[ga] Re: NC Review Task Force -- Captured by Business Interests ??

["Ross Wm. Rader" <ross@tucows.com>]

Danny,

Thanks for the thoughtful response. My comments are interspersed below.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a dialogue that intelligently looks at
the root causes of some of the problems that you have identified and assists
the GA in fulfilling a more meaningful role within the DNSO.

> If I may ask a question... you speak of rough consensus and running code.
> The GA has already arrived at consensus regarding the need to immediately
> establish an individuals constituency and the need to restructure the
DNSO.
> Now that such determinations have been made by this Assembly, how would
your
> running code analogy bring these propositions to fruition?

I'm pretty sure that you are not going to like this answer, but its an
honest one, so here goes. As an interested observer, I have not valued a
determination of consensus coming from the GA for quite some time. There are
almost 1000 people that subscribe to the GA mailing list and 454 registered
members of the GA. I see neither the participation nor the support of a vast
number of these people for the resolutions or positions coming out of the
GA. You touched on this on your post of July 8th of this year in which you
indicated that "From June 8 to July 8 there were 1021 posts to the main GA
list by 62 individuals. Six people accounted for half of all the posts."
Unless you are imply that these 62 individuals are somehow representative of
the other 454, it cannot be legitimately argued that the GA can achieve
consensus on any issue. I submit that the GA needs to undertake a lot of
work, very similar to what the Registrar Constituency is undertaking
actually, that lays the necessary foundation for productive, meaningful
work. This means process, identity, goals, outreach and much more. I don't
see this work being done.

Unless the GA gets its house in order, the GA will continue to suffer. As I
mentioned in a recent letter to the Registrar Constituency, it is time for
the cooks to regain control of the kitchen. I submit that this holds true fo
r the GA as well.

>
> There is no value in arriving at consensus just for the sake of stating
that
> we have arrived at consensus.  The Non-Com's routinely arrive at consensus
> within their constituency and present resolutions at every plenary
session.
> It gets them nowhere, as they are ignored by both the Council and the
Board,
> as is the GA.
>
> You argue that "I haven't heard anyone state that individuals don't need
> meaningful representation within ICANN".  That may be true, but no
> constituency other than the non-coms has gone on record as actually
> supporting an individuals constituency (and that includes your
constituency).

I can't speak for my constituency nor others, but I can say that there are a
lot of things that the registrars don't currently have a position on. This
cannot continue and as such, is one of my higher priority goals for the
coming year. Lack of position does not indicate lack of interest however. I
have great hope that our team can get to the point very quickly where our
collective views on this very important issue (and others) are formally
presented for discussion.

>  Has any constituency articulated that they believe in the principle
> articulated by both the ALSC and the Board that representation must
accompany
> participation?  If so, they would be arguing for representational rights
for
> the GA that enjoys no voting power within the DNSO.
>
> Instead a concerted effort has been made to both deny representative
rights
> to individuals and to prevent GA members from fully participating in the
> substantive work of the DNSO.  Open working groups do not exist under the
> current Council regime.   Tell me how your running code attends to these
> issues.

Until the GA gets to the point where it is organized and focused enough to
be taken seriously, it won't be. Exchanges such as the one that I saw
yesterday do not contribute positively to this effort and, at the very
least, should not be socially encouraged or implicitly endorsed.

-rwr

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