[governance] Innovation

Tue Nov 27 11:00:15 EST 2007

Hi,

actually I don't understand the trepidation. It is good to consider the 
respective pros and con's of nomination committees and elections.

I also agree with Wolfgang that we cannot forever assess ALAC on the 
grounds of its past.

What I mind about ALAC is that it doesn't allow for full participation 
of individuals. ALAC was once regarded as the channels for individual 
participation in ICANN. Now individual participation is associated with 
the risk of capture. Is individual participation indeed that dangerous?

Most of the people I have seen participating in ALAC do so in their 
individual capacity. They don't speak on behalf an organization. Isn't 
it a bit of a sham to restrict participation to organizational members?

Regarding the number of ALAC members,  the number of actively 
participating people is pretty low from what I can see. The number of 
formally accredited ALSs and their members don't reflect the overall 
acceptance of ALAC.

THE LSE report recommended to create one membership organization that 
would combine NCUC and ALAC. I wholeheartedly agree.

Such a membership organization could elect board members without having 
to wait for a global democracy.

jeanette

Avri Doria wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> With a certain amount of trepidation (though my skin is already rather 
> thick) I think i will weigh in with a few personal observations.  Note, 
> I am making to claims of fact, except maybe about my own perceptions.
> 
> I was an active IETF participant when ICANN was being formed and was one 
> of those who was excited about the voting basis of this new 
> organization.  What a wonderful experiment i thought.  So i signed up as 
> a voter, and duly voted.  I think I even voted for Karl, but my memory 
> isn't that good.  I like him and respect him, so I probably did.  When 
> voting was abolished, I was outraged.  I understood that there had been 
> flaws in the election process and felt that they should have been 
> fixed.  anyway, I was so outraged that I decided that I would have 
> nothing further to do with ICANN.
> 
> And for years, i didn't.  I remained active in the IETF, got involved in 
> ICT4D software development, found myself involved in civil society and 
> ended up in WGIG.
> 
> There i took part in the analysis of ICANN and while I was a supporter 
> of the IETF way of doing things, did not consider myself a particular 
> ally of ICANN - in fact outside of a few governments I was probably one 
> of the the most strident voices for the "ICANN out from US domination" 
> movement  (I support the no governments approach to oversight) and for 
> demands that ICANN get its act in gear and make new gTLDs available to 
> the world in massive quantities.  As a result I too got the 'put your 
> action where your mouth is' speech we are all hearing and passing 
> judgement on, and decided that yes, as a critic I should get involved 
> and spend a few years seeing if i could do something.  the jury is still 
> out on that - we still don't have gTLDs for the people, whois still 
> plagues the world and governments are getting closer to dominating the 
> Internet with every day that passes).
> 
> Anyway, in getting involved, i had to subject myself to the Nomcom, and 
> while it is a vile experience, and i say this as one of the 'successful 
> candidates',  i see how hard it works to get balance.  Is it better then 
> elections? i don't know but it is different and I believe it is a form 
> of democracy.  Coming from a country where elections are regularly 
> stolen, I am not sure I am that much of a fan of global (or national) 
> elections anymore.  Perhaps there are more local ways to build democracy 
> from the bottom-up.  And perhaps we are seeing some worthwhile 
> experiments in that.  Another thing on which i think the jury is still out.
> 
> And i have spent a bit of time watching and interacting with ALAC.
> 
> At first I agreed with Karl, it was a pampered pet, with little real 
> substance acting under the directions of a dominant staffer.  But over 
> the last years it has begun finding its own way.  It is around a year 
> since it stopped being an interim ALAC and began its real existence. And 
> it is starting to find way to make its voice heard.  It is also composed 
> of many earnest concerned people (not flocks or hordes, but many 
> individuals). And though they still are under the thumb of a dominant 
> staffer, they are fighting back.  And this is a good thing.
> 
> I tend to think that the ALAC now is not the interim ALAC of the past 
> and we need to stop looking at it as if it was.  It is something new 
> that should be given time to prove itself.  Yes, the structure is 
> complicated (gothic even), but that is what you get when you try to 
> build democracy from the ground up as opposed to using elections that 
> rely on sound bites with little substance.  And yes, we still need to 
> learn how to structure this bottom up democracy more effectively so that 
> it can be an effective voice and so that it can throw off the control of 
> a domineering staff.  I personally advocate an ALAC that asserts itself 
> enough as a civil society voice that it becomes the real counter balance 
> to the GAC and whose voice the Board must listen too, or else.  I 
> believe this is possible, but again, the jury is still out.
> 
> What is clear to me, is that this is a valid experiment in democratic 
> action and that the nomcom and ALAC  are viable parts of that 
> structure.  Will it work better then elections where we elect the 
> prettiest and most charming fellow out there (see, i really am fond of 
> Karl), remains to be seen, but I for one hope so.
> 
> Are massive numbers of people joining the organzations that make up 
> ALAC?  I don't know and it might be good to have an idea of how big some 
> of these ALSes and RALOs are and what sort of growth rates they 
> experience over the next few years. Then again what I think we we need 
> are committed local internet users who self organize to make local, 
> regional and global improvement to the Internet, and that is what i 
> think we have.   For now, I think ALAC deserves a chance to show what it 
> can evolve into and whether it can do the job.
> 
> a.
> 
> 
> On 27 nov 2007, at 04.56, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> 
>> Kieren McCarthy wrote:
>>
>>> It is impossible for me to reply to this post without taking issue 
>>> with huge
>>> chunks of what's in it. Just as a quick example. These two sentences, 
>>> stated as facts: "The ALAC's
>>> failure is obvious. Internet users have shunned it in droves."
>>> This simply isn't true. But what's more problematic is that it has very
>>> little to do with the issue of voting.
>>
>> You were a writer, a good one, I've seen you confront bad ideas.
>>
>> I claim (and firmly believe) that the ALAC is a failure.  Disprove me. 
>> Show how masses of people are running to it and that its processes 
>> actually form a force that can hold ICANN accountable for its actions. 
>> Show how it is a better vehicle for the formation of ideas and a seed 
>> for the formation of consensus than any group of people who might 
>> happen to gather in a non-ALAC, such as this one.
>>
>> I claim (and firmly believe) that people are shunning the ALAC in 
>> droves.  Disprove me.  Show how, even after years of existence, ICANN 
>> staff support, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of life support 
>> that, the number of people who are actually involved in the ALAC would 
>> fill more than the smallest of small rooms - as compared to the nearly 
>> 200,000 people who tried to sign up for ICANN's year 2000 elections.
>>
>> You claim that the ALAC has "little to do with voting".  If so, then 
>> how does one answer the fact that ICANN created the ALAC explicitly as 
>> a means to end the election of directors?
>>
>> On the other hand, ICANN holds the ALAC out as a reason why members of 
>> the internet community should be satisfied and not ask for voting.
>>
>> Thus, to my mind, the conclusion is quite the opposite, that, in fact, 
>> the ALAC has everything to do with voting, or rather, to be more 
>> precise, it has everything to do with non-voting.
>>
>>         --karl--
>>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>     governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
>     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
> 
> For all list information and functions, see:
>     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance