[EURO-Discuss] Proposal procedure active- non-active ALSes

[William Drake]

Hi

As a Euralo board member and NCUC/SG rep on the GNSO maybe I can amplify.  We do a "check in" procedure annually in the first place because we have a fairly large membership of over 200 organizational and individual members and have competitive elections to positions, e.g. Council seats, NCSG and NCUC chairs, excom.  So it seems reasonable that the voting polity in a contested election should comprise only those able to must the energy to reply to an email and say yes I am still here and interested in participating.  I suppose secondarily it could be of some use when we're trying to work out a policy position, i.e. if someone weighs in on a list discussion with a strong view that affects the ability to get consensus, it may be worth determining if they're an active member or not.  Conversely, you don't have to hold up the consensus building process because you've not yet heard from phantoms.

We debated what was the appropriate threshold of activity to be classified as active.  As Mathieu notes, this is complicated as given peoples' availability and the natural tendency to pick and choose items you're willing to devote energy to based on interests and bandwidth at a given time.  So while in principle you could say that someone who has never participated in online discussions or shown up for a GA in a year should be deemed inactive, in practice this might be unfair.  

An annual check in mail prior to an election cycle is a pretty low impact way of determining at least a baseline level of commitment.  If a member has really fallen off the map, this is a way to know.  And with number of members in Euralo, it wouldn't be difficult to execute.  And it could increase the credibility of claims to represent xyz actors.

All in all, Rudi's suggestion seems sensible enough to me.

Best,

Bill

On Aug 8, 2012, at 5:21 PM, Mathieu Paapst wrote:

> Hi Rudi,
> 
> I think you cannot assume that everyone participates on everything. For 
> me it is also not clear how much activity is needed or desired. Do you 
> want every ALS to participate in the monthly call or do you just want 
> them to visit the yearly GA?
> And what will EURALO gain from putting ALSes on such a list other than 
> making it easier to reach a quorum?
> 
> I am not necessarily against this measure, however it does not feel 
> right if the board is not involved in these kind of decisions.  Is there 
> anything in our bylaws on this subject?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Mathieu Paapst
> ISOC-NL
> 
> Rudi Vansnick schreef:
>> Dear board members,
>> 
>> As we see many ALSes in EURALO not being quite active, in a long term not having responded to emails and other communications, we have to be honest and show respect for those having been active all along the road and as such allowing EURALO to still be recognized as part of the ALAC constituency. However, it is clear the number of ALSes is an important factor for ALAC to show interest and participation in the concept of the multi-stakeholder process of ICANN.
>> 
>> Therefor I propose we would act as does the NCUC by sending out an email requesting a response within a certain delay. If no response is received within the given timeframe, the ALS would be put on an "non-active" list. This would also allow us to have a correct quorum and election mechanism. This mechanism is a temporary procedure, not being voted on by the board, but as other decisions has also been taken without explicit approval of the board, I assume this one can also go through.
>> 
>> I'm willing to work out the process of this proposal with timeframe and procedural aspects in order to allow "non-active" ALSes getting back into the active list once they have shown enough interest in the work of EURALO and ALAC.
>> 
>> Just my eurocent idea 
>> 
>> Rudi Vansnick
>> EURALO board member
>> 
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