[EURO-Discuss] Improvement of the win-win relationship between the Staff and the At-Large Community

[JFC Morfin]

Dear Wolfgang,
I suppose that these answers are also here to be discussed? Your 
points are well made. We obviously have a slightly different vision 
of the network.May I say that I feel you are more ICANN centric, ISO 
is user centric and WSIS and I are person centric (this in my mind is 
neither a critic, nor a something very differentiated, just a flavor 
- evolutions and transitions make the things fuzzy anyway).

At 10:45 11/06/2008, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
>Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Medienstadt Leipzig e.V., EU-RALO:
>
>1.   What issues being debated in ICANN do you believe are the most 
>important to your RALO?
>User and consumer rights, in patricular with regard to the so-called 
>ICANN issues (including freedom of expression, date protection, 
>privacy, prices, security, stability, diversity, multilingualism)

I fear there is a mission creep when you speak of freedom of 
expression? IMHO, ICANN claims two products:
- IANA operations
- NTIA root g/sTLD coordination

>2.   How can we help make the time you spend on ICANN issues as 
>valuable and efficient to you as possible?
>a. To avoid long and time consuming buerocratical procedures and discussions
>b. to concentrate on substance and relevant issues
>c. to imrpove the interaction with other ICANN constituencies
>d. to work towards a more significant AL representation in the BoD 
>(from Voice to Vote)

Amen. Except that Staff cannot work against corporate policy rules 
and by-laws without a BoD reformation mandate. My feeling is that it 
is up to us to obtain that mandate. Since we only have Voice and no 
Vote, we can only use external pressure until ICANN respects its Charter again.

>3.   What challenges and opportunities do you see for your RALO and 
>for At-Large more generally (in the context of ICANN work)?
>
>ALAC and the RALO mechanism have a great opportunity (and 
>responsibility) to become the center of gravity for individual 
>Internet users around the globe.

I disagree it would be an opportunity for the Internet community 
(please remember that a global system is a closed system and there 
are only win/win or lose/lose situation). In a distributed system a 
center of gravity is bring the system back to decentralization. This 
would introduce/maintain a rigidity which would split the network.

>For ICANN as a whole such an acceptance would produce a much higher 
>level of legitimacy and would help ICANN to become - as stated in 
>the Annex to the JPA - a model of a multistakeholder organisation.

To be a model implies there are other similar organisations which can 
copy from it. I fully agree with this. The role of @larges, as I see 
it, is to be the lubricant which permits their intergoverance not to grip.

>If ICANN can achieve this, it will be much safer against a new wave 
>of efforts by various (governmental) groups to get a more direct 
>governmental oversight over the management of critical Internet 
>ressources.  This is in particular important in the context of the IGF.

If Governments were a danger through the IGF it would mean that 
@larges have poorly participated to the IGF they obtained. @larges' 
legitimacy as the IGF leaders (as being in each of the poles of 
governance as we made them defined and documented) is THE @large 
dramatic success at the WSIS. The IGF is "us", the ALAC may be "you" 
when ICANN is "they".

This is were we have two different point of view: for you @larges 
should help ICANN to control the Internet, for me @larges should help 
ICANN to become the best possible example of support of the @large 
control on their own Internets throughout the common Internet.

>  4.   How interaction between and within RALOs be increased?
>
>Specialized F2F meetings, also on the local/rgional level are important.

Yes.

>  Workshops, Round Tables etc. with opportunities for remote 
> participation are very helpful but have to be prepared carefully. 
> There has to be substance für such events, not just "coming 
> together and strengthening relationships". A workplan which would 
> identify three to five main priority topics for individual Internet 
> users for a period of three or five years would helpful. Based on 
> working papers, such a process could produce a discussion around 
> issues aimed at a final document which could lead to an "At Large 
> Publication Series" where users get quick access to answers.

I am somewhat less practically optimistic than you. There is a 
growing france at large/FGI-FR consensus that we need a new 
comprehensive set of tools, based upon the state of the art (webDAV, 
RSS, ATOM, Wiki, Semantic Wiki, Mioga2, and more to come) to build an 
on-line maieutics oriented towards a new ad-hoc understanding of 
documents and document presentation to support multiconsensus (to 
possibly present in the same document opposing local consensus and 
their interoperations possibilities).

>5.   What are the top three things you would like your RALO to achieve?
>a. to stablize its still fragile institutional structure
>b. to do more outreach to get a sub-regional geographical balance 
>(in case of EU-RALO this means CEEC, Russia but also Northern Europe 
>(Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Greenland)

... and france at large :-)

>c. to produce more substance / input

Yes. But I am afraid there is a big split between the world as ICANN 
wants us to evangelize it and the world as we observe and make it. To 
realise that, I suggest you access our flow-chart: 
http://franceatlarge.org/org.htm.

We have not understood the second reason why Staff opposed 
france at large, but we feel it is because a part from not existing, we 
are existing too much. This, certainly is a problem. What an ALS is 
permitted to do. There is a confusion to clarify in Paris : @larges 
are Internet @larges, not only ICANN @larges (at least in our 
opinion). This is why we consider much substance, including but not 
dedicated substance about/for ICANN.

>d. to become a key player in the EURO-IGF

you are more than welcome - both to http://euro-igf.eu and http://euro-igf.org.

>6.   What are the top three things you believe ICANN Staff could do 
>to help your RALO?
>a.reduce the  burocratical barriers to get things done
>b.organize financial support for local and regional activities
>c. fight for ALAC interests and positions within the ICANN burocracy
>d. help to transform ALAC into an ALSO which would give the AL the 
>same right as the three other SOs have, that is to send two voting 
>directors to th Board.

As I indicated, c and d are things Staff cannot loyally do unless for 
example we obtain a joint review committee to be convened by the BoD. 
These are things ALAC should certainly do.

I will give you an example of key mission for an ALSO. ICANN is in 
charge (MoU with IETF) of the IANA operations and of what is related 
to Names and Numbers, IETF retaining control on Parameters (even if 
ICANN tend to pretend it is in charge of Parameters too). Now there 
is another important IANA area which is not allocated which is the 
description of the inter-users direct exchange protocols. This means 
all what users need to communicate in addition to addresses, domain 
names and protocol parameters. This includes for example : language 
documentation (IANA ccTLD Tables and Language Sub-Tag Registry), new 
product specifications (ALSO should review all the IETF/WG-Charters 
as IAB does. IAB is for architectural consistency, ALSO should be for 
usage convenience and interoperability with non-Internet solution of 
the digital convergence. Netiquette should also be documented, there. 
Terminology too. Etc...

jfc