[ga] A Different Approach

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

For many years a lot of people have worked hard to have a mechanism
where individual internet users can have input into ICANN.  But both
the IDNO and now icannatlarge.org have ended in failure.  IDNO spent
several years trying to get things to happen but died and
icannatlarge.org in a year has failed to even agree on the most basic
things and has now lost almost every panelist.

Both these organisations tried to set them selves up from scratch with
no common agreement on anything except we want to have an organisation
and hence got so bogged down in issues of process that as Danny
Younger points out there was never any opportunity for people to
discuss issues of substance such as whois policies, UDRP, deletions,
transfers which are real issues being decided which affect the people
we want to give a voice to.

So rather than repeat the mistakes of our past, I would like to try
setting something up a different way and I am seeking offers from
volunteers who would help me with this.

I want to try and establish the framework for an individual
registrants constituency within the GNSO.  I think it will be
difficult to set up a meaningful at large organisation until the
interim ALAC has come up with details on how the RALOS will work and
associated criteria.  I expect that to take some time.  However we
have a functioning GNSO with criteria on how to apply for a new
constituency.  And also of importance as with the dissolving of the GA
there is no way to get registrant representation on Taskforces without
such a constituency, so I see this as the better opportunity for now.

Instead of calling for 1,000 members up front and then expecting they
will be happy with years of inaction while we battle on structure and
process, I want to have a small group of people work on putting
together a workable, open, transparent structure for the proposed
constituency and then for it to be taken out to individual registrants
for their support and it would of course only be successful if there
is over whelming support for the end product.

As an unbreakable condition of involvement in putting together such a
structure, the people involved would be barred from standing for any
office of any sort for a period of at least one, maybe two or more
years.  Taking part would be as a public service only and with no
possibility of personal promotion or office.

This group would set itself a maximum 6 - 9  month time line to come
up with the following for a proposed individual registrants
constituency:

- Mission
- Constitution
- Infrastructure (website, e-mail, online membership, banking)
- Process for Ratification by Registrants including minimum numbers
- Process for Application to GNSO of ICANN

I believe you need to work on it all together as one package as trying
to do everything sequentially has shown not to work very well.  I also
believe it needs a very precise focus - its role is to represent gTLD
registrants within the GNSO of ICANN and all efforts should be on
getting a process which will allow that to happen.  Other
organisations such as icannatlarge.org/com can focus on wider issues.

Now some may not like this approach and prefer others.  That is fine -
I am not asking for universal blessing at this stage.  What I am after
is expressions of interest from up to say 15 people who will actually
put in the hard work to come up with something which is good enough
that registrants will flock to it, to have their say.  So I'm talking
about people who will do detail work, who will spend a bit of their
own money in paying for initial costs like domain names, secure
banking services, who are of high integrity and who are willing to
rule themselves out of any immediate leadership role once the
constituency is up and running.  

And most of all people who know that there is no guarantee of success
- that all their work may come to nothing unless what we come up with
is supported widely by the registrant community.

So if you like challenges and want to try and make a difference,
contact me and we'll see what we can do.  I'm willing to spend six
months working on it and hope a few others will be also.  Note that to
make this workable an organising group of 100 people will not work, so
if you are not involved during this process, you'll have the
opportunity to have your say when there is some output to be consulted
on.

DPF
--
E-mail: david@farrar.com
ICQ:    29964527
MSN:    dpf666@hotmail.com
--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html