Dear all, dear staff, thanks for the ICANN usb stick with documents. It was very interesting to look through them. I'd like to take this opportunity as a newbie to ask some questions to which I didn't find answers yet in the ongoing discussions on the mailinglist as well as in the documents I got. To introduce our ALS and myself, I am contact person for the newly recognized ALS Wikimedia CH, one of the national chapters of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation behind the Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikibooks, Wiktionary etc. Myself is a studied IT engineer with an interest in free and open source software and corresponding social movements. As I am running a serverhosting business since eleven years I had to deal with ICANN's topics before, while I was never involved in ICANN before we decided to become an ALS with Wikimedia CH. Within Wikimedia I am working with Wikimedia Deutschland (as I am german) and am a founding member of Wikimedia CH (as I live on the boarder to Switzerland). Beside technical interest (hosting Wikimedia platforms for chapters in Switzerland, Austria and Israel) my main interest is the multicultural aspect of Wikimedia and running global projects be it organising conferences, spreading Wikimedia content in the global south or developing the Wikimedia organisation. As a newbie to ICANN I am still interested and curious in the mechanics, roles and goals of the different ALSes and holder of the various ICANN positions. So I am trying to follow the ongoing discussions, which is not very easy. These questions refer to both upcoming elections in the EURALO and ICANN board. * what are criteria to be nominated or elected into one of these board positions? Can someone point me to a document where they are described? * what kind of persons are supposed to be nominated / elected into these board positions? Are you looking for experienced ICANN / ALAC members or persons rooted in the community, defending interests of the users, like a counterweight to the commercial background of other board members? * how is a board mandate handled? Is this a political mandate which requires the feedback to and from the community or is it a personal position where board members represent themselves and are only accountable to their own conviction? * how are the selected candidates validated? How are nomination - self-nominations and such by other members - handled? Is there any difference, is there any consideration of RALO recommendations? What I wonder is how I as a newbie can choose a trustworthy candidate who represents my ALS and our community to which we feel accountable to. Maybe the answers to the questions above will shed more light on this process. Thanks a lot, Manuel -- Regards Manuel Schneider Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge www.wikimedia.ch