Re: [wg-review] Clarifications requested from BoD, Staff, NC, TC,Chair prior to co-Chair elections

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Fri, 12 Jan 2001 09:56:37 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:

>One of the real concerns here is that you explicitly don't want to
>create a constituency that consists of a small group people who care
>deeply about some issue, because that is intrinsically unbalanced.  An
>organization with 35 million members 

Can we clear something up please - the ICC does not have 35,000,000
members.  It has a few dozen - perhaps a couple of hundred.
Businesses do not join the ICC even though they may help fund it.
They join their local Chamber of Commerce because they think business
rates are too high or want help with employment law etc.  Local
Chambers band together to form National Chambers and they band
together to form the ICC.  

While the ICC mission is to promote business interests 99.9% of the
businesses that indirectly fund it would be unaware it exists or that
they are indirect members.

Claiming that small business interest are looked after in the Business
Constituency because the ICC is a member and they represent small
business is not a proposition that is too simple.  I have had some
(very positive) dealings with chambers of commerces and the like and
inevitably they are dominated by a few large businesses even though
many small businesses are members.  This is not some sinister plot but
again the reality large businesses have greater resources to be
involved with such things.

This is also claimed to be the reason not many are involved directly
with the Business Constituency.  So the ICC and Chmabers of Commerces
suffer from the same problem as the Business Constituency.

If there was a small business constituency limited to businesses with
under x employees this may be a way of encouraging better small
business participation.  I imagine one can look at the membership list
of the BC and think hey wow I can't foot it with MegaCorp A and B so I
won't bother.

>is certainly going to give a more
>balanced view of things than an organization with 200 members all of
>whom are very concerned about some single set of issues.

WHat single set of issues are these?  ARe you including me in this
unnamed organisation and assuming you know what my concerns are?

>To put it in a blunt, concrete example, the ICC is going to give a far,
>far more representative and balanced view of the interests of small
>business 

One problem here is you are treating small businesses as a homogeneous
group, suggesting they one viewpoint will represent them all.  If more
small businesses interacted directly with DNSO then all of their
interest are at least heard.

>than a constituency composed entirely of individuals who lost a
>UDRP action, domain speculators and cybersquatters, and alternate root
>afficianodos. 

My goodness you are ranging wide with the innuendos.  Can you please
point out where I have lost a UDRP action, where I have done domain
name speculation, where I have cuber squatted or where I have
expressed support for alternate roots?

>One of the major concerns of those opposed to an individuals
>constituency, in any form, is that it would be a magnet for angry
>individuals with "axes to grind".  

Kent - what you are saying here is that you don't have like the sort
of individuals you think it will attract so there should be no
representation of individuals.  That is a very slippery slope you are
on with all due respect.

Using the same logic we should abolish having at large elected
Directors because it will be a magnet for the above people.

I am not an angry person with any particular axe to grind.  I want
ICANN to succeed but certainly want to make it more democratic and
responsive.  Trying to pretend ICANN is perfect is not IMO
particularly credible.

>The vast majority of people don't
>have axes to grind, and don't have time participate, so the angry ones
>will take over the constituency.  But angry individuals with axes to
>grind are not representative of individuals in general. 

Hmmn using this logic the only people who get involved in politics are
angry people with an axe to grind.  They are not representative of
individual in generals so we will not let individuals have a vote in
political elections.

Have a bit more faith in humankind for goodness sakes.  Of course many
of the people here are here because there are things about ICANN which
they think can be improved.  This is a review working group so that is
natural.  However you have several Professors, a number of people with
huge technical background in the early days of the Internet, small
businesspeople and others who have a lot to offer and we have a
constituency structure where many get no meaningful say in DNSO
issues.

>This is not just theory, of course -- to date this has been observed in
>every single attempt to organize an individuals constituency.  I think
>it is this phenomenon, incidentally, which led to the board's cooling
>toward Joop's IDNO -- initially there was support on the board, but that
>evaporated when it became clear that the IDNO was a code name for the
>"anti-ICANN" constituency.

There are problems within the IDNO.  Everyone is aware of some of the
unfortunate history.  That is why I don't believe anyone here has been
saying or demanding that the answer is that the IDNO automatically
become a constituency.

What we are concentrating on is gaining consensus support for the
principle that individual domain name holders are very much a
legitimate stake holder who should have representation through a
constituency.  Once we have achieved that then one can look at how
best to structure it so that it is difficult to capture - the best way
of course being a high membership.

It has become obvious to me that for as long as an individual's
constituency does not have official support your claim will almost be
a self fulfilling prophecy because only a few highly motivated people
will spend the time pushing for something not knowing the chance of
success.

However if one can announce that approval has been granted for an IDNH
constituency in principle and we have six months to make it work I
suspect the membership will grow massively.  Look at the at large
membership - even without the Japan/Gemany situation it was still a
huge success.  I have no doubt that if approval in principle is given
that one would get an IDNH constituency with membership in the
thousands not the hundreds.

DPF

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

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