Re: [ga] Two things troubling me with the GA Chair elections...

[John C Klensin <klensin@mci.net>]

--On Monday, December 06, 1999 12:22 -0800 "William X. Walsh"
<william@dso.net> wrote:

> Sorry, John, but I find this an easy position for you to take
> here, your interests are represented in the constituency
> structure, and thus in the NC. What about those of us who are
> not so represented?

William, like many others here, I've got a lot of interests.
Some of them are represented in the constituency structure, some
are not (e.g., I'm an individual/ semi-commercial domain name
holder whose rights to use the chosen name have been
questioned/challenged).   For those non-MCI WorldCom interests,
I believe myself to be about as well-represented by the NCDNC as
you probably believe yourself to be represented by, e.g., the
intellectual property group.  

You will also recall that I made a suggestion some time ago for
fixing this problem and getting the disenfranchised groups in
the GA some representation until things could be better worked
out.   That proposal disappeared due to a combination of (i)
lack of enthusiasm from elsewhere in the ICANN structure for
doing anything temporary, rather than trying to get the problem
solved (I can, and do, sympathize with that one, although it is
not the choice I would have made) and (ii) a lot of noise from
the GA list about how such a plan was completely unreasonable
unless it was used to select more NC members than the current NC
total.

But, ultimately, none of that is relevant.  If the ideas have
merit, they should be evaluated independent of what you think
about the source.  And, if they don't, they should be evaluated
independent of what you think about the source.   Even our
possibly-fictional contingent occasionally has good ideas,
although I wish that they would stop hiding those ideas behind
so much noise as to make them almost impossible to find.

And your options (like those of the rest of us) are to try to
accept the circumstances and context as given and try for the
best possible solution within those constraints or to give it up
and either "say no" or, like some others, try to disrupt things
until they get your way (or on the theory that, if one can't get
one's way, no one else should either).   Personally, I happen to
prefer the approach of trying to make the system work, and work
better, but that is a matter of taste.   I think my taste in
that regard is determined by personal preference, rather than
whether or not I'm "well represented", but, in the last
analysis, that really doesn't make much difference.

     john