[EURO-Discuss] Fwd: The ALAC Wasteland

Patrick Vande Walle patrick at isoc.lu
Tue Jan 23 05:52:08 EST 2007


Dear all,

While I do neither agree with the tone and the conclusions of Danny
Younger's message on the GNSO GA list, I would still like to pick out a
sentence which, I think, is partially correct:

"the vast bulk of these 66 accredited At-Large
structures have had nothing to say on any DNS-related
matter at any time nor have offered any written
counsel to the Board whatsoever through any other
public channels"

I am indeed worried that we seem to be more focused on structure than
content. Actually, I am yet to see *any* message on this list or the
previous one which talks about current issues like whois, news gTLDS,
DNSSEC, IPv6 in the root or what have you.

Some individuals like Roberto, Vittorio, Wolfgang or Annette have been
active through the ALAC or other committees and fora. Nevertheless, I
think it is important that we Euralo members voice our concerns so that
our European representatives in the ALAC know what the European
consensus is.

If you have any idea how we could organize ourseleves so that
discussions are both inclusive and productive, please post.

Best regards,

Patrick

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: The ALAC Wasteland
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:41:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Danny Younger <dannyyounger at yahoo.com>
CC: committee at alac.icann.org
Newsgroups: lists.icann.gnso.ga

January 15 marked the first time in the last four
years that any accredited at-large structure (there
are 66 of them currently) ever sent in a written
public forum comment on any DNS-related topic
whatsoever.  That commentary came from John Levine on
behalf of CAUCE regarding the work of the WHOIS Task
Force.

I'd like to begin by thanking John for his personal
contribution.

Now, let's put the big question on the table:

If the vast bulk of these 66 accredited At-Large
structures have had nothing to say on any DNS-related
matter at any time nor have offered any written
counsel to the Board whatsoever through any other
public channels, then what continuing purpose in the
ICANN structure do these non-contributing bodies
serve?  Why do we continue to collect ALS applications
and continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
in support of organizational policy advice that
borders on nil?

This is mismanagement taken to the extreme.  Sure,
there's lots of hoopla surrounding the formation of a
RALO, but so what?  Of what value are any of these
constructs if well-considered advice fails to make its
way forward to relevant Task Force groups or to the
Board?

The ALAC endeavor has been a monumental failure from
day one that clearly cannot be cured with a dollop of
additional time and more financial resources --
they've gotten enough cash and they've had more than
enough time to get their act together -- it's time to
throw in the towel on this losing proposition.

I look at the efforts of the Intellectual Property
Lobby and note that they can rally their troops to
provide a great deal of thoughtful commentary when the
situation so demands.  By contrast, the ALAC can't
generate a response (even with a $700,000 budget).  It
has no leadership skills, it has no recognized
authority, and it hasn't had any buy-in from the
At-Large community.

ICANN needs to put this useless dog to sleep.






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