Re: [ga] GA representation on the Names Council

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Wed, Nov 17, 1999 at 10:52:46PM -0500, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:

> 	Yes and no, I think.  It's true that one of the major problems with the
> current DNSO structure is that the NC is composed of people selected by the
> constituencies, and offers no representation to the many who are outside
> the constituencies.  That fact makes it unsurprising that, say, Nii and
> Karl Auerbach got extensive support from within the GA when it came to
> ICANN BoD nominations, but little support from within the NC.

Nii is a businessman, and controls an ISP.  

> This is a
> Bad Thing:  It's not justifiable, I think, to privilege in DNSO
> decisionmaking the folks who happen to be members of the (themselves
> arbitrary) NC constituencies.

The constituencies are not arbitrary.  They were arrived at 
through a long and painful process.

> The NC, further, shouldn't use the GA's
> dysfunctionality as an excuse for ignoring the beam in its own eye.

The NC is far from perfect,  but there is no honest comparison of levels 
of dysfunctionality.  The NC actually is working; the GA is not.

> 	I'm not sure, though, that any of that is the *reason* the GA list is
> functioning so poorly.  A lot of folks within the GA, surely, distrust the
> NC because of these concerns; but the folks who are most responsible for
> disrupting the GA list, I think, are primarily driven by ego and
> testosterone and I don't know what else.  

The ego/testosterone/idealogue/power-obsessed behavior in the GA has
another effect -- it drives out many people who would otherwise be 
positive contributors.

> I doubt that suggestions like the
> one below would quiet them -- which leaves us with the issue of how to
> address the problems with the GA list.

I don't think there is a quick fix, unfortunately.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain