Dear Manuel, Thank you for your presentation of Wikimedia CH to the At-Large community and for your interest in the At-Large Director position. Please find our answers to questions 1,4 and 5 below. -- Regards, Heidi Ullrich, Matthias Langenegger, Seth Greene, Gisella Gruber-White, Marilyn Vernon, Kristina Nordström ICANN At-Large Staff email: staff[at]atlarge.icann.org website: www.atlarge.icann.org On 23/08/2010 19:52, "Manuel Schneider" <manuel.schneider@wikimedia.ch> wrote:

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?

You can find the requirements and criteria for this position under: https://st.icann.org/absdt/index.cgi?director_s_criteria

* 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?

The At-Large Director Selection Process will need final approval by the ICANN Board. The ALAC Final Recommendations on the At-Large Director Selection Process which were submitted to the Board can be found under: <https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/working-groups/attachments/at_large_di rector_appointment_process:20100726033157-0-1902/original/ALAC%20Final%20Rec omendations%20on%20At-Large%20Community%20Director%20Selection%20Process-09J un2010.pdf> In particular, we would like to draw your attention to recommendation 2 on director criteria, recommendation 3 on creation of list of candidates and recommendation 4 on the electorate.

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.

All applicants were required to submit a Statement of Interest which contains a large section which will be made publicly available after the end of the application period on September 6th. You can review the SOI under: https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/working-groups/attachments/at_large_dir ector_candidate_2010_workspace:20100721141314-1-8258/original/Online%20State ment%20of%20Interest%20-%20EN.pdf

Thanks a lot,

Manuel

Hello Manuel, thank you for your message and for your introduction of the valuable work you do with Wikimedia-CH. I thought I'd try to answer a few more of your questions, bearing in mind the views I express are my personal views. Staff has already very kindly answered some of your questions, and I hope you're coping with the reading. If you have any further questions to ask, please don't hesitate. Le 23/08/2010 19:52, Manuel Schneider a écrit :

* 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?

I think that the most desirable characteristic is to have candidates of good standing who will be able to contribute to the ICANN multi-stakeholder model. Since we are "At Large", it definitely needs to be someone deep-rooted in the community. As far as their allegiance is concerned, an ICANN Board member should act in the best interests of the Internet community, and therefore not only "At Large". So is someone experienced in ICANN/ALAC processes preferred over someone else? Only the Board Candidate Evaluation Committee will be able to decide on this, but I think that if I was in their place, I would be reassured with someone who has already shown that they can work hard by taking part in ICANN/ALAC processes, but not necessarily holding any official position. Someone who has worked hard on some of the working group is reassuring. That being said, if the candidate has shown that they can work hard in similar volunteer positions outside of the ICANN/ALAC structure, so much the better! At Large needs to grow! We need more people to get involved! I think it's about track record, whether inside, or outside ICANN.

* 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?

Very good question, and one which comes up every time. :-) On Article VI, section 7 of the ICANN bylaws: "Directors shall serve as individuals who have the duty to act in what they reasonably believe are the best interests of ICANN and not as representatives of the entity that selected them, their employers, or any other organizations or constituencies." Full bylaws re: directors - http://www.icann.org/en/general/bylaws.htm#VI In practice, I think that At Large would like to elect someone who holds the same values as the majority of At Large members.

* 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?

This is a recurring question too, and I thought it was best explained in a graphic: Candidate SOI ---> BCEC selects it --yes---+--> Candidate on Voting Slate | ^ no | | | v | | | Support from --yes-->--/ RALO petition? | v | no ---> Candidate not on voting slate BCEC = Board Candidate Evaluation Committee In either case, the candidate has to have submitted an SOI to be considered. As for nominations, EURALO is carrying those out, in my opinion, ahead of time, in case some of the candidates who have submitted an SOI were not selected by the BCEC. So the RALO recommendations are only going to be taken into account in this occasion - and the support of 3 RALOs is required for a RALO petition, so it should be an exception rather than a rule. I hope this helps. Kindest regards, Olivier -- Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html