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

[William Drake]

Hi Roberto,

On Oct 19, 2009, at 6:40 PM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> Bill,
>
> This is going to be my last message on the subject. Although  
> interesting, I
> think that we should continue in Seoul, where in a F2F situation we  
> will
> reduce the risk for further miscommunication and misunderstandings.

Agreed
>
> A few clarifications:
>
>>
>> "But the main point for the SIC to maintain the concept of
>> constituency, against the open opposition of NCUC," which
>> sounded to me like you were saying the main point for the SIC
>> is to maintain the concept of constituency, against the open
>> opposition of NCUC.  Sorry for my confusion.
>
> The confusion arises, IMHO, from the fact that we use the word
> "Constituency" to mean different things.
> I mean "the body that, as is right now, has ïnter alia the right to  
> have
> councillors in the GNSO Council". And, unless mistaken, the concept of
> constituency as described is not what NCUC wants. And I do believe  
> that the
> NCUC has stated this openly.

Right, we suggest no hardwiring, but rather democratic elections  
(which in most plausible scenarios would yield the same  
results...unless you green lighted the CP80 censorship constituency,  
they might have trouble getting broad-based support).  But so do you:  
you said "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."  So by your own definition above, this would  
mean you've decided constituencies will no longer exist.  But this  
doesn't fit with you saying that the SIC was struggling to maintain  
the concept against the opposition of NCUC.  How can you be agreeing  
with our position and at the same time working to overcome our  
position?   I mean, I like a good oxymoron as much as anybody, but  
this makes my circuits fizz out.

Anyway, let's chalk it up to miscommunication and move on.

> When you say that NCUC is in favour of "constituencies", you mean "the
> bodies that are defined in the NCUC charter as being  
> constituencies", which,
> unless I am mistaken, have many rights but not the right of voting
> councillors.
> So, one way to progress is to say that that everybody is in favour of
> "Constituencies", but that we need to come to an agreement to what  
> will be
> the exact "powers" of the constituencies.

Agreed.  As far as I can tell, everyone sees the 'powers' fairly  
similarly, except that NCUC thinks council seats should be filled by  
elections, SIC thinks the EC should just hash out the allocation of  
seats (which to us sounds like a recipe for trench warfare), and some  
in ALAC feel there should be hard wiring.  Hopefully we can have a  
focused discussion on the relative merits of these approaches and the  
trajectories/scenarios they may point to in order to move this to  
another level.

>>
>> [...]   (BTW, why did SIC ok RySG
>> eliminating constituencies in their charter?  I never
>> understood the rationale for not having harmonized structures
>> across SGs, and it makes the misimpression about NCUC's
>> charter which explicitly provides for constituencies seem all
>> the more odd.)
>
> I think I have explained this a zillion times, but I can say this  
> for the
> zillionth+1 time.

Not to me, sorry

> One of the roles of the constituencies in the initial design of  
> ICANN was to
> provide a mechanism to define and register membership. This was  
> addressing a
> concern, which was to avoid capture by a group of people who were  
> joining
> the process in a category where they were not really qualified to be.
> During the discussions related to the review, in the consultations  
> with Ry
> and Rar we realized that this risk was non-existent for them,  
> because in the
> way we had defined the SGs (i.e. as being the "Contracted Parties")  
> we had
> an automatic mechanism to sort out the issue: if the organization  
> has a
> contract with ICANN, it is in, otherwise it is out. And by virtue of  
> this,
> we also had a complete list of the membership.
> This happened because during the process there was rough consensus  
> by the
> community (although I was personally against, having preferred a  
> "Suppliers"
> vs. "Consumers" approach) to have the "Contracted" vs. "Non- 
> Contracted"
> separation.
> In the case of the non-contracted parties, we do not have such a  
> mechanism.
> Check, for instance, the discussion about the potential individual
> registrants constituency, where one of the debates is how to sort  
> out who is
> a commercial and who is a non-commercial registrant, and how can we  
> monitor
> that the status at the moment of the registration is kept over time.  
> Same
> issue if we think about a business entity that is also an IP holder,  
> how we
> determine who is an internet service provider and who is not, etc.  
> In simple
> words, we do not have an easy mechanism to determine who is  
> qualified and
> who is not to join a SG. However, we have that for the  
> constituencies, in
> the way that constituencies are currently defined and chartered.
> So, the proposal of the SIC (and the decision by the Board) has been  
> that we
> could get rid of the constituencies in the contractual house, but  
> not in the
> non-contractual house. You may agree or disagree with the decision,  
> that has
> been already taken by the Board and is not on the table for further
> discussion, but this is the explanation of the rationale for it.

Ok, well thanks
>
>
>>
>> Entirely separate from the principal of constituencies are two  
>> issues:
>>
>> [...]
>
> You make good points here. I am looking forward to discuss these,  
> among
> other things, in Seoul. I would like to keep this email short,  
> addressing
> just clarifications and potential misunderstandings.
>
>
>>
>> I didn't characterize the SIC as bad and ugly.  It is
>> unquestionably true though that the SIC imposed a solution
>> that was opposed by NCUC's 80 organizational and 87
>> individual members and a wide array of non- member supporters
>> and was supported by 3 people.  If you don't like calling
>> this top down, ok, give me another term for something done by
>> the board over the strenuous opposition of the community in
>> question.
>> I'm not hung up on language, just facts.
>
> Quite interestingly, I just read the email from Dominik Filipp, who  
> agrees
> with you that the SIC did not follow a bottom-up process.
> However, what he objects on, is exactly the opposite: for him  
> constituencies
> should be not only created and approved, but should have voting  
> power in the
> council. The fact is that the bottom-up process is usually defined as
> "taking the decision that suits me" ;>)

>
> On a more serious vein, I invite everybody to take a step back and a  
> deep
> breath. We started this process years ago, with a council where the  
> voting
> ratio between non-commercial and commercial users was 1:3. The BGC  
> before,
> and the SIC[K] after the changes in the Board committee structure,  
> have
> analysed proposals, discussed with the community (all parts of the
> community), gathered feedback, proposed a solution, presented the  
> solution
> to the different parts, rediscussed over and over again with all  
> those who
> were opposing it from different sides, repeated these iterations  
> several
> times, and arrived now at the final step where hopefully in a couple  
> of
> weeks we will have this historic change, and a GNSO Council where the
> commercial and non-commercial communities are represented on a base of
> parity.
> In order to achieve this, it was necessary to go through an interim  
> phase,
> during which we had transitional charters, giving ourselves time to  
> think
> thoroughly the new composition and functioning of the SGs, but in a
> situation in which we were progressing from the past, and  
> established as a
> matter of principle the parity between commercial and non-commercial.
> I was prepared to hear the grumbling of the commercial users, noting  
> that
> they will be less represented than before, but I was incredibly  
> astonished
> by the fact that all what I am hearing is the bitching of the  
> different
> components of the non-commercial community, fighting bitterly for the
> control of the additional seats, yelling and screaming at the SIC from
> different sides, apparently forgetting completely that it was the  
> BGC and
> SIC who recommended in first place to have this new balance.

We all recognize and appreciate the rebalancing, admittedly more in  
principal than in practice.  But 1) there's been a pretty fair bit of  
bitching from the CSG too, which inter alia you cited as a reason we  
ought to just suck it up and go along with the SIC charter, and 2)  
we're not fighting for control of seats, we're arguing the  
noncommercial space should be organized in a democratic manner that  
doesn't lock us in perpetuity into precisely the sort of dysfunctional  
competition you decry.

> To be honest, if I had the chance to rewind the clock, over my dead  
> body I
> would have ever accepted the task to deal with this matter, and  
> would have
> much preferred to leave things as they were, raising my arms to show
> powerlessness, and suggesting to have everybody getting together and  
> achieve
> consensus in a real "bottom-up way", and to come back to the Board  
> when a
> consensus was found. Anybody has a guess on where we would be now?  
> My bet is
> that we would still be with the old GNSO structure, as who likes the  
> status
> quo would have prevented any move.

Plenty of angst and frustration to go around, alas.

> The bottom-up process is not a process by which the decision is  
> taken by the
> bottom, but a process in which the Board consults the community to the
> maximum extent possible, takes idea and proposals from the community  
> to the
> maximum extent possible, but then makes a decision that does not  
> necessarily
> please everybody.
>
>
>>
>> Unfortunately, the consultation, negotiation and compromise
>> didn't really involve NCUC.
>
> What?!?
> In Sydney alone the SIC had two official meetings with NCUC, plus the
> discussions in the corridors, plus emails before and after. And even  
> outside
> the SIC, other Board members were involved. I know that neither you  
> nor
> Milton were there, but other NCUC folks, including the Chair, were  
> there,
> you can check with them.

I have, but let's not rehash the past at this point.  What matters now  
is we sit and talk through the question of institutional design in a  
reasoned and depersonalized manner while bracketing all the other  
stuff that is not integral to it.
>
>
>> But we can still do that, and
>> very much look forward to working with you in Seoul and
>> beyond to arrive at a lasting solution that is supported by
>> the actually existing NC community.
>
> I hope so.

Ditto.  Cheers,

Bill