Fwd: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future
Dear all, FYI -- a response from me, to a thread that came up on the ISOC Chapter leaders mailing list. The topic is specifically the downgrading of At-Large Structures by equalling them to individual membership. With many chapters as At-Large Structures, the Internet Society Chapters would be affected. BTW -- as part of the At-Large Review working group, I submitted over 100 comments on the original document that was presented by the consultants to the Review working group. It appears that most of my comments were ignored. I plan to comment further - when I find the time to do so - and would be happy to contribute to an ALAC comment. Kindest regards, Olivier ps. I admit that I am one of the "big-mouthed" people. :-) -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2017 01:37:05 +0100 From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> To: Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty@gmail.com>, Richard Hill <rhill@hill-a.ch> CC: ISOC Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates@elists.isoc.org> On 04/02/2017 21:01, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
Problems like capture by a few individuals will not be solved and in fact most likely will be aggravated by the "enhanced membership model."
The Review carries anonymous quotes from people who dislike the fact that At-Large and the ALAC are standing in their way to turn ICANN into a domain name business association. Bringing the input of Internet end users to ICANN's technically and legally super-complex processes is a very hard task indeed. I know - I chaired that process for 4 years and to say that it was challenging is an understatement. But the current structure of At-Large which has several tiers for hierarchy of "control" but an entirely open bottom-up model where everybody is allowed to attend any meeting or call and to participate and to voice their opinion, actually provides for a stable environment with stable processes which can actually help in reaching consensus and getting the ALAC to act. That is exactly the thing that bothers other parts of ICANN: that the ALAC is slowly but surely, over time, surmounting the largest hurdle to a multi-stakeholder system which is to get the input of the real end users out there - and that it is doing so with renewed harmony and proven bottom-up processes. Instead, as Alejandro mentions, the Review asks for a return to an unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I remember that so well: having been subscribed to the early DNSO (Domain Name Support Association) mailing list, I quickly got sick of the daily dose of venom from psychos that should have been interned, un-subscribed myself and, after the failed At-Large elections which I predicted were going to fail, removed myself completely from having anything to do with ICANN until it had a meeting in Paris in 2008. The Review is deeply flawed in that it is not an analysis of At-Large and the ALAC. On the contrary, it is a collection of opinions, many of them deeply flawed or factually wrong, and recommendations derived from these flawed opinions. Good opinions of At-Large were ditched and only criticism was kept, whether warranted or unwarranted. It is a lynching of reality and I give it as much truth as the flawed populist campaigns the world has recently seen, thus predicting an equally gruesome future for At-Large. By following the mantra "Let's make At-Large great again", the reviewers are actually proposing to kill it. Kindest regards, Olivier (own opinions) _______________________________________________ As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
Dear Olivier, none of my comments or questions were answered. I think most of all comments have not been answered, even before the first draft. Kind regards Alberto De: at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [mailto:at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] En nombre de Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond Enviado el: Sunday, February 5, 2017 6:39 PM Para: ALAC Working List <alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org>; At-Large Worldwide <at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Asunto: [At-Large] Fwd: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future Dear all, FYI -- a response from me, to a thread that came up on the ISOC Chapter leaders mailing list. The topic is specifically the downgrading of At-Large Structures by equalling them to individual membership. With many chapters as At-Large Structures, the Internet Society Chapters would be affected. BTW -- as part of the At-Large Review working group, I submitted over 100 comments on the original document that was presented by the consultants to the Review working group. It appears that most of my comments were ignored. I plan to comment further - when I find the time to do so - and would be happy to contribute to an ALAC comment. Kindest regards, Olivier ps. I admit that I am one of the "big-mouthed" people. :-) -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2017 01:37:05 +0100 From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <mailto:ocl@gih.com> <ocl@gih.com> To: Alejandro Pisanty <mailto:apisanty@gmail.com> <apisanty@gmail.com>, Richard Hill <mailto:rhill@hill-a.ch> <rhill@hill-a.ch> CC: ISOC Chapter Delegates <mailto:chapter-delegates@elists.isoc.org> <chapter-delegates@elists.isoc.org> On 04/02/2017 21:01, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
Problems like capture by a few individuals will not be solved and in fact most likely will be aggravated by the "enhanced membership model."
The Review carries anonymous quotes from people who dislike the fact that At-Large and the ALAC are standing in their way to turn ICANN into a domain name business association. Bringing the input of Internet end users to ICANN's technically and legally super-complex processes is a very hard task indeed. I know - I chaired that process for 4 years and to say that it was challenging is an understatement. But the current structure of At-Large which has several tiers for hierarchy of "control" but an entirely open bottom-up model where everybody is allowed to attend any meeting or call and to participate and to voice their opinion, actually provides for a stable environment with stable processes which can actually help in reaching consensus and getting the ALAC to act. That is exactly the thing that bothers other parts of ICANN: that the ALAC is slowly but surely, over time, surmounting the largest hurdle to a multi-stakeholder system which is to get the input of the real end users out there - and that it is doing so with renewed harmony and proven bottom-up processes. Instead, as Alejandro mentions, the Review asks for a return to an unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I remember that so well: having been subscribed to the early DNSO (Domain Name Support Association) mailing list, I quickly got sick of the daily dose of venom from psychos that should have been interned, un-subscribed myself and, after the failed At-Large elections which I predicted were going to fail, removed myself completely from having anything to do with ICANN until it had a meeting in Paris in 2008. The Review is deeply flawed in that it is not an analysis of At-Large and the ALAC. On the contrary, it is a collection of opinions, many of them deeply flawed or factually wrong, and recommendations derived from these flawed opinions. Good opinions of At-Large were ditched and only criticism was kept, whether warranted or unwarranted. It is a lynching of reality and I give it as much truth as the flawed populist campaigns the world has recently seen, thus predicting an equally gruesome future for At-Large. By following the mantra "Let's make At-Large great again", the reviewers are actually proposing to kill it. Kindest regards, Olivier (own opinions) _______________________________________________ As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
My response, also from the thread that Olivier had referred to earlier. satish ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Satish Babu <sb@inapp.com> Date: Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 9:12 AM Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future To: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> Cc: Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty@gmail.com>, Richard Hill <rhill@hill-a.ch>, ISOC Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates@elists.isoc.org> The concerns expressed here are, in my opinion, quite valid. In addition to the conceptual issues mentioned in the proposed model, there are also pragmatic problems (what follows are my personal opinions). While the existing At-Large Structure (ALS) model may not be perfect, it does strike a reasonable balance between managing end-user interfaces on the one hand, and evolving and expressing end-user interests in the ICANN policy development on the other. A hybrid model which admits end-users as well as organizations into membership, raises several new issues: 1. Given the large number of end-users (several billion) and their geographic spread, who gets to eventually become members is unclear. The end-result of all individuals being treated as one group may be that minority communities and smaller countries are drowned out by the more dominant groups. 2. Given the multitude of opinions and diverse interests of individual members, it is unclear how coherence of opinion will emerge (without drastically reductionist approaches). 3. Given the significant linguistic diversity of individuals, coupled with the differences in Internet access infrastructure, some individuals are likely to be left out. 4. Finally, organizations usually have significantly better capacities than individuals for analysis, response & information dissemination, given that they are collectives of individuals. By opening doors for individual members even while there are local ALSes, the result will be to weaken ALSes and remove incentives to forming new ALSes. The At-Large Community (of which ISOC Chapters constitute a significant proportion) should examine how it can use this opportunity to improve themselves. However, imposing the proposed model without taking into account the concerns expressed so far is unlikely to serve anything beyond weakening of the existing At-Large structures. Best regards, satish -- Satish Babu Chair, APRALO Founding Chair, ISOC-TRV On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 3:09 AM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> wrote:
Dear all,
FYI -- a response from me, to a thread that came up on the ISOC Chapter leaders mailing list. The topic is specifically the downgrading of At-Large Structures by equalling them to individual membership. With many chapters as At-Large Structures, the Internet Society Chapters would be affected.
BTW -- as part of the At-Large Review working group, I submitted over 100 comments on the original document that was presented by the consultants to the Review working group. It appears that most of my comments were ignored. I plan to comment further - when I find the time to do so - and would be happy to contribute to an ALAC comment. Kindest regards,
Olivier
ps. I admit that I am one of the "big-mouthed" people. :-)
-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2017 01:37:05 +0100 From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> <ocl@gih.com> To: Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty@gmail.com> <apisanty@gmail.com>, Richard Hill <rhill@hill-a.ch> <rhill@hill-a.ch> CC: ISOC Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates@elists.isoc.org> <chapter-delegates@elists.isoc.org>
On 04/02/2017 21:01, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
Problems like capture by a few individuals will not be solved and in fact most likely will be aggravated by the "enhanced membership model."
The Review carries anonymous quotes from people who dislike the fact that At-Large and the ALAC are standing in their way to turn ICANN into a domain name business association. Bringing the input of Internet end users to ICANN's technically and legally super-complex processes is a very hard task indeed. I know - I chaired that process for 4 years and to say that it was challenging is an understatement. But the current structure of At-Large which has several tiers for hierarchy of "control" but an entirely open bottom-up model where everybody is allowed to attend any meeting or call and to participate and to voice their opinion, actually provides for a stable environment with stable processes which can actually help in reaching consensus and getting the ALAC to act. That is exactly the thing that bothers other parts of ICANN: that the ALAC is slowly but surely, over time, surmounting the largest hurdle to a multi-stakeholder system which is to get the input of the real end users out there - and that it is doing so with renewed harmony and proven bottom-up processes.
Instead, as Alejandro mentions, the Review asks for a return to an unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I remember that so well: having been subscribed to the early DNSO (Domain Name Support Association) mailing list, I quickly got sick of the daily dose of venom from psychos that should have been interned, un-subscribed myself and, after the failed At-Large elections which I predicted were going to fail, removed myself completely from having anything to do with ICANN until it had a meeting in Paris in 2008.
The Review is deeply flawed in that it is not an analysis of At-Large and the ALAC. On the contrary, it is a collection of opinions, many of them deeply flawed or factually wrong, and recommendations derived from these flawed opinions. Good opinions of At-Large were ditched and only criticism was kept, whether warranted or unwarranted. It is a lynching of reality and I give it as much truth as the flawed populist campaigns the world has recently seen, thus predicting an equally gruesome future for At-Large.
By following the mantra "Let's make At-Large great again", the reviewers are actually proposing to kill it.
Kindest regards,
Olivier (own opinions) _______________________________________________ As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
_______________________________________________ ALAC mailing list ALAC@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac
At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org ALAC Working Wiki: https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+ Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
On 2/5/17 1:39 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote: I want to take strong issue with certain words:
... the Review asks for a return to an unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I have a rather different point of view.
I see the year 2000 elections as having been very successful (despite me winning the North American seat. ;-) These were not unstable processes, they were not a free for all. And yes, individual members did speak for themselves. What is wrong with that? Is it worse than the present ICANN system in which many people get amplified power by acting under the guise of multiple stakeholder roles? Did it fail miserably? To the contrary. In the main I would say that the directors who filled those five seats were among the best that ICANN has ever had. Was there conflict? Yes. But may I suggest that the better word is "debate'. Electronic debate is, unfortunately, a world in which etiquette an softness of expression has been lost. I, too, regret that loss. My cures for that are tri-fold: more face-to-face contact (it's hard to be as rude to a person one has met), tolerance of poorly formed expressions from others, and more care to speak only as strong as is necessary in order to make sure that an intended point is made. This issue is amplified by cultural differences - we Americans, for example, tend to speak more strongly and directly than do others from cultures that put greater weight on indirect expression. "ballot stuffing"? I think you are referring to the fact that in some of the regions corporate and national actors tried to induce employees to vote in certain ways. Perhaps that happened, but that might be called "persuasion" rather than "ballot stuffing". And that was certainly not what happened in the North America region - indeed in N. America the intellectual property industry candidate did rather poorly. And the remedy for fears of excessive persuasion have historically been to increase voter privacy and anonymity, not erasing the use of elections. Were there "safeguards"? Of course there were. At the end of the debate ICANN's board voted and decisions were made. That is a rather significant "safeguard". I do not know what you were meaning to say about those with "bigger mouth". There certainly were loud moths during that era - no less than today. And they were richly favored. But those mouths and favored recipients were not those who participated in the individual election process. (I think we all can draw up lists of those who profited over the years through ICANN - and I'd be surprised if any of our lists included loud voices among the individual voters of year 2000.) Discussion was not among socio-paths. I do admit we do have people, then and now, who argue their points with excessive personal abuse. There were one or two people who we came to understand were a bit off kilter - the famous Jeff Williams for example (however, I spoke to him on the phone several times and in that mode he was actually somewhat rational. ;-) However, his presence, and the presence of others like him, is just part of our world, not an aspect of a system of decision making based on individuals casting votes. On the other hand discussion then was among a larger number of people than those who participate today. It seems also that more of the meetings then were face-to-face. And in my region there was a continuous dialog - online, telephone, email, and physical meeting - between our regions director (me) and the community. In my own case I made sure to keep the channels open in both ways by maintaining an open diary of my ICANN decisions (which is still on-line.) There were some difficulties during the year 2000 election, particularly in the voter registration system. Those difficulties were enhanced by ICANN through ineptness, and perhaps more. Those difficulties would have been easily cured had the process not been cast aside and never allowed to continue. I do not understand the persistence of the hysterical faux, almost defamatory, characterizations of the year 2000 ICANN election and the acts of those who held the directors' seats as a result. I, speaking as an individual - strongly believe that ICANN should return to a system based in the individual franchise. I strongly believe that ICANN should return to the original promise that a majority of director seats would be filled by the public. I do not see the ALAC system as a success. The ALAC system has had nearly 15 years to grow. Yet even with funding from ICANN and the support of about eight full-time ICANN staff, the ALAC has not yet reached the vibrancy or size that the open electoral system reached in year 2000 in a couple of months. And I perceive that because of the ALACs near-byzantine complexity that its power has been reduced to a degree that it has no prime-mover role in the making of of ICANN policy; that the ALAC has been reduced to a role in which it sits by as the house is designed by others and is left to comment on minor matters such as whether the paint color on the trim is to be robin's egg blue or sky blue. --karl--
Hi all, almost everything in this description is not true. It has been debunked almost to the point of exhaustion over around fifteen years. Olivier's summary is spot on. We may be spared a repetition of the flame wars by skipping adjectives like "hysterical"and other unnecessary mischaracterizations of the counterparts. ICANN was indeed very fortunate to get very good Directors elected from Asia-Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and, in some unexpected ways, from Europe. In all regions the basic flaw was the "truck in your own electorate" that substituted the basics of an election in which the full electorate is able to participate and registered, then have their votes counted. I'll spare everybody the rest of the details. The way forward now is to acknowledge what has failed in the implementation of the design and fix it, instead of throwing away the baby with the bathwater. The first question we must ask ourselves is whether we are serving the principles and interests of individual Internet end-users; second: if not, how and why; and third, how to ensure we do. Yours, Alejandro Pisanty - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Facultad de Química UNAM Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico +52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD +525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO SMS +525541444475 Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614 Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ________________________________________ Desde: at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org [at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org] en nombre de Karl Auerbach [karl@cavebear.com] Enviado el: lunes, 06 de febrero de 2017 15:12 Hasta: at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org; Olivier Crepin-Leblond Asunto: Re: [At-Large] Fwd: Re: [Chapter-delegates] New version of ICANN At-Large Review - ISOC Chapters role and future On 2/5/17 1:39 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote: I want to take strong issue with certain words:
... the Review asks for a return to an unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I have a rather different point of view.
I see the year 2000 elections as having been very successful (despite me winning the North American seat. ;-) These were not unstable processes, they were not a free for all. And yes, individual members did speak for themselves. What is wrong with that? Is it worse than the present ICANN system in which many people get amplified power by acting under the guise of multiple stakeholder roles? Did it fail miserably? To the contrary. In the main I would say that the directors who filled those five seats were among the best that ICANN has ever had. Was there conflict? Yes. But may I suggest that the better word is "debate'. Electronic debate is, unfortunately, a world in which etiquette an softness of expression has been lost. I, too, regret that loss. My cures for that are tri-fold: more face-to-face contact (it's hard to be as rude to a person one has met), tolerance of poorly formed expressions from others, and more care to speak only as strong as is necessary in order to make sure that an intended point is made. This issue is amplified by cultural differences - we Americans, for example, tend to speak more strongly and directly than do others from cultures that put greater weight on indirect expression. "ballot stuffing"? I think you are referring to the fact that in some of the regions corporate and national actors tried to induce employees to vote in certain ways. Perhaps that happened, but that might be called "persuasion" rather than "ballot stuffing". And that was certainly not what happened in the North America region - indeed in N. America the intellectual property industry candidate did rather poorly. And the remedy for fears of excessive persuasion have historically been to increase voter privacy and anonymity, not erasing the use of elections. Were there "safeguards"? Of course there were. At the end of the debate ICANN's board voted and decisions were made. That is a rather significant "safeguard". I do not know what you were meaning to say about those with "bigger mouth". There certainly were loud moths during that era - no less than today. And they were richly favored. But those mouths and favored recipients were not those who participated in the individual election process. (I think we all can draw up lists of those who profited over the years through ICANN - and I'd be surprised if any of our lists included loud voices among the individual voters of year 2000.) Discussion was not among socio-paths. I do admit we do have people, then and now, who argue their points with excessive personal abuse. There were one or two people who we came to understand were a bit off kilter - the famous Jeff Williams for example (however, I spoke to him on the phone several times and in that mode he was actually somewhat rational. ;-) However, his presence, and the presence of others like him, is just part of our world, not an aspect of a system of decision making based on individuals casting votes. On the other hand discussion then was among a larger number of people than those who participate today. It seems also that more of the meetings then were face-to-face. And in my region there was a continuous dialog - online, telephone, email, and physical meeting - between our regions director (me) and the community. In my own case I made sure to keep the channels open in both ways by maintaining an open diary of my ICANN decisions (which is still on-line.) There were some difficulties during the year 2000 election, particularly in the voter registration system. Those difficulties were enhanced by ICANN through ineptness, and perhaps more. Those difficulties would have been easily cured had the process not been cast aside and never allowed to continue. I do not understand the persistence of the hysterical faux, almost defamatory, characterizations of the year 2000 ICANN election and the acts of those who held the directors' seats as a result. I, speaking as an individual - strongly believe that ICANN should return to a system based in the individual franchise. I strongly believe that ICANN should return to the original promise that a majority of director seats would be filled by the public. I do not see the ALAC system as a success. The ALAC system has had nearly 15 years to grow. Yet even with funding from ICANN and the support of about eight full-time ICANN staff, the ALAC has not yet reached the vibrancy or size that the open electoral system reached in year 2000 in a couple of months. And I perceive that because of the ALACs near-byzantine complexity that its power has been reduced to a degree that it has no prime-mover role in the making of of ICANN policy; that the ALAC has been reduced to a role in which it sits by as the house is designed by others and is left to comment on minor matters such as whether the paint color on the trim is to be robin's egg blue or sky blue. --karl-- _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
Dear Karl, Dear Olivier: I have read your comments. Thankyou. Even at this distance in time, I do recall aspects of the 2000 elections, although I do not share either Olivier's disparagement nor Karl's optimism. (In the event I did vote as an individual member, albeit for an unsuccessful candidate.) As things stand at present, the main point must be that the Review's EMM proposal is not a good option. It is a half-way-house that would quickly satisfy no one. ICANN will have to decide whether we now accept the prospect of large numbers of individual members with appropriate representation on the Board. Individual members of At Large who are then denied full participation as members of ICANN would become an inherently unstable situation. Meanwhile there are several ways to improve on At Large and ALAC, some of which have been identified in the Review report. In the 2003 reform of ICANN, the Board members elected by individual members were not replaced by At Large, they were replaced by Directors appointed by the Nominating Committee. In recent years, successive Nominating Committees appear to have lost sight of their obligation to appoint fully independent representatives of the interests of individual Internet users, world wide. The membership of NomCom should be reviewed with this in view. Thus, in the short term the issue is not reform of At Large, but reform of NomCom. Even more so today since NomCom has acquired additional responsibilities for PTI etc. In the longer term, I would not be against an individual membership model for ICANN, but that would have to go with strong internal rules that guaranteed global balance and diversity, which would not be straightforward, indeed probably quite difficult. Regards CW On 06 Feb 2017, at 22:12, Karl Auerbach <karl@cavebear.com> wrote:
On 2/5/17 1:39 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
I want to take strong issue with certain words:
... the Review asks for a return to an unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I have a rather different point of view.
I see the year 2000 elections as having been very successful (despite me winning the North American seat. ;-)
These were not unstable processes, they were not a free for all.
And yes, individual members did speak for themselves. What is wrong with that? Is it worse than the present ICANN system in which many people get amplified power by acting under the guise of multiple stakeholder roles?
Did it fail miserably? To the contrary. In the main I would say that the directors who filled those five seats were among the best that ICANN has ever had.
Was there conflict? Yes. But may I suggest that the better word is "debate'. Electronic debate is, unfortunately, a world in which etiquette an softness of expression has been lost. I, too, regret that loss. My cures for that are tri-fold: more face-to-face contact (it's hard to be as rude to a person one has met), tolerance of poorly formed expressions from others, and more care to speak only as strong as is necessary in order to make sure that an intended point is made. This issue is amplified by cultural differences - we Americans, for example, tend to speak more strongly and directly than do others from cultures that put greater weight on indirect expression.
"ballot stuffing"? I think you are referring to the fact that in some of the regions corporate and national actors tried to induce employees to vote in certain ways. Perhaps that happened, but that might be called "persuasion" rather than "ballot stuffing". And that was certainly not what happened in the North America region - indeed in N. America the intellectual property industry candidate did rather poorly. And the remedy for fears of excessive persuasion have historically been to increase voter privacy and anonymity, not erasing the use of elections.
Were there "safeguards"? Of course there were. At the end of the debate ICANN's board voted and decisions were made. That is a rather significant "safeguard".
I do not know what you were meaning to say about those with "bigger mouth". There certainly were loud moths during that era - no less than today. And they were richly favored. But those mouths and favored recipients were not those who participated in the individual election process. (I think we all can draw up lists of those who profited over the years through ICANN - and I'd be surprised if any of our lists included loud voices among the individual voters of year 2000.)
Discussion was not among socio-paths. I do admit we do have people, then and now, who argue their points with excessive personal abuse. There were one or two people who we came to understand were a bit off kilter - the famous Jeff Williams for example (however, I spoke to him on the phone several times and in that mode he was actually somewhat rational. ;-) However, his presence, and the presence of others like him, is just part of our world, not an aspect of a system of decision making based on individuals casting votes.
On the other hand discussion then was among a larger number of people than those who participate today. It seems also that more of the meetings then were face-to-face. And in my region there was a continuous dialog - online, telephone, email, and physical meeting - between our regions director (me) and the community. In my own case I made sure to keep the channels open in both ways by maintaining an open diary of my ICANN decisions (which is still on-line.)
There were some difficulties during the year 2000 election, particularly in the voter registration system. Those difficulties were enhanced by ICANN through ineptness, and perhaps more. Those difficulties would have been easily cured had the process not been cast aside and never allowed to continue.
I do not understand the persistence of the hysterical faux, almost defamatory, characterizations of the year 2000 ICANN election and the acts of those who held the directors' seats as a result.
I, speaking as an individual - strongly believe that ICANN should return to a system based in the individual franchise. I strongly believe that ICANN should return to the original promise that a majority of director seats would be filled by the public.
I do not see the ALAC system as a success. The ALAC system has had nearly 15 years to grow. Yet even with funding from ICANN and the support of about eight full-time ICANN staff, the ALAC has not yet reached the vibrancy or size that the open electoral system reached in year 2000 in a couple of months. And I perceive that because of the ALACs near-byzantine complexity that its power has been reduced to a degree that it has no prime-mover role in the making of of ICANN policy; that the ALAC has been reduced to a role in which it sits by as the house is designed by others and is left to comment on minor matters such as whether the paint color on the trim is to be robin's egg blue or sky blue.
--karl-- _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large
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Despite de fact the directors are good elements, countries like Brazil obviously due its population will always win despite how better other latin American and Caribbean candidates could be. Balancing representation is not perfect but the best system human had invented so far. Vanda Scartezini Polo Consultores Associados Av. Paulista 1159, cj 1004 01311-200- Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil Land Line: +55 11 3266.6253 Mobile: + 55 11 98181.1464 Sorry for any typos. HAPPY 2017! On 2/6/17, 7:12 PM, "Karl Auerbach" <at-large-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of karl@cavebear.com> wrote: On 2/5/17 1:39 PM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote: I want to take strong issue with certain words: > ... the Review asks for a return to an > unstable, free for all, system based only on individual members speaking > for themselves only, a system that was shown to fail miserably as it > generates conflict with no safeguards whatsoever and favours those with > a bigger mouth than anyone else. The ICANN version 1 experiment failed > noticeably in the early 2000s, with ballot stuffing in wide practice and > mailing lists that were filled with flame wars fuelled by socio-paths. I have a rather different point of view. I see the year 2000 elections as having been very successful (despite me winning the North American seat. ;-) These were not unstable processes, they were not a free for all. And yes, individual members did speak for themselves. What is wrong with that? Is it worse than the present ICANN system in which many people get amplified power by acting under the guise of multiple stakeholder roles? Did it fail miserably? To the contrary. In the main I would say that the directors who filled those five seats were among the best that ICANN has ever had. Was there conflict? Yes. But may I suggest that the better word is "debate'. Electronic debate is, unfortunately, a world in which etiquette an softness of expression has been lost. I, too, regret that loss. My cures for that are tri-fold: more face-to-face contact (it's hard to be as rude to a person one has met), tolerance of poorly formed expressions from others, and more care to speak only as strong as is necessary in order to make sure that an intended point is made. This issue is amplified by cultural differences - we Americans, for example, tend to speak more strongly and directly than do others from cultures that put greater weight on indirect expression. "ballot stuffing"? I think you are referring to the fact that in some of the regions corporate and national actors tried to induce employees to vote in certain ways. Perhaps that happened, but that might be called "persuasion" rather than "ballot stuffing". And that was certainly not what happened in the North America region - indeed in N. America the intellectual property industry candidate did rather poorly. And the remedy for fears of excessive persuasion have historically been to increase voter privacy and anonymity, not erasing the use of elections. Were there "safeguards"? Of course there were. At the end of the debate ICANN's board voted and decisions were made. That is a rather significant "safeguard". I do not know what you were meaning to say about those with "bigger mouth". There certainly were loud moths during that era - no less than today. And they were richly favored. But those mouths and favored recipients were not those who participated in the individual election process. (I think we all can draw up lists of those who profited over the years through ICANN - and I'd be surprised if any of our lists included loud voices among the individual voters of year 2000.) Discussion was not among socio-paths. I do admit we do have people, then and now, who argue their points with excessive personal abuse. There were one or two people who we came to understand were a bit off kilter - the famous Jeff Williams for example (however, I spoke to him on the phone several times and in that mode he was actually somewhat rational. ;-) However, his presence, and the presence of others like him, is just part of our world, not an aspect of a system of decision making based on individuals casting votes. On the other hand discussion then was among a larger number of people than those who participate today. It seems also that more of the meetings then were face-to-face. And in my region there was a continuous dialog - online, telephone, email, and physical meeting - between our regions director (me) and the community. In my own case I made sure to keep the channels open in both ways by maintaining an open diary of my ICANN decisions (which is still on-line.) There were some difficulties during the year 2000 election, particularly in the voter registration system. Those difficulties were enhanced by ICANN through ineptness, and perhaps more. Those difficulties would have been easily cured had the process not been cast aside and never allowed to continue. I do not understand the persistence of the hysterical faux, almost defamatory, characterizations of the year 2000 ICANN election and the acts of those who held the directors' seats as a result. I, speaking as an individual - strongly believe that ICANN should return to a system based in the individual franchise. I strongly believe that ICANN should return to the original promise that a majority of director seats would be filled by the public. I do not see the ALAC system as a success. The ALAC system has had nearly 15 years to grow. Yet even with funding from ICANN and the support of about eight full-time ICANN staff, the ALAC has not yet reached the vibrancy or size that the open electoral system reached in year 2000 in a couple of months. And I perceive that because of the ALACs near-byzantine complexity that its power has been reduced to a degree that it has no prime-mover role in the making of of ICANN policy; that the ALAC has been reduced to a role in which it sits by as the house is designed by others and is left to comment on minor matters such as whether the paint color on the trim is to be robin's egg blue or sky blue. --karl-- _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
participants (7)
-
Alberto Soto -
CW Mail -
Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch -
Karl Auerbach -
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond -
Satish Babu -
Vanda Scartezini