[NA-Discuss] Recommendation 12

[John L]

> Westlake Consulting Recommendation #12:  That the ALAC should explore 
> ways to differentiate between organizations that genuinely represent 
> individual Internet users, and are therefore ALS candidates, as opposed 
> to those which may be a better fit with the the NCUC.

When I was on the ALAC, we attempted to turn down an ALS applicant which 
clearly belonged in the NCUC, being an organization of organizations with 
no individual members.  For our troubles we got into a long fight with the 
ICANN Ombudsman, who acted in ways I can only characterize as seriously 
corrupt and incompetent*, and forced us to accept the ALS.  We got no 
support at all from anyone in ICANN, even for our complaints about his 
abuse of process.  So we basically decided to approve them all since there 
was only pain in doing anything else.

I entirely agree that the current setup doesn't properly distinguish 
between actual grassroots groups that belong in the ALAC and other NGOs 
that belong in the NCUC, but we'd be nuts to reopen that wound unless 
there was a good reason to think we wouldn't end up as Frank's punching 
bag again.

R's,
John

* - selective leaks of allegedly confidential correspondence, threats 
against us, refusal to correct significant factual errors in his report, 
you get the idea