Simple rebuttal: When in the course of human events we find it necessary to deal with a range of issues very connected with ICANN but not exclusive to ICANN, we may find it necessary to follow some of the guidelines of the ALAC process and form this structure, making use of this RALO structure to accomplish our ends, so as to avoid the criticism that, as an outside structure we have not followed their ICANN-ALAC process..
This is the process that is known to fail. I am at a loss to understand why you are bound and determined to follow it unless this is, as the line I snipped out suggested, all just a joke to you. By the way, why are you worried that someone might criticise you for not following the ICANN-ALAC process? As should be clear from the debate so far, the ICANN-ALAC process itself is of dubious legitimacy, and by following it you may well marginalize yourself. I know it hasn't helped my credibility any.
Again, if you don't think this is worth it, what do you fear from it's formation?
Nothing, really, other than giving yet more credibility to the claims that at large users have nothing to say so ICANN need no pay attention to their concerns. Danny's been there longer than I have, you really need to pay attention to what he says about it. Here's a concrete suggestion: let's pick an ICANN topic that's likely to be of interest to individual users. I suggest the current WHOIS debate. I presume you know what WHOIS is, the database that contains info about the registrants of all the dot this and dot that domains. There's a big argument going on about whether WHOIS should have minimal info to protect the privacy of people who register domains, or lots of info to help users who are phished, spammed, etc. by domain owners. As far as I know, you haven't participated in this debate so far. If there were a RALO, do you think you would participate? How would the RALO help you? Keep in mind that the RALO is going to consist of the people who are on this mailing list, and you would have access to the exact same ICANN and other resources that you have access to now. R's, John