[EURO-Discuss] My comment on nominations

[Roberto Gaetano]

Vittorio wrote:
> 
> I just got back from a few days offline, and I did not expect 
> to find such a complex situation again :)

Maybe you should not remain offline ;>)


> 
> I must say that I am concerned by the fact that often, once 
> we agree on processes or documents, after a while people 
> start to complain about having changed their mind, or that 
> they weren't really reading what they were signing, and so 
> on. It's a bit difficult to go anywhere that way.

As the Cheshire Cat tols Alice (in Wonderland): "That depends a good deal on
where you want to get to".
If you plan to look at the book to see the reference, have a look also at
the other chapter, starting from the line: "How do you know I'm mad?".


> 
> Now, for the sake of keeping the pieces together, I am 
> willing to go over the fact that some nominations were made 
> after the deadline (whichever of the many deadlines one 
> wanted to pick), or about the other debatable points, though 
> that requires everyone's good will, and I'm not sure what 
> happened if anyone went to ICANN and complained about the 
> formal irregularities, or whether ICANN is willing to live with them.

The Board would not interfere, unless forced to. However, the Ombudsman will
not let it go, and you bet that he will raise yet another report against how
ALAC disregards its own procedures. Since I'm in the mood for quotes, here's
another one: "Those who don't learn from history are bound to live it
through again".
To be honest, I don't see the benefit of putting the nearly born EURALO in
what will be a very difficult, probably undefendable position, if a
complaint is raised to the Ombudsman (or if he starts his own investigation
- remember that we obviously are on public record with this discussion).


> 
> About the nominations for the ALAC, I do not see much desire 
> to come to agreement so I guess that we will have to vote. 
> Specifically, I have no problems with Veronica not being an 
> ALS member (as long as we can get away with it with ICANN) or 
> not being experienced, but I have a problem with appointing 
> someone whom I basically don't know, who has not been active 
> in the EURALO process up to now, and who is not even 
> advocating for herself on this list. I would like to see a 
> discussion in first person among the three candidates, also 
> in terms of programs and objectives, so that I can have 
> something to report to my ALS when we'll have to decide who 
> to vote for.

As I have commented a while ago, it's all about participation vs. vote. If
you can get away with the vote, who cares about participation? It's
irrelevant detail.
We have been through this already, don't we?


> 
> For what regards the EURALO Board, I think that we now have 
> too many nominations, and not very well balanced in terms of 
> reflecting the diversity in the constituency (eg geography, 
> ISOC folks vs WSIS folks, ALS vs individuals etc). I would 
> suggest that we pick a reasonable size for the Board - I'd 
> suggest seven - and vote for the Board as well.

What was wrong with the initial proposal of five? Shall we widen the Board
only because we have more candidates?
Please correct me if I am wrong, but one of the points we discussed in
Frankfurt and Berlin was that the Board had to be an agile structure.
Considering the difficulties we have in even organizing a teleconference for
EURALO (you all have witnessed the recent case), the larger the Board the
lower the chance it can work properly.

Incidentally, past experience of ALAC has suggested to adopt minimum
participation rules. My little finger tells me that we will find the need to
do the same in EURALO Board. As for the EURALO reps to the ALAC, the overall
ALAC rules apply.

Cheers,
Roberto