[At-Large] [NA-Discuss] Fwd: Legal Status of ICANN RALO MOUs

[Vittorio Bertola]

John L ha scritto:
> The ALS/RALO scheme exists, but it only provides a trickle of 
> accountability to the ALSes, and none to individual Internet users.  One 
> of the deep flaws I realized this setup has is that most if not all of the 
> ALSes really belong in the NCUC, and as Danny Younger has often reminded 
> us, there's no route for all of the "none of the above" users.  Some RALOs 
> have provision for unaffiliated users, but they tend to be treated as a 
> sort-of-ALS which still marginalizes them.

I think that you have to distinguish between the level of informal 
consensus polling, and the level of formal representation.

At the level of consensus polling, individuals are now allowed on this 
(global) list and on all regional lists. Whenever something is posted to 
these lists for discussion, I've not seen anyone giving different 
importance to a message because it comes from an accredited ALS rather 
than from an individual subscriber. On the other hand, the number both 
of organizations and of individuals that participate in these 
discussions is still limited, and this might be an issue, though I've 
learned with time that, if you take out the fascination created by 
endless debate on structures, global democracy etc, and start addressing 
ICANN policy issues, the number both of organizations and of individuals 
that are interested is even more limited.

At the level of formal representation (and thus, consequently, of 
whatever decision has to be taken by the ALAC rather than by broader 
consensus), you are right, but still the intermediation of the ALSes 
(which are entities much more "countable" and "identifiable" than a 
global self-selected set of online identities who register on a website) 
seems to me the most practical idea that we've seen up to now to create 
a constituents base that can represent global users and their diverse 
views, have a broad footing, spend the time necessary to participate, 
and yet give way to formal and transparent processes for selecting 
representatives. My two cents of course!
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
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