Alan Greenberg wrote:
I find this a rather curious comment. Many (perhaps most) of the NomCom appointees to the ALAC and GNSO that I am familiar with have little or no background with ICANN before their appointment. It is certainly the situation in my case.
The criteria -- formal or informal -- used to seek and choose candidates helps enforce a certain kind of philosophical orthodoxy. ICANN experience is not necessarily a component of that. When was the last time that the NomComm appointed someone for ALAC who had _zero_ experience in Internet governance? This characteristic is shared by the overwhelming majority of the public-at-large which ALAC is supposed to represent. It fits me and quite a few other people here. If ICANN wants to educate and hear from the otherwise-disinterested public, then it /must/ be aware of the perspective of such "IG virgins". And yet a lack of such experience would almost certainly be a cause for disqualification for NomComm consideration.
Also, ALAC currently names almost 1/3 of the NomCom. If these people are helping to appoint such poor contributors to the At-Large cause, then we are either naming people who don't espouse our views, or who are particularly poor in persuading their colleagues regarding what is needed.
I'm having difficulty constructing the point of what that sentence is trying to say, especially who is referred to as "we". If the point is that the elected ALAC reps are failing to convince the appointed ones of their POV, my response would be -- so what? Why should the representatives of the grassroots have to convince non-grassroots ALAC members of validity of their cause? How many other interest groups have such "devils advocates" inflicted upon them by ICANN? Such defence of ALAC's views will have to happen anyway once they confront those of ICANN's other constituencies, at the level of the NSOs and the Board. But under the current regime, our positions -- as in, the actual initiatives and views of the grassroots -- are compromised and watered down before they even leave ALAC. I prefer to deal with the general question differently. Rather than engage on the merits of appointees, I want to be told what ICANN has against giving full trust within ALAC to democratic vote and accountable delegates. If there are groups that are under-represented, well then that's what outreach is for. We address that problem by empowering the public, not by pretending their interests are represented by unaccountable appointees. - Evan