[NA-Discuss] The status of ALSes

Eric Brunner-Williams ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net
Sun Jun 9 16:15:27 UTC 2013


On 6/8/13 8:42 PM, Glenn McKnight wrote:
> If we are going to put the the ALS's under the microsope then we need to go
> further  and look how active these members are as to  working groups,
> voting patterns and active involvement.  This should definitely be our
>  yardstick for anyone looking to representing NARALO.

While I don't disagree that engagement is a good, and possibly the
best indicator of an At-Large Structure's realization of the
commitments made upon application for that status, and a reasonable
measure for individuals affiliated with ALSes as representatives of
the NARALO, it is possible to directly test each of each ALSes several
commitments, which is the subject of my two original notes on this
subject, and a spreadsheet and explanatory notes I'll be sending to
Staff and the NA-Discuss list later today, and a measure of ALS member
activity could not individuals not affiliated with ALSes.

Something along the lines of what you've proposed was presented at the
Paris ICANN meeting, disclosing, if memory serves, that the recorded
votes of the Business Constituency members of the GNSO Council and the
recorded votes of the Internet Service Provider Constituency members
of the GNSO Council corollated with the recorded votes of the
Intellectual Property Constituency, and, that very few proposals
leading to recorded votes on policy development originated from either
of the Business or Internet Service Provider Constituency.

My take-away at the time, and I'd been observing GNSO Council meetings
in 2000-2005 and 2007-2009 (year of the Paris meeting), was that real
numbers had been put to what was obvious -- the IPC had captured the
BC and ISPC, leading to the polarization and gridlock later
rationalized in the "reform" creating a Contracted Parties House and a
Non-Contracted Parties House, with their polarization and gridlock
formalized.

I do wish to point out that putting "the ALS's under the microscope"
is not something that only "we" can do. The records are public, anyone
can study them, as I have, and as was done previously, see the Survey
of 2010 as another approach to the available data.

Eric Brunner-Williams
Eugene, Oregon


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