[NA-Discuss] ALAC Review Draft is published

[Bret Fausett]

>    * Create two new ALAC positions, appointed by the Nominating
>      Committee, both from Asia, to reflect that region's increased
>      proportion of global Internet users

I understand the thinking here, but I can see some downside to  
"proportional representation," either by absolute population or  
population of Internet users.

First, are you going to take away a representative from Africa under  
the same theory?

Second, even within a region, the ALAC representatives aren't  
distributed in accord with the population. If you have proportional  
representation across the five regions, don't you then have to do it  
within the regions? If the point of increasing the AP ALAC members is  
to reflect the population, doesn't same principle dictate that of the  
five proposed Asia-Pacific representatives, China always have at least  
three and India at least one? I see no real way of making this work in  
a manner that reflects the population. Five ALAC representatives from  
English-speaking Australia and New Zealand wouldn't really address the  
problems the Review Committee is trying to solve.

Finally, has there been a complaint that some needs are being unmet by  
the current representatives? What are those complaints? If there are  
none, perhaps we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

This is a subject I'd be interesting in hearing more about.

        Bret