[At-Large] Board Meeting Minutes

[Evan Leibovitch]

Wendy Seltzer wrote:
> As these minutes indicate, the Board determined to send the "domain
> reservation" issue to the GNSO Council for Council response.  While
> several on the Board would have favored Board action, others felt it was
> more appropriate to get GNSO consensus before taking action.
>   
Apologies for my delay on responding, as I'm just catching up on much of
my email after a very hectic few weeks.

I was quite disheartened by the Board conduct as described in those
minutes, ALAC's treatment by some Board members is clearly not that of a
constuency being taken seriously, let alone what I believe to be the
representatives of the single largest stakeholder group in ICANN.

It's quite easy, in this context, to understand the exasperation behind
the tone of Danny and others who have been involved in this process for
a long time; their cynicism clearly has substance. The challenge of us
"optimists" in At-Large is to drastically reduce the introspective
nature of ALAC and _demand_ that the public point of view be heard.

In the matter above the Board listened to its Registry members who
argued against direct action, knowing full well that issues such as this
are bogged down within GNSO to the point of atrophy; exactly the
_opposite_ of emergency action will happen. Meanwhile, as ALAC does not
have official voting standing within GNSO, we cannot necessarily have a
suitable consideration of the public POV there either. (Meanwhile, it
can easily be argued that the business and IP constituencies are redundant).

(And yet some wonder why NARALO backed the view on the JPA that ICANN
still does not have the maturity required to "leave home". I am amazed
that anyone within At-Large would suggest speedy independence in its
current public-hostile form...)

We have our work cut out. Messages such as these are eye-openers that
cut through the procedural jungle to clarify just what we're up against.

Thanks to Danny and Wendy for their work on this.

> Despite the lack of immediate Board action, I think it was useful for
> ALAC to send this request, as it put the issue on the Board's agenda and
> will no doubt lead to further discussion.
I agree. We need to stay on top of this so that when (likely not "if")
the GNSO proves incapable of consensus action we can go back to the
Board in a timely fashion and ask it to get involved to protect the
public interest. If this causes the Board to wonder why the GNSO's
incapability indicates a failure of process, that's their own challenge
to solve.

Our challenge is to identify issues of public concern -- not to simply
react to the existing agenda set by public-hostile constituencies -- and
demand action.

- Evan