Hope springs eternal - Re: [governance] Innovation

[Veni Markovski]

At 20:22 11/28/2007  -0800, Karl wrote:
>>The elections did not work.
>
>I rather beg to differ.  (Reserving opinion on my own role) I'd 
>assert that the directors who were elected were generally better 
>qualified, worked harder, and were a richer source of ideas than 
>those who came before.

I don't think anyone would argue the qualities of the directors. The 
argument was about the elections, the process, not the results. As 
you would agree sometimes in bad elections good results may happen, 
but sometimes in good elections, bad results happen, as well.

>>North America was OK (if we ignore the massive imbalance in voting 
>>pool. Likely permanent US seat, Canada and a few other disenfranchised.)
>
>Your conclusion does not follow.  The vote was rather close and the 
>outcome could have been swayed a group in any of the countries.

Would you argue it today, if there were elections?

>One might naturally expect that the candidates and results might 
>tend to follow that population distribution.  But from that you are 
>jumping to a conclusion that people voted by nationality.  My own 
>indication was that people voted based on the arguments made by the candidates.

My review is in accordance with Adam's - people voted on nations.

>And since there are regions within countries that might then be 
>unequally distributed - For example California has a population that 
>is  75x times larger than the smallest state - so by your logic we 
>should then adopt regional or state wide elections.

Actually you are quite on the wrong way here. Comparing the US 
elections to world-wide elections? What about the fact that in the US 
the candidate who has won the popular vote has lost the elections?

>Of course this logic, if followed to its conclusion, ends up right 
>where I'd like to start: with the individual human being as the 
>atomic unit of decision making, the ultimate "stakeholder" in 
>internet governance.

I would agree with you, if you can guarantee that a) the atoms would 
have equal access, and b) there will be no votes based on nations, 
and c, d, e...

>And in what why do we measure the voices of all of these ultimate 
>stakeholders?  An election in which each gets a vote seems like the 
>obvious answer.

Actually not. If that was so easy, why is the US system not like 
that? Or why would Andy be elected after an article in a magazine? 
Why didn't the German voters read and vote for someone else? Again, 
mixing USA/Canada (both with English, and Canada with French on top 
of that) with Europe, for example, or Asia, where there are tens of 
languages, inequality in the access to the Internet...

>>Asia Pacific was a a nationalistic mess.
>
>I disagree - in any election process the result tends to go to those 
>who are best organized.

What do you disagree with here? It was a mess, and you know it; the 
simple fact that you say "I disagree" does not make it less of a mess....

>The answer is, of course, for those who have different points of 
>view to organize themselves.

... hm... thinking about the elections in the history of Bulgaria 
(and each of us can give examples in other countries)... let's say, 
since 1948 until 1991 the Communist party had 99 % of the votes. 
Those who had different points and tried to organize themselves ended 
as emigrants or dead (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Petkov , in 
Dutch). My own Grandfather had a different point from Tito in 
Yugoslavia, and was sent for 5 years at a concentration camp.

>>Europe, the person elected seems to have been strongly supported by 
>>a special interest campaign.
>
>Yes, those who campaign tend to have backers.  That's the nature of 
>an election.

So, in other words, a country, where a magazine can ask the readers 
to go and vote, and they do it, is better than the others, who didn't 
do it. I can write more here, with more examples, about countries, 
where the whole population may be asked to go and vote one way or another.

>Please don't try to say that I did not make any attempt to 
>communicate with the community of internet users.  I made a far 
>greater effort to do so than any person in ICANN, before or since.

That's a very strange statement. I am sure that surely you didn't 
mean you made a greater effort than "any person in ICANN" before or 
since you were there. If you *really* mean this, then I think it is a 
pointless discussion.

veni 

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