[At-Large] ICANN PREGUNTAS

[Karl Auerbach]

Evan Leibovitch wrote:

> It seems to me -- despite my relative youth in ICANN politics -- that
> this culture of consensus has simply led to governance by "what offends
> the least" as opposed to leadership or assertion of even its published
> mission.

I very much agree with you.  (I recognize the irony that by agreeing I 
am risking the creation of a consensus. ;-)

In my year 2000 platform for the board I argued against the use of 
consensus methods - 
http://www.cavebear.com/archive/icann-board/platform.htm#voting-not-consensus

If one looks at the fiduciary obligations of a board member one finds 
that those obligations require that every decision of a board member, 
whether that decision be for, against, or to abstain, must be made on an 
informed and independent basis.

That requirement for independent decisionmaking by each board member 
suggests that mooing loudly and going along with the heard, which is one 
somewhat pejorative definition of consensus, is not consistent with the 
obligations that board members undertake.

It is very hard to make fully independent and informed decisions, 
particularly when the definition of informed and independent is such 
that board members can chose to defer to the advice from certain special 
sources, such as attorneys or accountants - thus, for instance, 
information from staff can only be used after a mental process in which 
a board member evaluates the credibility and accuracy of the staff 
source and accepts the full responsibility upon himself/herself for the 
decision that is being made.

The idea of consensus policy comes from the IETF.  It worked in the IETF 
  - and I say "worked" in the past tense because there are signs that it 
isn't working as well as it once did - when we were a relatively small 
group with similar educational and socioeconomic backgrounds and the 
matters before us were very technical and could be tested against the 
hard and cold reality of the operational internet.

That consensus idea does not work well in the political world of ICANN.

	--karl--