Re: User input in the ccSO (was Re: [ga] FW: Comment from the gTLD Registry Constituency

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@bertola.eu.org>]

On Mon, 30 Sep 2002 13:57:40 +1200, you wrote:

>There is an enormous range of responses to this issue -some local
>communities are developed along lines of "western" democratic institutions,
>others are still run relatively autocratically but benevolently  by original
>"friends of Jon" in the academic community. Many are run as quasi
>departments of the state, and among those there is a range of levels
>provided for user input into policy making. The top twenty (by registration
>no's ) cctlds that all provide some kind of policy making or policy advisory
>board, according to my private enquiries and experience.

I agree - for example, simply by showing up at annual meetings and exposing
user positions that were widely agreed, I could be elected as a member of
the .it policy board; something that, apparently, is practically impossible
in ICANN (I am very curious to see how many users will be part of the first
NomCom-selected Board).

It is true, though, that in many ccTLDs the influence on policy making
bodies and processes is restricted to a closed or paying membership - which
de facto restricts it almost completely to the registrar/registry/ISP
community.

It is also true that there are areas where coordinated action between ICANN
and the ccTLDs could benefit both of them. For example, since there is to be
some form of At Large membership, perhaps the ccTLDs who already have it or
want to have it could share the burden of registering individuals, so users
would sign up once for ICANN and for their ccTLDs, and the general workload
to maintain this membership would be smaller. This is definitely something
that the users and the ccSO should discuss in the near future.

>It is my hope that an ICANN could be constructed where by consensus among
>cctlds. operating in their own ccSO, that "Best Practices" could be
>developed for voluntary adoption by cctlds, and which would begin to have
>the moral authority of widely adopted consensus practice.
>
>Such a body would also continue the outreach which has been a feature of the
>cctld activity, and assist the development of those Practices in new and
>emerging countries. Naturally, this needs to be done with huge
>sensitivity -countries need to be entirely free to adopt policies that meet
>the local conditions.

Again, I agree with your view, and I agree that ccTLDs should not be forced
to adopt policies that they don't like (instead, they should be encouraged
to do so by the fact that those policies are good, and that most other
ccTLDs are adopting them). Anyway, since there are policies that would
benefit from central coordination - just to name one, WHOIS uniformity
across the ccTLDs - there must be a way for the ccSO to develop such
policies at a central level, with the input of the users too. This is why we
(as the ALAC Advisory Group) suggested that there should be an At Large
liaison to the ccSO Council. I would strongly suggest, for example, that
when the ccSO sets up working groups it should include a representative of
the ALAC in them. Would you consider this?
-- 
vb.               [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<------
--------> http://bertola.eu.org/ - Archivio FAQ e molto altro... <--------
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