Re: [wg-review] Comments, second installment...

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:54:31 -0800, Kent Crispin wrote:

>Second, it seems clear to me that there needs to be some formal
>representation of what I will call a "consumer interest constituency"
>(to avoid the baggage associated with various names that have come up,
>and to avoid any prejudices about "owner" vs "holder" vs "user",
>"individual" vs "organization", and so on).  Over the years there have
>been multiple calls for such a thing, in various guises (some of them
>made by me), and the need has not gone away.  

It is very pleasing Kent to have your support for the yet to be named
constituency.    In fact many of the points you make in this paper re
the Names Council and constituencies are meritorious ones.  There are
a few areas below which I'm going to take contrary view on but one can
take silence being consent on the other areas.

>However, the inherent problems in such a structure have not gone away,
>either, so I don't think that it can just be another constituency.  The
>problems and conflicts that have come up every time one tries to
>organize bottom up suggest that the organization needs to come from the
>top down, at least at the start.  

I agree here that the nature of such a constituency will be a special
case and need more than just saying "Guys go form an international
individuals constituency which will make everyone happy and then
submit it to us".  I'm not sure I would say the organisation has to be
top down but more a collective effort between ICANN/DNSO and those
interested in getting such a constituency established.

>I have proposed several mechanisms for creating such an organization --
>in my comments submitted through the Non Commercial Constituency I
>described a scheme by which the GA could be morphed into such a
>structure, which has the advantage of gradual and controlled
>development; quite some time ago I proposed another approach, which you
>can see at http://at-large.org -- the basic idea is that the
>constituency would at the start be managed by an *appointed excom*, with
>elections following some time after the membership had reached a certain
>size and representativeness. 

I personally support a minimum size before an individuals constituency
gains voting rights on Names Council (maybe official observer rights
though at first) but do have problems with another appointed initial
excom as we had with ICANN Board.  If one went down this path one
would need unchangeable mechanism that appointed members must step
down after x months and not be eligible for election for say 2 years.

>So, as far as a "consumer interest constituency" is concerned, I have 
>the following concrete recommendations:
>
>  1) the Board should mandate that one be created;

This is IMO very very important.  Once there is official approval then
I believe some/many problems will go away as there will be incentives
for more to get involved and make things happen.

DPF
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