[ALAC] [NA-ALS] [EURO-ALS] [LAC-ALS] Major Milestone Coming Up

[Danny Younger]

Re:  "Maybe if a policy issue disucssion were started,
we'd get this sort of participation now that we have
so many more ALSes?"

Jacqueline, 

Just speaking from my experience, having witnessed the
formational efforts of the IDNO (Individual Domain
Name Owners Constituency) and those of the
icannatlarge group, I can tell you that most
participants will choose to focus on administrative
considerations rather than on policy matters.

They would rather argue the merits of weighted voting
moreso than discuss the lack of competitive choice
offered under current Redemption Grace Period policy. 
They would rather pontificate on the topic of Internet
Governance than deal with the hard issues associated
with UDRP reform.  They would rather debate the
nuances of membership criteria and the relative
fairness of proposed membership fee structures than
discuss registrar circumvention of the Consensus
Deletes Policy.  

They will spend years building an institution that
devotes 100% of its time to administrative minutia and
will forever continue to postpone policy discussions
because they never seem to finish their higher
priority organizational work... and then the
institution collapses as little by little the players
realize that nothing of consequence is getting done. 
I've seen it happen. Twice. and this will surely be
round three if we remain on the same track.

In the meantime, others within the GNSO are
formulating policy (while the at-large remains
excluded from this venue as well as from from the
ICANN Board itself).

There was a time when the country code managers
realized that the construct that they were forced to
work within (the DNSO) was not serving their needs. 
They left an unworkable model and created their own
Supporting Organization... 

The construct that ICANN has forced upon the at-large
clearly does not meet our needs.  We too should vote
with our feet and put together that which is right for
us -- a Supporting Organization effort wherein policy
issues can properly be debated.  That model already
exists and has worked reasonably well.  We don't need
to reinvent the wheel and get locked into 
administrative and process-related debates; further,
we don't need to accept the flawed ALAC/RALO construct
just because it is the only option on the table.  

We should be pursuing that which is right for us, a
Supporting Organization that allows for Board-level
representation, rather than blithely accepting what
amounts to an incredibly lousy deal.  

We have gone from the promise of directors on half of
the Board to no directors on the Board whatsoever. 
This is not acceptable.  It will never be acceptable
and I will never buy into a plan such as the
ALAC/RALO/ALS diversion that makes permanent our
disenfranchisement.

best wishes,
Danny


 
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