I like Jacob personally and in fact he's responsible for my getting involved in ALAC more than a decade ago,

Having said that, his CircleID piece was uncalled-for, unhelpful, and needlessly antagonistic.

In particular, the personalizing of the issue by calling out Maureen by name is a pressure tactic that I for one do not appreciate. It may be common in conventional political wrestling, but it's counter-productive here. Maureen, like Jonathan, are chairs of committees. They have the unenviable task of herding these diverse dens of cats but do not control their direction or speak for them without consensus. They may be thought leaders, but we have an abundance of those.

There are multiple flaws with the article's call to action. For one, the characterization of ALAC as ICANN's "consumer organization" is wholly misplaced. Internet end users are not, by definition, consumers (ie, purchasers) of domains -- registrants are. We've been around the block many times about the subtle but sometimes very real distinction between the interests of end users and those of non-profit registrants (a community explicitly defined within ICANN's family -- NPOC). End-users are not even part of ICANN's food chain, and issues such as incremental domain pricing that matter greatly to registrants matter nearly nil to end-users. Misunderstanding that distinction, and publicly belittling ALAC for staying to its focus, won't win any friends. And, if as claimed, nobody is against the opposition to the sale, why is our additional support even needed?

From the end-user PoV there are certainly ALAC-relevant issues related to trust and abuse related to the .ORG regime change. I personally care that most of the world's nonprofits are opposed, for I care about their well-being more than I care about PIR's. The question of whether .ORG is a special case that deserves a custodian rather than ICANN's usual definition of registry-as-commodity-lessee is a valid one, but the end-user scope here is narrow.

I highly support Roberto's approach that I have read here and would like to help move that forward. And while I have been generally supportive of Jacob's position I am not at all in sync with the chosen pressure tactics. Being shamed and insulted at CircleID is something ALAC endures so often, that using the platform to pressure ALAC action comes across as both ignorant and ineffective. Readers who are aware of how little sway ALAC has within ICANN may even have a chuckle. Dive-bombing into this committee and making demands without taking any effort to understand its complex political dynamics is not an effective tactic -- either for Jacob, Nat or anyone else.

- Evan