Re: [ga] PROPOSED CROSS CANDIDATE PLATFORM

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

Jefsey Morfin wrote:

> On 12:07 25/08/01, William S. Lovell said:
> >I'm afraid that what we are seeing here is "good old American politics."
>
> Dear Bill,
> My point was targeted to the whole ICANN decision taking system. Your post
> is quite interesting: I would fully support you should I be a Yankee. But I
> am not.
>
> We faced that problems in France and addressed them.  Elections and public
> mandates are state business. So State pays for them: funding is mostly by
> the State, expenses are controlled, wealth increases during a mandate are
> to be reported/will be scrutinized, no business funding. I do not claim it
> is perfect and there are no bypasses. I say there is a clear system
> according to a voted policy.
>
> Questions are simple:
> - is the ICANN an US or an International venture?.
> - is the ICANN a business or a common interest endeavor?

I say that ICANN is an international, common interest
endeavor for the public good. The fact that it is being run
as a business accounts for its abuses of its clientele  (I
refuse to use the term "customer' in this context, since
that only exacerbates the problem. I've said before, and
repeat now, that no one in ICANN knows how to run
a non-profit, public interest entity.)

(The U. S. Patent and Trademark Office has adopted a
"business model," and if anyone is interested I'll fill them
in on how the quality of the service has plummeted.)

> - is "one dollar one vote" better for the ICANN that "one
> concern/competence/interest one vote"?

No. It is not a matter of having to pay to vote; it is a matter of
providing support money (no strings attached) the the candidate
of your choice: you get to vote whether you donate money or
not, but if you do donate, at least the candidate you want will
have ore of a fighting chance to win.

> I do not want to argue or campaign on this. I want us to consider the
> problem. I therefore propose the following cross-candidate position -
> Joana, Amadeu, Paul and Eric are more than welcome to support it if they want:
>
> "every proposition made and every decision taken at the ICANN should include:
> - a part telling how this proposition or this decision fights the lingual,
> digital and financial divides.
> - a part telling concisely how participants have covered its costs
> (secretariat, time, travel, telephone, etc...): family money, Xxx Inc.
> professional duty, Zzz Gov representation, foundation.
> "
> Is there anything there anyone can object? I would be glad to know.

These are excellent suggestions -- the U. S. Congress now includes "fiscal
impact" statements in its legislation, as do a lot of states.  However, this is
too ambitious for ICANN or the GA right now, methinks.  In the past it's been
hard enough to get any kind of full explanation of the reasons for this or that
kind of proposal or whatever (Best Practices is designed, through its insistence
on having a Basis before a Proposal can be recognized), and to try at this
stage to add what you lay out would probably be too much adaptation at once.

Bill


The URLs for Best Practices:
DNSO Citation:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/gaindex.html
(Under "Other Information Documents"; "August 2001:
Proposal for Best Practices for the DNSO GA")
Part I:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BestPractices.html
Part II:
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20010813.GA-BP-flowchart.pdf
(Access to the .pdf file requires installing the Adobe Acrobat
Reader, which is available for free down load at
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.)


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