I share Evan's frustration. I am not seeing a willingness on the part of the ALAC to follow its own rules, to engage in consultative activities with the RALOs, or to work toward making necessary improvements. There is a reticence on the part of ALAC members to discuss anything on-line or to bring user issues forward. The dysfunctional state of the ALAC impacts our ability as North Americans to protect the interests of our community. I appreciate and endorse Beau's suggestion to consider forming a separate GNSO constituency of consumer groups, but such an action alone won't have an effect upon the continuing dysfunctional state of the ALAC. In my view, the ALAC needs to be sent a strong message -- that unless necessary changes are made, and quickly, the NARALO will secede from the ALAC and will work exclusively within the GNSO. We don't need to continue working within a broken model that brooks no hope for change. In the past, the ccTLDs withdrew from the DNSO to better protect the interests of their own community. Withdrawal from the ALAC remains a viable option that we should consider. --- On Mon, 12/15/08, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
From: Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> Subject: ExecComm Mission Creep (was Re: [NA-Discuss] ALAC Mid-point consultation report - Personal comments) To: dannyyounger@yahoo.com Cc: "At-Large Worldwide" <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org>, "At-Large Worldwide" <alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Date: Monday, December 15, 2008, 11:47 AM I continue to be bothered by the subtle yet steadily increasing role of the ALAC Executive Committee. I note that this recommendation -- which I honestly don't recall being sent past the RALOs for comment -- suggests that the ALAC ExecComm (rather than the whole ALAC) be given the authority to appoint a Board Liaision.
We were once told that the ExecComm was only needed for issues of unexpected urgency. Now we see that the ExecComm wants to -- in recommendations it has itself written -- be given consideration to have the power to make appointments and decisions on predictable timelines.
If ALAC is dysfunctional -- which it most certainly is to me -- then that needs to be confronted directly. I had fears that the ExecComm was created to avoid the messiness of fixing the whole ALAC, under the pretence of necessary expediency. I now find these fears being realized.
Perhaps ALAC should take a page from the Summit, in which participants are surveyed (and taking the survey is mandatory) regarding their subject preferences, then _required_ to actively participate in working groups. Those who don't do this are denied travel support and ultimately the ability to be complete participants.
If only the same zeal used to demand participation from Summit delegates was applied to ALAC itself, then the ExecComm would not need to exist. Or maybe that is not the goal for some. It is noteworthy that, despite many months of member performance reports in our hands, ALAC has not begun to exercise section 11 of its charter (the recall provisions) even once. I have already found myself as a RALO chair having to take performance issues of our ALAC reps into our own hands, having exhausted my patience with ALAC's ability (or interest) to fix itself in this regard.
The Board liaison is the only reference to the ExecComm in this document. Its presence, while arguably minor, points to a disturbing -- if very slow and maybe not deliberate -- mind-set to give the ExecComm powers that might be seen to be poorly executed should they be "entrusted" to the whole ALAC. This trend should be stopped and if possible reversed. We may have to acknowledge that a very few people shoulder the load of the whole group, but we need to address this by increasing participation by all rather than entrenching a special position for the inner core.
It is clear that the very existence of the ExecComm indicates a failure of ALAC effectiveness; it seems ironic to point this out in discussion of a document related to the ALAC review.
- Evan