RE: [wg-review] We are in the starting line......

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

> >So, if enough folks decide that they want to get together to form an
> >"Intellectual Property" constituency - that's their choice - but the power
> >of that constituency would be exactly the number of individual voters
> >that it can convince of the merits of its position.
>
> Interesting concept, although I can see certain problems re:funding the
> DNSO if adopted. I can also see problems with "tyranny of the majority"

Good points, and well worth addressing.

Funding is certainly an issue, but locked-down constituency structures
would, in my mind, be less willing to cough up money - and why should
they?  They already have control.  (As an aside, I personally think that
the ICANN supporting organizations ought not to have to raise their own
operating funds - but that's a whole other discussion.)

As for the "tyranny of the majority".  I for one would rather have an
occassional tyrannic majority than several everpresent tyrannic
minorities.

Personally, I'm not worried about an overlording majority - there are so
many aspects of the DNS problem that I seriously doubt that any majority
for one issue will remain a undivided majority once another issue rolls
around.


> Then again, what's to prevent Incredibly Big Machinery Corporation, or
> NanoSquish, or some other (made up) large company from urging their
> employees to join and vote the party line? No change at all, under those
> circumstances.

It has always been the case that "he/she who organizes best wins the
prize".   Businesses are always in a good position to nudge their
employees.  But I personally would rather have corporate positions
moderated through the intermediary of (hopefully) thoughtful employees
rather than having the VP of Marketing come down and dictate DNS policy
directly. ;-)

(I know a lot of companies in which, if the company says "do A" the
employees will go out and do the opposite. ;-)


> However.....I think I could go for something that kept the constituency
> structure and made it more fluid (ie, easier for a constituency to disband
> or be created), allocated 1 NC seat per constituency, and allowed the
> remainder of the NC to be elected by the DNSO.

Who gets to decide what is and what is not a constituency?  That ability
to decide represents a big source of power.

The argument has been made that the existing constituencies will resist
change.  I don't think that that is the case.

My own sense is that the DNSO has gone bust and that it will continue to
be bypassed as a policy making body until it is reformed.

The sense that the DNSO has lost credibility is manifest in the way it has
been left out of nearly all of the major DNS policy decisions of the last
18 months.  (It is interesting to note that I've been climbing up the
ICANN appeals ladder - via Request for Reconsideration and now Request for
Independent Review - to put the DNSO back into the driver's seat of DNS
policy making, and I haven't seen a lot of cheerleaders come out of the
woods in favor of the that restoration.)

The folks in the existing constituencies are smart - they will realize
that preserving the present structure is to take a short ride to DNSO
irrelevance and thus to their own policymaking impotence.

The folks in the existing constituencies will remain vital and forceful
under a more fluid system - that's because they will continue to be well
equipped to organize no matter what the structure happens to be.

And the folks in the existing constituencies will benefit because a more
fluid constituency system will result in better debate - better in the
sense that when it is done more people will be willing to accept the
outcome.  That means more stable decisions, more stable policies - and
that's better for all the various business interests spread among the
existing constituencies.

		--karl--