Alan Greenberg wrote:
The substance was: The terms "At-Large" and "ALAC" are typically used interchangeably by much of ICANN. The original document from the Business Constituency did in fact reference "ALAC". I am afraid that I am the devil that caused it to change to "At-Large".
Alan, First of all, thanks for writing. I know Internet access has been difficult where you've been travelling and I appreciate both the time you've put into the entire process and your participation here.
My reasoning was that the ALAC is a properly constituted Board Advisory Committee within ICANN. Perhaps the lawyers and organization-gurus among us would have no problem with an Advisory body within ICANN being represented on a Supporting Organization Council. But I did. I am definitely not a lawyer and I hardly consider myself an organization guru. Quite the contrary, I frankly don't care how our resulting action looks like on an org chart.
My issues are simple. It's taken a long time to get ALAC to the level of maturity it now is. The group now has ICANN resource staff behind it in Frederic and Matthias, supporting Nick. After what's seemed like ageless internal navel-gazing over procedures, ALAC is finally starting to take some initiative and have an effect on ICANN policy -- specifically, the domain tasting issue. This appears to me the absolutely wrong time to extract it from contribution to the GNSO process. I understand that there may be a perceived conflict, that At-Large would be seen to be getting both an advisory role throughout ICANN plus an explicit vote/liaison at GNSO. I must say that this does not bother me -- At-Large has been getting the shaft from the ICANN policy process for a long time, and even this perceived conflict (ALAC still doesn't have a vote on the Board) does not go nearly as far IMO as is necessary to give the public voice its rightful prominence within ICANN. I don't like the idea of any attempt to create a parallel ALAC just in order to determine what At-Large reps participate in the GNSO.
I thought that this simply confused the relationships between the various bodies. Not to me, nor, from what I can tell to most others. The confusion is IMO a fabrication of those who want to continue to minimize the role of At-Large and its legitimate representative body, ALAC.
ALAC appoints a liaison to the Board and to other committees. It can also appoints liaisons to the GNSO (and I would hope eventually the CCNSO and any other NSOs as they are created). No confusion. And so long as ALAC doesn't have a vote on the board, not even a conflict. In any case, I had REALLY hoped that something this significant would have come back to the community for debate -- part of the reason for the response you saw was because of the apparently arbitrary resolution of this issue, without benefit of those -- the RALOs and ALSs -- directly affected by it.
So I suggested that references to ALAC be changed to At-Large. Now since At-Large can formally speak and act solely through the RALOs and the ALAC, presumably these bodies or their designates will play a significant role in selecting who is representing At-Large as members of an "At-Large Constituency" within the User stakeholder group You mean, like, ALAC selecting At-Large members to sit on GNSO? After all, what is ALAC _except_ for the voice of the RALOs? (well, it is also the NomComm appointees -- I really like the GNSO intended approach of shifting NomComm appointees from voting members to an advisory capacity. I hope this approach is suggested by the ALAC review).
In any case, whether they're called ALAC reps or whether ALAC selects "At-Large reps" who are not necessarily ALAC committee members, this is splitting hairs. What matters to me is that there must be no allowance for or suggestion of a parallel process to be created, that bypasses the ALAC, to determine the At-Large representation on the GNSO. Since not every ALS -- or even every RALO -- can have a GNSO seat, the people who are selected should be accountable to ALAC and subject to direction and/or recall. In other words, regardless of the specific process of appointments, ALAC will have some role. And I prefer to make that explicit and transparent, rather than to avoid mention now and have someone "discover" ALAC's involvement later. Of course, one reasonable option is to allocate five at-large seats, one for each RALO which could appoint them directly. This avoids ALAC, but leaves only one seat for NCUC. Personally, I could live with that quite happily... (Of course, I believe that At-Large should eventually comprise more than 50% of GNSO, but that's not going to happen in this go-round.) - Evan