RE: [wg-review] 3. [Constituencies] Report requested by NC

[Karl Auerbach <karl@CaveBear.com>]

> Karl, I respect your position, but is it realistic? Individuals register
> with a particular party, not because they agree 100% with all its views, but
> because on balance, it's position is the most agreeable, or because
> alternative choices are intensely disagreeable.

I don't disagree - but remember that "the party" gets its power from
number of people who agree with its platform and vote their individual
votes accordingly.

If political parties were established like ICANN constitutencies, they
would be pre-formed and given a pre-established number of votes no matter
whether they had two members or two million.

Sure, define all the parties or constituencies you want, but don't give
them a pre-counted number of votes, as ICANN does, and let people who
don't believe they fit form their own parties/constituencies.  And let old
ones die.

> ...Most people want clear choices laid out before them

I'm not willing to concede that people would be happier being force fed
than they would be if they had the ability to freely associate with others
who they decide are like minded and to disassociate from those they
disagree with.

There is nothing wrong with a group of people getting together and saying
"we have a platform" and trying to sway others to jump onto the bandwagon.

The difference is that constituencies pre-manufacture a limited set of
bandwagons, hand them out on some basis that is necessarily unfair to
those who don't get one, a forces people to pick one rather than build
their own.


> and imho there is nothing wrong with Peter de Blanc's suggestion to
> identify factions that are not currently represented

You can start identifying today and you'll never reach the end of the
enumeration.

The constituency structure creates pigeonholes and forces people into
those holes as the price of participation.

We don't need such a Procrustean mechanism if we simply give each person
one vote and let them cast it as they chose.  As you suggest, many people
will follow leaders.  That's fine - as long as the followers get to pick
their leaders rather than have them forced upon them by some pre-ordained
constituency structure.


> .. Added to that, there may be infinite initiatives presented directly
> to the BoD

Two points:

First, the DNSO will have to chose its positions and present only one to
the board.

Second, given the current constituency structure, it can be difficult for
a member of the Board of Directors to form a solid belief that anything
coming out of the DNSO is really a broadly based, fairly argued, fairly
measured choice.

		--karl--