[At-Large] Auerbach: "It is my view that ICANN ought to scrap the ALAC in its entirety"

[Vittorio Bertola]

Karl Auerbach ha scritto:
> In response to Evan Leibovitch:

I'd like to throw a few considerations into this discussion.

1) It may well be true that the At Large community in California (and in
some other places, e.g. Germany) presently is less vibrant and populated
than it was in 2000. However, it is also true that the opposite has
happened in several other parts of the world: if you compare the present
level of activity in Latin America or Africa with the degree of
participation in the 2000 elections, or if you consider the availability
of non-English material and discussion about ICANN, I think that we have
seen significant progress.

2) Also, a part - I don't know whether big or small - of the attention,
media coverage and participation that ICANN got in year 2000 was
definitely connected to ICANN being new, and to the Internet being the
newest, coolest thing all over the world. We were at the peak of the
"dot com" bubble and people still believed in the "independency of
cyberspace". I wonder whether, even with direct elections, participation
would not have faded in the same way - maybe less and less abruptly than
it did, but I think that many people just got used at ICANN and at the
Internet, and lost interest.

3) In any case, the fact that we do not have direct, individual-based
elections for ALAC members is just a choice by the RALOs. The RALO were
meant to be a sort of "electoral roll" and coordination point for
appointments in each Region, but there was no requirement for them to
become a fully fledged organization. I would be very happy if NARALO
decided to keep an individual-based electoral roll, joining together the
memberships of its ALSes and any individual wishing to participate
directly, and held direct elections to pick its ALAC members. At least
we'd see how well it works in practice ten years later.

4) Similarly, nothing prevents the ALAC from proposing a selection
method for the two ALAC-appointed Board members that relies on direct
elections. I don't know how well it would fly with the ICANN Board, though.

Ciao,
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
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