[registrars] Consensus Historical Analysis

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

As one of the "framers" of the original Constituency by-laws back in Berlin
1999, I thought it beneficial to share with everyone some previous
discussions about consensus and representation within the constituency.

When the constituency was first formed, the concept of one registrar-one
vote was deeply entrenched into our discussion for obvious reasons, at that
time NSI had a 100% of the market. Over the years the one vote per registrar
regardless of size has remained a founding principle of the constituency.
The only deviation to this principle has surfaced in connection with the
recent consolidation with some registrars holding multiple accreditations.
As was originally voted upon last year and reaffirmed in the vote taken at
the start of the Dulles meeting, the spirit of original by-laws remains, one
vote per registrar parent company, regardless of the number of its
subsidiaries or accreditations it may acquire through the continued
consolidation occurring within the industry.

Regarding "consensus" there have been extensive discussion in the past
within the constituency and ICANN about what magical number represents
consensus. The answer unfortunately is that consensus is another ambiguous
ICANN term that is manipulated to conform to the definition of the
party(ies) advancing their particular interest.

Because of this historical quagmire, and my experiences in Melbourne
Australia, I have tried to avoid using the term consensus completely and
instead just report the FACTS, i.e. X number of undersigned registrars
support this statement. I then believe it useful to reference the total
number of registrars within the constituency and how many voted for a
baseline reference.

After the Stockholm vote of 23-2 on the AUTOACK policy, the two minority
registrars undertook a new twist to further convolute the consensus debate
by arguing the baseline criteria should not be just registrars within the
constituency but all ICANN accredited registrars.

Therefore the Net-Net. Rick should take a vote on a particular paper and
then report the results in detail.

I believe this allows Rick to move forward with the task at hand instead of
spinning his wheels where others have in the past.

Best regards,

Mike