[At-Large] Proposal: Rotating Chair for ALAC

[Bret Fausett]

My proposal didn't envision elections. Only three people are  
involved, so public campaigning, lobbying, and voting won't happen.  
If three reasonable people of good will can't agree, then they can go  
into a closet and do rock-paper-scissors until a winner emerges. Or  
they can share the Chair.

Personally, I don't agree that the ALAC needs a single face, a single  
voice, a single person as a point of contact. Yes, we probably need a  
single email address -- ALAC-Chair at icann.org or something -- but the  
recipients of that email address should be the rotating Executive  
Committee, not one person. I think we will benefit, both functionally  
and in the eyes of the community, from being an organization with  
many voices, many faces, and both a real and perceived ability to  
work together in a relatively flat organizational structure that  
doesn't elevate any one person above the others.

               Bret

On Jul 9, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

> With respect to this proposal, perhaps as the staff I could comment
> on the idea from the perspective of administrative overhead, and also
> perception outside the community:
>
> Firstly, if the chair changes that often, you will have to have some
> way to select between the three regional representatives where more
> than one of them is willing to serve. This means more elections.
> Elections cause a fair amount of administrative overhead, and
> generally involve campaigning, lobbying others for votes, etc. This
> takes away time from policy discussions and other substantive work.
>
> Secondly, as everyone is well aware, after spending years in
> procedural discussions and forming RALOs, those stakeholders outside
> of At-Large are very much looking to see how much policy work the
> community does. Having just finished forming all the structures, do
> you think that those outside of At-Large will see it as a good sign
> that you are turning immediately to desiging more administrative
> processes which involve elections?