Alan Greenberg wrote:
Third you found an instance in which the bylaws use the word At-Large Community. I don't read that use as defining an equivalence between "At-Large Community" and ALAC+RALO+ALS, particularly in light of the subsequent j.3 that suggests that "community" is something more broad.
The wording in j.3 is :Promoting outreach activities in the community of individual Internet users" which I took to say that "the "At-Large Community" (ALC) should do further outreach, not that they were one. If they were part of the ALC, they would have been included in the previous section. But perhaps that is just my reading.
Alan's interpretation is full of specifics and things that are stated. Karl's interpretation is highly dependent on vagueness and things that may be "suggested". There is quite a clear distinction made between the "At-Large Community" and the "community of individual Internet users", both of which are explicitly referred to repeated times. Indeed, the phrase "community of individual Internet users" is even mentioned once completely outside the context of At-Large -- in III.3 -- where the Manager of Public Participation is charged with maintaining communications with it. We have membership in "the At-Large Community" defined explicitly in XI.2.4.i, and -- sorry Karl -- it *does* say clearly that it is ALAC+RALO+ALS. While there is no mention of the "community of individual Internet users", the authors made explicit -- in XI.2.4.i.3 -- that individuals are expected to participate in At-Large through ALSs. And XI.2.4.h makes clear that allowing non-ALS-affiliated individuals to participate directly is optional and at the discretion of each region. So... like it or not ... this is what we are dealing with. At-Large is charged with representing the interests of the "community of individual Internet users", its components have the sole formal relationship with ICANN. It is not coincidental that the word "community" is capitalized in relation to At-Large but left in lower case for the undefined community of individual users. So when the Board says that the At-Large Community is to appoint the new Board member, there really is no ambiguity. Wishful thinking for a different result, perhaps, but not ambiguity.
I would not have bothered had our goal been to make it an ALAC/RALO/ALS-only process.
Well, that's what we got. So if Karl and Danny want to keep railing against that reality, if being "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" is a preferred state of mind, they're welcome to it. In the meantime, the rest of us have a job to do in actually implementing what the Board asked us to do. These two debates are quite different, and mixing them together simply frustrates everyone. - Evan