[NA-Discuss] Ramping up for the election - General Procedures

[Eric Brunner-Williams]

On 5/31/13 7:49 PM, Alan Greenberg wrote:
> Regarding the selection of the unaffiliated rep, the procedures also 
> cover that, and as one of the final acts as this year's rep, I will 
> oversee the process.
> 
> As a reminder to anyone who is interested, to be an unaffiliated 
> member of NARALO, one must submit a Statement of Interest indicating 
> that he/she meet the following criteria:
> 
> - be subscribed to the NA-Discuss list;
> - be a permanent resident of one of the countries/territories in the 
> North American region as defined by ICANN;
> - not be a member of a certified ALS.
> 
> Such an unaffiliated membership continues until or unless one of the 
> criteria is fails to be satisfied (ie leaves the list, ceases to be a 
> resident of NA, or is a member of an organization that is or becomes 
> a NARALO ALS).
> 
> I note that membership in ISOC Canada, which has just become an ALS, 
> is an example of a reason for losing unaffiliated status.

Thank you Alan. This is Rule 17.

ISOC Chapters come and go. A former co-worker at CORE has been
starting a chapter in Norway, where a chapter existed, became
moribund, and finally was dissolved. At Large Structure certifications
come and go also.

The 2007 MoU establishing NARALO contains this decertification
responsibility:

5. "Agreed Responsiblities of the NARALO"
...
f) "Providing advice to the ICANN At Large Advisory Committee about
the certification and, if necessary, decertification of different ALSs
and the use of outreach and communication tool across the region."

EURALO has a draft decertification procedure document. LACRALO and
AFRALO have published substantive criteria. The NARALO criteria is
tied only to "voting", and so capable of being met by a single person
representing him or her self as an organization.

For instance, the Canadian Association for Open Source appears
quiessent, Peter Salus stopped blogging there in 2006, Bill Traynor in
2007, Evan Liebovitch in 2008, with only Russell McOrmond continuing
to January, 2012. No "recent posts" reflected in its log for the past
twelve months, three only in the past twenty four months, six only,
and all by the same person, for the past 36 months.

I've no idea how this particular structure continues to meet the ALAC
certification criteria.

Another peculiarity is Knujon, which appears to be two persons, Garth
and Robert Bruen, principals of a Massachusetts LLC and a Vermont
S-Corp, respectively, with a freemium business model (free reports
with a premium enhanced reports) and the interesting claim of
"possibly 10,000" of what are described as "unaffiliated or
unregistered members", along with "1000" of what are described as
"Registered clients".

I've no idea how this particular structure ever could have met the
ALAC certification criteria. BC membership, reasonably, but ALS
requires due diligence by ICANN Staff which "could include, without
limitation, ... requiring the applicant to demonstrate the identity of
their individual constituents."

This isn't to say the Bruen brothers businesses don't do good things,
but it is odd to construe the enablement, participation and membership
criteria (1, 2 and 4 of the minimum criteria for an At-Large
Structure) as something that could possibly be met by two legal
persons, whether siblings or private benefit corporations.

This just happened to also catch my eye -- the latest statistics for
the web405 website (recall the enablement, participation and
membership criteria) is from November, 2007.

I have a preference for eligible candidates, and for eligible electors.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon