Ross Rader ha scritto:
Evan Leibovitch wrote:
The apparent staff obsession to fund constituencies that don't need the subsidy, at the expense of those who do, is what I consider worrisome.
I don't see this as a staff push. My slightly uninvolved view is that this emanates mostly from the GNSO Council where constituency interests contend that their work is so important that they absolutely must have travel funding. Perhaps Alan could shed some better light on the issue, as I've not been directly involved in the Council for the better part of a year.
I think that it is reasonable to conceive travel funding, attached to specific unpaid positions, as a reward for the commitment an individual puts into them. I think that this should not be incompatible with other personal interests being pursued at ICANN meetings, as long as the position is not directly connected to them. E.g. if I run a registrar and serve on the GNSO Council, I should not be funded - my employer should pay. But if I run a registrar and serve on the SSAC, then I should be funded (and that might make my employer more likely to let me serve in the position). There might be people accepting the voluntary positions to get funding and then come to meetings and look out for future business opportunities, but I don't see that as an issue as long as the deal between ICANN (the community) and the individual is fair, i.e. you do your work well and impartially in your unpaid position as long as you stay there. I am personally much more concerned by people getting funded and then spending most of their time sightseeing or shopping. No idea about how it's going now, but there were quite a few in past years, up to the point that specific participation thresholds were developed to be able to get rid of them. -- vb. Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu <-------- --------> finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/ <--------