Re: [ga] DNSO Constituency Structure

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Sun, 25 Nov 2001 21:05:28 -0500, "Gomes, Chuck"
<cgomes@verisign.com> wrote:

>As I have communicated before, in person in GA meetings and on this list, I
>believe that a new constituency should organize itself and demonstrate
>strong representativeness of the community involved and then submit its
>proposal for recognition.  Just because the idea of an individuals
>constituency makes sense to many of us, that is not enough to approve it.
>If I was a board member I would want to see evidence of an organization that
>is functioning or at least ready to function and one that can show that it
>represents a reasonable sample of the population it claims to represent.  In
>my opinion that has never happened.

This sounds reasonable but in practice this sets barriers that were
not demanded of any of the existing constituencies.  What % of ISPs
take part in the ISP constituency - I would say 0.1%.

What % of businesses take part in business constituency - I'd say
0.0001%.  

Add onto that the huge resource limitations any individual's
constituency will have compared to businesses and organisations and
the playing field is not merely uneven - it is titled at around 89.9
degrees.

What is wrong with doing what basically happened to the other seven
constituencies.  Approve the concept in principle and then you will
find members and structure will come easily.  Also one could assert
that as a constituency can change its charter at will from that
initially approved why worry about what is there at the moment of
application as it could change the next day?

>I personally think that a legitimate proposal that is backed up by a solid
>organizational structure and clear evidence of fairly broad representation
>from the involved community would be hard to deny even by those who may
>philosophically oppose such a constituency.

I agree and would like to see this happen.  However it is pretty hard
to motivate individuals to spend the hundreds of hours needed and to
donate the thousands of dollars also needed on something which doesn't
even have any helpful encouragement from ICANN - just more barriers.

What is wrong with recognising what we all know that there is a huge
gaping hole in the non representation of individuals in the DNSO,
approve a constituency in principle and set some minimum benchmarks in
terms of membership, representativeness and funding it has to achieve.
You do that and I'll happily spend hundreds of hours and a fair amount
of my own money making such a constituency happen, as will many
others.

>As I understand the bylaws, a proposal from the board is allowable, but it
>certainly does not seem to be forthcoming.  So sitting around waiting for
>this seems futile.  It seems smarter to self-organize.  I say that
>understanding the enormity of the task which brings me to the ALSC
>recommendations.  The users SO may be the most realistic way of
>accomplishing the objectives related to an individuals constituency.

Only if the DNSO is removed of its responsibility for domain name
issues.  Also with all due respect the suggested ALSO is guaranteed to
be dominated by business and trademark interests due to the funding it
would need to be even partially effective.

>I like the concept of a Users SO, a Producers SO and a Developers SO like
>the ALSC proposed, although I have not particularly fond of the name
>"developers" as applied to the ASO and PSO.

The divide between producers and developers seems to me to be entirely
artificial and simply a way of justifying reducing at large numbers
from 50% to 33%.

DPF
--
david@farrar.com
ICQ 29964527
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