RE: [ga] on using appropriate tools

[Joanna Lane <jo-uk@rcn.com>]

I concur with those who wish to avoid introducing new voting procedures that
may prevent progress being made at this critical stage in the GA's future,
but as the Chair is now casting doubt on the value of using the usual
Secretariat Voting procedure as part of a Consensus Building Mechanism
related to all but internal procedural matters, it seems necessary to make
some comments to address this aspect. Part of what follows has been
contributed by William Lovell, an Attorney at Law, who for health reasons,
is unable to participate directly at this time.

------------------------------

It is somewhat incongruous to talk about building consensus, and votes, at
the same time. According to what is probably the most authoritative resource
in the field, which is The Consensus Building Handbook: A Comprehensive
Guide to Reaching Agreement prepared by The Consensus Building Institute
(Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi, 1999), Lawrence
Susskind, Sarah McKearnan, Jennifer Thomas-Larmer, Eds., "consensus" means
essentially that everyone has agreed, the matter is settled, there is really
no need for a vote, so let's all cool it and go fishing. Consensus building
is not, or at least ought not to be, a politically or ideologically charged
kind of thing.

The qualification is made, however, that not every group can reasonably set
the reaching of a consensus (as so defined) as its goal. The kinds of
organizations that can reasonably seek a consensus are those that have some
degree of permanence, together with a common purpose to realize certain
(identified, or at least identifiable) long term goals. In any such group
there is also a kind of "institutional memory" that can guide the course of
the deliberations. These are lacking in ad hoc committees and groups, and
reaching any consensus by them is much less likely. The General Assembly may
be said to have some permanence, and at least some long term common goals,
but it often acts by way of small groups of active individuals who have
simply taken up some topic of current interest, and in that process the long
term DNSO (and ICANN) goals may become lost.

Even when no such groups have formally been designated (as "working groups,"
"task forces" or the like), business is being conducted on the Internet, so
the "membership" of what amounts to the "decision making body " (those
within the GA who post messages on an Issue) is very fluid -- people "jump
in" on what interests them, often ignoring the rest, so at any given time it
is difficult to find the "institutional memory" out of which some common
view of things could develop. They are all ad hoc, and the fact that
whatever may come out of any such group must ultimately gain the approval of
the GA as a whole does not help in structuring that work product in the
first place. Nevertheless, it is the action of seeking approval (or
disapproval) of the GA as a whole that ensures the institutional memory is a
factor in the decision making process.

On some Issues there may indeed be no institutional memory; if there is,
those speaking out on a matter may have no idea what it is; and finally if
people only join in on matters that particularly interest them, almost by
definition they will more likely act in their own interest rather than the
long term interests and purposes of the General Assembly. So there seems to
be a case here in which one indeed can -- and perhaps must -- mix consensus
building with a formal decision-making process involving a Vote of the whole
Assembly.

Notably, the two Motions, "Rebid ICANN Contracts" and the "Principles of
Reform" sought to establish worthy common goals for the GA's long term
future and in view of the results, one could now reasonably expect the
entire assembly to be seeking out ways in which to advance those specific
goals, as a priority over other issues about which the entire Assembly has
not yet been given the opportunity to express its preferences.

Meanwhile the GA continues to be starved of proper funding for professional
Secretariat support, website development, attendance at GA meetings,
outreach and so on. Furthermore, it is now being asked to reduce its Voting
capability to one public web-interface polling booth. This is the opposite
of what it needs. The GA must widen its narrow range of tools, something
ICANN has systematically refused to entertain, even though it refers
significant policy development back to the DNSO's door and demands top
quality product on which its own credibility relies. The dire shortage of
any reasonable level of practical working tools is the problem, not the
"inappropriate use" of the one and only formal Voting mechanism at its
disposal.

Regarding public vs. private ballots, let me put it this way. An individual
with a conscience holds themselves accountable for how they vote, whether in
public or in private. The difference is the opportunity for coercion and
intimidation that a public vote presents. A public vote creates a barrier to
entry for many people, but there is a gray area here regarding the nature
and extent of secrecy surrounding a secret ballot. In aggregated form, it
might be possible for additional data to be released, such as regional
trends and so on. Possibilities there perhaps.

There is also a process called "investigation" which precedes the Vote and
establishes direct contact with identifiable groups affected by the issues
on the table and obtains their feedback to ensure all views are taken into
account. The final Vote is just that, but preceding that final step are any
number of others, including discussion in various fora, informal Polls and
numerous papers, letters and articles submitted and published in the public
domain by organizations, constituencies and individuals, all received and
discussed in advance of any formal Vote being taken, or so it should be.

Your suggestion is not in my view a substitute for the current system to
take a formal secret Vote of the whole GA, it simply adds to the pool of
concrete consensus building mechanisms at the GA's disposal for conducting
the investigations and informal polls.

Regards,
Joanna


Thomas Roessler wrote:-
> > Thinking a bit more about some of the recent discussions here, I
> > arrive at the conclusion that a considerable part of the problems we
> > are experiencing is caused by the use of an inappropriate tool:
> > Votes like we are using them right now are _not_ the tool we
> > _should_ be using in order to make declarations of the intent of the
> > members of the GA.

> >
> >
> > More precisely, a vote is an instrument by which some well-defined
> > body comes up with a collective decision.  The accountability for   the
> > outcome of the vote is collective; individual members are not   held
> > accountable for their individual votes.  For this reason, votes  are
> > held in secret. In particular, a vote deliberately withholds a
> > considerable amount of information from the public.

> >
> > It is also bad to arbitrarily add new members to the voting registry
> > for a particular vote: Suddenly, the body making the decision is no
> > longer well-defined; the result of the vote ("body x says y") itself
> > becomes ill-defined as a consequence.

> >
> > Such votes are an appropriate tool when the GA actually acts as a
> > homogeneous body, that is, when it elects a chairman or
> > representatives to task forces, or when it votes on its internal
> > procedures: Votes are appropriate whenever the question at hand is  how
> > the GA as a group of individuals can best organize its
> > activities.
> >
> >
> > Votes are, however, not appropriate when GA statements are made on
> > substance.  There are several reasons for this.
> >
> > Most importantly, the GA is _not_ acting as a homogeneous body when
> > it comes to substantial topics: We are a mix of constituency members
> > and interested individuals, of stakeholders and slashdotters.  We   may
> > even want to take into account outside support for substantial
> > statements (Jamie tried this; similarly, it may be interesting to
> > shop for support for a uniform deletions policy or certain transfer
> > policies at nsihorrorstories.com).  What the resolutions discussed
> > here are about is not a _decision_ within a homogeneous body, but a
> > demonstration of support (and, possibly, objection!) from those who
> > want to demonstrate that support (or objection).
> >
> > For such a demonstration, the deliberate loss of information which   is
> > connected with the current voting mechanism is not desirable: An
> > explicit list of supporters of a resolution makes a lot more sense
> > than the apples-and-oranges statement that "the DNSO's GA has voted
> > for xyz".  In fact, I'd even go a step further than just making the
> > voting process transparent: Let's get rid of the voting registry and
> > the complex apparatus we are using altogether, as far as substantive
> > resolutions are concerned (as opposed to questions of the internal
> > organization of the GA).

> >
> >
> > So, here's my suggestion for how to deal with future resolutions:   Set
> > up separate web archives where support and objection are
> > collected.  The easiest way to do this is to have two separate mail
> > addresses, like <resolution-[veryshorttitle]-support@dnso.org> and
> > <resolution-[veryshorttitle]-object@dnso.org>.  Connect each of
> > these addresses to a web archive.  Distribute a message like the
> > following one widely (very rough draft), including to the members of
> > the voting registry:
> >
> >
> > 	If you support the above resolution, please send an e-mail
> > 	message to <...-support@dnso.org>; if you object, please
> > 	send an e-mail message to <...-object@dnso.org>.  If you
> > 	want to explicitly record your abstention, send a message to
> > 	<...-abstain@dnso.org>.
> >
> > 	In your message, please indicate your name, and possible
> > 	membership in a DNSO constituency.  Please use the following
> > 	template:
> >
> > 	Name:
> > 	Membership: {ga/ga-voting-registry/constituency/external}
> >
> > Define a deadline for the submission of these messages, and produce
> > the final report when that deadline is over: Namely, the
> > resolution's text, and the lists of supporters and objectors,
> > including their kind of DNSO membership.
> >
> > To summarize, the process suggested has the following benefits over
> > the current approach:
> >
> > - The resulting statement is well-defined.
> > - The process is transparent and can be implemented with
> >   considerably less effort than the voting process; in particular,  the
> >   safeguards necessary to ensure the integrity of a secret vote are not
> >   needed here.
> > - The very concept of capture does not make any sense, since it is
> >   reasonably transparent who does and says what.  In particular,  there
> >   is no voting registry to be stuffed.
> >
> > Of course, one may argue that this approach is relying on the
> > integrity of the Internet e-mail system too heavily; indeed, faking   a
> > statement of support is as easy as faking an e-mail message.
> >
> > If this is a concern, the software used would have to be somewhat
> > more complex: The software would have to send a message to the
> > e-mail address given which contains the resolution's text and asks
> > for confirmation.  The simplest approach to implement this is like
> > this: For each incoming message at one of the -support, -object, or
> > -abstain addresses, create a random unique secret string [from a
> > well-defined and safe to handle set of characters].  Use that as the
> > file name under which you temporarily store the message.  Demand   that
> > confirmations be sent to ...-{support,object,abstain}-<magic>.  Have a
> > mail bot listening at that address strip the magic out of   the
> > address, and move the saved message into the archive.  After the  end
> > of the vote, move unconfirmed messages into separate archives.
> >
> > Shouldn't be hard to do.
> >
> > (If you're unsure about the process I'm describing - it's the same
> > thing which is commonly done to confirm mailing list subscriptions
> > nowadays.)

> >
> >
> > Comments?
> > --
> > Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org]On Behalf Of James
> Love
> Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 8:17 AM
> To: roessler@does-not-exist.org
> Cc: ga@dnso.org
> Subject: Re: [ga] on using appropriate tools
>
>
> Thomas, while you work on a proposal a new method of recording the views
> of the Internet community of issues concerning ICANN, there is a rapid
> process for reshaping ICANN into an unaccountable and undemocratic
> institution with a very broad policy mandate.   It seems to me that *now*
> is the time to use whatever tools are left to oppose the worst features of
> that.  It seems to me that refusing to use those tools now is a strategic
> effort to protect the ICANN board from effective criticism during the
> period when they will attempt to persuade the world they have consensus
> for thatwever is done in Bucharest.   What you propose below is to stop
> the GA from having an effective voice in the current reform debate, which
> is taking place right now.
>      Jamie
>
> PS... the deep seated hostility to the use of voting by the public, even
> in cases where the votes have no binding legal significance, for anything
> important in the reform process, is of course consistent with the "reform"
> process proposals....
>
>

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