[ALAC] [At-Large] "placeholder" reps not placeholders?

[Roberto Gaetano]

Bill,

We might have a communication problem.
What I meant, and please correct me if I am wrong, is that:

- the NCUC was against the creation of constituencies as groups that had
automatic voting seat(s) in the Council
- groups did not see any interest in doing the work of creating
constituencies if they were guaranteed no seats in the Council

Is this a fair representation of the reality, yes or no? If no, I apologize,
as I did really miss something important. If, on the other hand, the answer
is yes, I stand behind my whole post.

The question, as I understood it, was to find a balance that could have
taken into account to the maximum extent possible these two different and
apparently radically opposed positions. The fact that the solution is being
shot from both sides confirms that it was not an easy problem, and that
positions were really opposed. The point is now where we go from here. Can
we discuss and see if this is a solution that can work or not?

To make statements that imply that SIC has not read the NCUC charters is not
helpful. We have two possibilities, one is to get together and to make it
work, the other one is to insist that the bad and ugly SIC has imposed a
top-down solution against the will of the masses. I see these as alternative
positions, for the simple fact that accepting and propagating the latter
means not to have understood (or to pretend not having understood) the
amount of consultation, negotiation and compromise that went into the
solution, which is the exact opposite of having imposed a top-down view.

Cheers,
Roberto



> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
> Sent: Saturday, 17 October 2009 11:58
> To: Roberto Gaetano
> Cc: At-Large Worldwide; ALAC Working List
> Subject: Re: [At-Large] "placeholder" reps not placeholders?
> 
> Hi Roberto,
> 
> May I just correct once again one whopping bit of bad info, please.
> 
> On Oct 17, 2009, at 8:16 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> 
> > Beau,
> >
> >>
> >> By the way, is it true what I heard that the three newly appointed 
> >> GNSO people have now been hard-wired in to two-year terms? I don't 
> >> really see a constituency model working under those circumstances. 
> >> Who's going to join a constituency if they have to wait 
> two years to 
> >> be able to directly elect a representative? No consumer group I am 
> >> aware of is going to want to do that.
> >
> >
> > I think that we will need to clarify many things in Seoul, one of 
> > which is the reason for certain decisions of the SIC.
> >
> > For instance, the SIC has decided, after long discussion, 
> not to have 
> > an automatic link between creation of a constituency and 
> establishment 
> > of a seat in the Council. The reasons against this position include 
> > what you correctly point out, i.e. that it will be more 
> difficult to 
> > get people's interest if there's no immediate 
> representation in terms 
> > of voting rights.
> > However, there are also reasons for taking this approach. 
> One of these 
> > is that we have to avoid the "frivolous" creation of constituencies 
> > for the simple purpose of getting a vote. A bit like create empty 
> > shells as registrars to have a higher firing power for getting 
> > valuable names.
> > Another
> > observation is that in the "old" council it was exactly the 
> fact that 
> > the creation of a new constituency would have altered the voting 
> > balance that de facto prevented the creation of any new 
> constituency 
> > in 10 years.
> >
> > But the main point for the SIC to maintain the concept of 
> > constituency, against the open opposition of NCUC, but to keep it 
> > without an automatic
> 
> NCUC is NOT and has NEVER been against the concept of 
> constituencies, period.  I do not understand what the purpose 
> would be in telling ALAC people something about NCUC that is 
> patently untrue, but it really does not facilitate trust 
> building and the collegial resolution of the issue. The 
> charter NCUC submitted, and which you set aside without 
> comment, has an page of clear language about the formation 
> and operation of constituencies in Section 2.3. 
> http://gnso.icann.org/files/gnso/en/improvements/ncsg-petition
-charter.pdf 
>    I would encourage you to read it if you have not.  A few 
> key bits of note include:
> 
> -------------
> 
> *Constituencies are self-defined groupings of NCSG members organized  
> around some shared policy goals (e.g. consumer protection, privacy);  
> shared identity (e.g., region or country of origin, gender, language  
> group); type of organization (e.g., research networks, philanthropic  
> foundations) - or any other grouping principle that might affect  
> members' stance on domain names policy.
> 
> *There is no requirement that NCSG members join a constituency.
> 
> *When at least 3 organizational members or at least 10 
> individual NCSG  
> members volunteer to join the Constituency on the public list within  
> two months of the publication of the notification of intent the  
> prospective Constituency becomes eligible to schedule a 
> meeting (which  
> can be either in person or online).
> 
> *The eligible constituency holds a public meeting(s) to draft a  
> charter and appoint an official representative of the constituency.  
> The meeting(s) can be online but must be open to observation by the  
> general public.
> 
> *The proposed constituency charter is submitted to the NCSG Policy  
> Committee for ratification.
> 
> *Once accepted by the PC the constituency application will be 
> sent to  
> the ICANN Board for approval. The Board shall also serve as the  
> vehicle for appeals to NCSG decisions on the recognition of a  
> constituency.
> 
> *Constituencies have a right to: 1.	Place one voting 
> representative on  
> the Policy Committee; 2.	Delegate members to GNSO 
> working groups and  
> task forces; 3.	Issue statements on GNSO Policy 
> Development Processes  
> which are included in the
> official NCSG response, but marked as constituency positions, 
> and not  
> necessarily the position of NCSG as a whole.
> 
> -------------
> 
> I do not know how this possibly can be characterized as 
> opposition to  
> the concept of a constituency.
> 
> The principal difference with the charter you've imposed on us, as  
> we've explained time and again, is that we do not think it 
> wise to set  
> up constituencies as purely self-regarding silos that compete 
> against  
> each other for council seats, recognition and influence, and thereby  
> spend their time fighting and jockeying for position rather than  
> working together to advance noncommercial public interest 
> perspectives  
> in ICANN.  We think it is better for constituencies to 
> collaborate in  
> an integrated community.  Hence, we did not think it sensible 
> to hard  
> wire council seats (which would get absurd if the number of  
> constituencies exceeds six, as it hopefully will...we're glad you  
> agreed on this), and instead suggested that GNSO Council  
> Representatives be elected directly by all NCSG members in an annual  
> SG-wide vote.  To secure a council seat, a constituency on consumer  
> protection, registrants, privacy, gender, freedom of speech or  
> whatever else would simply have to be a vibrant group that puts  
> forward a candidate and vision that others find persuasive.  Given  
> that noncommercial people tend to share certain broad values and  
> priorities, I'm hard pressed to imagine that, for example, a solid  
> consumer constituency that actually comprises noncommercial 
> actors and  
> advocates for the public interest would have a hard time getting  
> support from people who care about privacy, speech, and so on.  So  
> it'd be a matter of persuading colleagues rather than having a  
> birthright fiefdom within which one does one's own thing and ignores  
> everyone else.
> 
> We understand that questions have been raised about voting 
> formula and  
> whether it might make sense to put in place mechanisms to 
> prevent the  
> 'capture' of the council, and we've said we're open to viable  
> suggestions on that score.  Have yet to hear one. One might add that  
> if NCUC's proposed charter had been approved and constituency  
> formation were made as easy as we'd hoped, the NCUC itself 
> would have  
> ceased to exist, and those of our current 80 organizational and 87  
> individual members who wanted to off and form constituencies on  
> privacy, gender, or whatever else would have done so.  So there'd be  
> no NCUC to be capturing anything in the first place.  In contrast,  
> under the SIC charter, NCUC would be nuts to disband, inter alia  
> because it'd leave our members homeless, especially the 
> individuals.   
> Hard to see how that would be good for ICANN.
> 
> > voting power, against the obvious concerns of who wants to build new
> > constituencies, is the leit-motiv that has guided the whole 
> process  
> > of the
> > review: move the focus away from the vote, which is by its nature  
> > divisive,
> > onto the consensus building process.
> > New constituencies will not have the right to appoint their "own"
> > councillors, but will have the right to participate in WGs 
> and other  
> > policy
> > making processes and bodies, will have support from ICANN staff and
> > resources to self-organize, will be able to participate 
> with their own
> > representatives in the Executive Committee of the NCSG, etc.
> > In simple words, what we have tried to do is to create a balance and
> > hopefully a possible way to coexist and, in time, to collaborate,  
> > for all
> > the different components of the wide and diverse non-commercial  
> > internet
> > community. Somebody on this list has spoken about 
> "reconsideration"  
> > of the
> > Board's decision. This is surely possible. But what I would 
> propose  
> > is to
> > try to discuss and understand if what the SIC has proposed 
> can work in
> > practice, although it is not going to be perfect for anybody, before
> > shooting it down and start all over again. This discussion 
> is for me  
> > one of
> > the main priorities, if not the first priority altogether, 
> in Seoul,  
> > which
> > as you all know will mark the end of my term as Director.
> >
> > The ALAC and the NCUC are two big parts of this picture, the only  
> > organized
> > bodies in ICANN so far (for non-commercial users), I personally  
> > think that
> > the first step can be to have a joint discussion in Seoul. Bill's  
> > proposal
> > of meeting in an event that is not only work, but also 
> social, goes  
> > in this
> > sense, methinks.
> 
> Here we agree.  And I think finding common ground will be a 
> lot easier  
> if ALAC colleagues are not laboring under the false impression that  
> NCUC somehow wants to prevent them or other from forming  
> constituencies, hence the above.  Our main concern has been that we  
> first have an opportunity to work out a final, non-divisive charter  
> with the board, after which constituency launches could begin in  
> earnest.  In contrast, launching constituencies under the SIC 
> charter  
> would likely lock us into that framework and engender the very  
> fragmentation the meeting is intended to help overcome.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Bill