RE: [ga] Proposed GA Adcom

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

> But lets' back up a little.  The intention of the Bye Laws is, I believe 
> (and I had some hand in them), that the GA is the General Assembly of all 
> the Constituencies, the Names Council and any one else who wants to 
> participate to contribute effort to the DNSO.

(In order to avoid going off into the weeds, I'll make my routine set of
disclaimers that it's my feeling that the NC constituency structure is far
from being truely representative of all who are impacted by DNS decisions.  
And that I tend to try to carry the flag on behalf of individuals.  OK,
now that that disclaimer is out of the way... ;-)

Yes, we need to reach a good working relationship between the NC and GA.
The GA is probably going to have a rather broader foundation of interests
(and perhaps technical knowledge) than the NC, so we want to capitalize on
that and, indeed, encourgage it as a very valuable resource.

To make that resource grow, the GA needs to have a good reason to believe
that its choices do have weight.

Treating the GA as simply a pool from which one draws people to be in
working groups and such is to diminish the value of the GA.

I personally see no harm, indeed I see great value, in having a GA that is
a forum for both structured and unstructed discussion.  (We may even find
our focused e-mail lists a bit more focused if we can work off some of the
steam in advance in a more generic forum.)

I originally thought "Oh no, not another layer of structure" when Nii
Quaynor first raised the issue.

But the more I thought about it the more I like the idea.  And here's why:
It serves as a counterbalance to the NC and its seven interest groups.

It may sound like a bit of new-age Zen, but there is value in having
tension between views.  It may seem more painful or slower, but it will,
at least I believe it will, produce better results, especially insofar as
it builds buy-in (and hence less subsequent objection) because of the
broader base of partipation.

As far as the notion of constituencies go, its my own feeling that it is
perhaps best if participation in the GA is done not wearing any
"constituency" hats.  Most of us have multiple points of view - from our
jobs and from our private lives - about the Internet.  We ought lean
towards a more ecumenical GA rather than a more adversarial one.

Allowing the GA to self-organize and self-regulate would, in my mind,
promote that kind of cooperative feeling, something we sorely need.


> The NC is the elected body - elected by the Constituencies - to 
> administer/manage  the affairs of the DNSO, and to act as the channel to 
> the Board.

Ah, but there are many who do not feel that they have a constituency for
their interests.  So we need to be careful not to think that the NC is
perceived by all as being a broad-based entity.

		--karl--