Re: [Membership] ICANN: The Issue of Membership

["Joe Sims" <Joe_Sims@jonesday.com>]

__________________________________________________________________________

This message is intended for the individual or entity named above.   If
you are not the intended recipient, please do not read, copy, use or
disclose this communication to others; also please notify the sender by
replying to this message, and then delete it from your system.  Thank you.
__________________________________________________________________________

This is weird.  First you complain that the ICANN Board never speaks, then
when a Board member speaks you tell him to shut up.  As Greg's second post
makes clear, he is trying -- for no compensation and clearly no glory -- to
figure out how to make this work, while you and some others appear only
interested in promoting your personal version of the public interest.  I
would think that any serious participant in this debate would want to have
more input from and interchange with the Board members; flaming every
posting they make is not likely to produce this result.  On the merits,
Greg's point seemed pretty clear and even logical, although you are of
course entitled to disagree:  if the ICANN At Large members are going to be
any individual who wants to join, and they are going to elect half the
Board, and the Board will make policy decisions after recommendations from
the SO's, and any such decisions can only be made after full public
disclosure in advance and an opportunity for public comment, then it might
make sense for the SO's to have only organizations as members, which would
be organizationally and logistically much simpler for them, and more
consistent with their basically technical and specialized function.    You
should feel free to explain why you think this is not a good idea, but if
the decibels were lower and there were fewer insults, it would likely
produce more and more intelligent debate.


                                                                  
 (Embedded                                                        
 image moved   Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org>                 
 to file:      01/31/99 03:21 AM                                  
 pic10130.pcx)                                                    
                                                                  


Extension:

To:   Greg Crew <gregcrew@iaccess.com.au>
cc:   Joop Teernstra <terastra@terabytz.co.nz>, membership@icann.org,
      discuss@dnso.org, domain-policy@open-rsc.net, Roberto Gaetano
      <Roberto.Gaetano@etsi.fr> (bcc: Joe Sims/JonesDay)
Subject:  Re: [Membership] ICANN: The Issue of Membership




Greg Crew a écrit:
>
> I regret you have chosen to interpret my comments in a negative way. It
was
> a suggestion that representation in ICANN be considered in the aggregate,
> with SO's and AL membership structures together ensuring all possible and
> interested constituents have a voice.

If you want the ICANN and SO memberships to be aggregate, please issue a
retraction of the Dec.21st press release in which the SOs were coerced into
incorporating separately by a denial to them of ICANN's financial support
in
case of litigation.

> I did not imply that the ICANN board would reject a model developed by
the
> DNSO, or any SO.

You are in a position of power. All statements from the ICANN board are
considered as imperatives, and can have a sudden and decided influence on
the course of events. It is highly dangerous for ICANN board members,
especially at this formative stage, to emit comments of any sort without
considering very carefully the possible consequences of them.

You may not realize, furthermore, just what a sensitive point are ICANN's
methods and lack of openness. Your suggestion that transparency is
accomplished by publishing a policy for comments after it has been made,
cannot be taken as anything other than more of the same indifference on
ICANN's part towards the community
that has plagued this process since it began.

If, like myself and many of the others who read your posting, you had sent
comment after comment to comments@iana.org during the drafting of the ICANN
bylaws, only to have them fall into limbo, with no reply or incorporation
of
them, or any hint that they were even read, you would understand what your
suggestion of yesterday must recall to those who read it. If you sincerely
desire a constructive outcome to what we are engaged in, I urge you, for
your own sake, not to say or do anything that will make matters worse.

pic10130.pcx