices that will defend the registrant interest when calamities arise. The ALAC/Civil Society/Non-commercial-orgs did little-to-nothing to protect the registrant interest when the RegisterFly calamity impacted us all. We need a better set of representatives in the GNSO. I can count on the likes of Jon Bing, Olga and Avri to advocate on the behalf of the registrant community if they are supported with mechanisms that allow for the public to express its views to them; I can't rely upon those that pretend to be the at-large to do the same. Best regards, Danny --- Roberto Gaetano <roberto@icann.org> wrote:
Danny:
You know, for someone that supposedly is
championing a voice
for individuals in the GNSO, you haven't exactly gone the extra mile by invoking the Board's authority to create a new constituency on its own motion as allowed for in the bylaws (Article X, Section 5, Paragraph 5).
I thought you knew me by now. I believe that there are two possible behaviours: one that is to look at the real world, and evaluate the possibility of a success, and play your cards trying to maximise success, even this is not what you would like in your own ideal world. The other one, is to grandstand behind your opinions, and have an infinite series of insuccesses, but maintaint virginally intact your right to complain about the rest of the world who does not understand that they are wrong. I had only very limited success in embracing the first approach, but I'm not the type of person who would ever go the other way. I claim that the (many) failures in my life are primarily lack of understanding from my part of the global picture, or lack of understanding from my part of the best strategu to get thisngs done, and therefore I learn lessons that might allow me to do better next time. To blame failures on cynic and cruel fate, or on the misunderstanding of the rest of the world of the one and only Truth that I represent, is just not my style.
If you're so committed to enhancing representative
opportunities, why don't you just do the right thing for once and establish the necessary constituencies by Board fiat?
For the simple reason, that you should know very well, that it would never fly. Sure, I will have my hour of spotlight, maybe even some press coverage, but the motion would miserably fail. My problem has been, rather, to try to understand "why" it would fail. And my personal answer (and I might be wrong, so I would appreciate comments, preferring the ones who would provide rational explanations, rather than integralistic views of the world) is that the creation of an additional constituency in the GNSO would have altered the balace of power of the constituencies, and would tharefore have the immediate opposition of who felt their power position threatened. And the Board would have chosen not to go into open opposition to the GNSO constituencies (rightfully so, IMHO). So, what the GNSO Review WG has proposed, is a mechanism by which the creation of new constituencies does not alter the balance of voting among stakeholder groups. You might have noticed that the attitude has already changed: nobody anymore opposes the introduction of individual registrants, quite the contrary, the only concern I have heard, quite insistently, is about how would the non-contractual, non-commercial, stakeholder group be polulated with interests beyond the ones currently represented by the NCUC. I don't know whether this proposal will be endorsed by the Board. But I can assure you that, if accepted, the creation of an individual registrants group will be just the matter of time. And a short time, just few months. And I am sure that you perfectly know that, even if you try to play dumb. And this is the exact reason why you are devoting all your energy to propose all sorts of alternatives: to sabotage this plan.
Why all the silly games?
I was thinking to ask this very question to you. As you see from the above, I have an opinion on why you play these silly games. But if you have a different one, I'm open to listen. Just please don't give me the usual lecture on how nice was the time when we had elected at-large directors.
Cheers, Roberto
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