Re: [wg-review] constituency composition

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Wed, Dec 27, 2000 at 07:42:59AM -0500, Peter de Blanc wrote:
> Historical evidence shows that certain alignments occur in the Names
> Council.
> 
> For example, it is more likely that ISP/CP, BIZ, REG, IP, and GTLD will form
> a voting block as a group.

Over some issues, yes.  But, for example, the IP constituency would, on
a average, rather see no new gTLDs, and has fought against their
introduction since before there was an ICANN.   I suspect that position
would garner a lot of sympathy from within the ccTLD constituency, as well.

> Thats 13 votes out of 18. This was apparent at
> the last NC board election.
> 
> It is unlikely, under the present circumstances, that, say, a NCC delegate
> would be elected to the board.

Alejandro Pisanty came from the NCC, don't forget.

> Or a ccTLD for that matter (speaking from
> personal experience).
>
> Since it is unlikely that a suggestion from this WG to completely
> restructure the constituency system, perhaps the addition of two more
> constituencies at this time could create a more viable structure for open
> voting, and more diversity of coalition-building.
>
> One I would recommend is  Individual Domain Name Holders.

It has historically been the case that one of the strongest opponents to
an individuals constituency has been the ccTLDs.

But yes, I think there is widespread agreement that individual domain
owners concerns are not well represented in the current structure.  At
this point I'm not sure that a constituency like the others is the best
solution for that, though.  For example, a possibility I suggested long
ago was that the GA should be given three votes on the NC.  I no longer 
consider this such a good solution, but there are unique problems with 
an individuals constituency that make consideration of alternatives 
important. 

> (I could never understand all the resistance to Joop's crusade on this one)

There are intrinsic difficulties with any constituency that allows
direct membership of individuals, and that is supposed to be
representative of individuals -- there are millions of individuals.  The
business, IPC, and NCC constituencies have organizational members, and
some of those organizations have memberships in the thousands.  Thus,
these other constituencies indirectly represent many thousands of members. 

A concrete illustration: the NCC has 160 members; assume for the moment
that Joops organization has 160 members, and becomes the IDNOC.  One of
the NCC members is the ACM, an organization with 80,000 members, last I
looked.  This means that a single individual voting in the IDNO has the 
same power as the ACM voting in the NCC.  

I don't see any easy way to address this disparity.  This is an
intrinsic problem, a conflict between indirect representation in some
areas and direct representation in others. 

> Perhaps the other _might_ be the ISOC.

Since ISOC is now an official UN sanctioned NGO, there certainly are 
some intriguing possibilities there.

Kent

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain