Re: [ga] The Real World

["Roberto Gaetano" <ploki_xyz@hotmail.com>]

Good morning.

I believe that the points made by Kent should be discussed further.

Kent Crispin wrote:
>
>You are mixing two things: the idea of representation of the interest of
>individuals, and the idea of an individuals constituency as a practical
>construct.  There is very wide support for the former, in ICANN, and in
>the constituencies.
>
>However, there is much less support for the latter, and for good reason
>-- the various activities in that area have been essentially incoherent,
>and dominated, not by the actual interests of individuals as they
>pertain to the domain name system, but rather by the interests of
>zealots and would-be demagogues, advocates of generalized internet
>democracy, speculators, alt-root proponents, kooks, and other vocal special
>interests that are in fact a vanishingly small proportion of the real
>individual users of the Interenet/DNS.
>

Let's be clear. We are talking here about the creation of a Constituency for 
Individual Domain Name Holders.
There is no doubt that there will be many of the categories you mention, but 
I do believe that there will be also normal individuals seeking a 
representation in the grand scheme of things. Maybe they will not be the 
most vocal participants, but they will be there.

I think that the assumption that this constituency will be dominated by 
kooks (in terms of voting weight, not in terms of flooding the list) is not 
supported by evidence. But even if this were the case, we are speaking of 
additional three NC seats on a grand total of 24, hardly a possibility of 
disrupting NC (although I admit that a couple of past NC votes that passed 
with a tiny majority could have had a different outcome).

So, on one hand we have a limited risk and the chance of a big improvement 
in the representativity of the DNSO, on the other hand we have the 
maintenance of the statu quo, and the legitimate doubt about the claimed 
willingness to open up to new participants. Maybe the real answer lies 
exactly in the few cases where the NC votes passed by tiny majority, because 
that will be the only practical effect?

My past experience as GA Chair is that a non negligeable number of good 
contributors got tired of the endless discussions non counterbalanced by any 
real chance to influence things. These contributors would be still part of 
the GA now if the situation was different. This, IMHO, means that if a real 
constituency will be given a chance, there will be many potential good 
contributors who would participate. Of course there will be kooks, but a 
constituency would be better equipped to deal with them than the GA, for 
instance.

A last comment on representativity. Would this constituency be 
representative of "all" Individual DN holders? As you said, probably not. 
Probably the only constituency that enjoyed this global representativeness 
of its potential membership has been the gTLD Constituency in the old days 
of NSI's monopoly, but it was so special that ICANN needed a special rule to 
deal with it.
Jokes apart, yes, it will not be representative of its potential membership, 
at least initially. But, as you note, neither the NCC does, nevertheless, it 
exists and plays a useful role.
This problem can be cured, if there is real availability and openness at 
ICANN's and NC's level. What about an initial charter, with a reasonable 
"evaluation time" and concrete (achievable) targets for representativeness? 
After this time (one year?) ICANN could revise the situation and 
definitively endorse the constituency, or disband it.
I do believe that, given the chance, the Individual DN Holders could make 
good use of this "probation time" to outreach the potential membership, and 
get them involved (and eventually outnumber kooks). But if this chance is 
not given, things will never happen. It is dramatically different to bring 
people that have a real interest in the issues into a well-formed 
constituency, with representation at the NC level, and a chance to have its 
voice heard, and to bring people into a mailing list like the GA.

Regards
Roberto


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