[At-Large] [ALAC] Idea for an alternative to the EMM proposed in the At-Large Review

Dev Anand Teelucksingh devtee at gmail.com
Thu Feb 16 16:35:47 UTC 2017


Hi, Seun,

Re: certification requirements, I don't think so, the comments so far seem
to favour a more tighter, rigid control of what is a "proper" organisation
and seeking to get rid of organisations and its members that don't make the
cut (too small, not educated enough, not "end user" focused), giving rise
to a elitism where those "approved" organisations/members look down on
persons from "non-approved" organisations.

Re: individual members, there also seems to be a sentiment that such
individuals should be treated as less equal than individuals from an
organisation in At-Large.
No amount of outreach will help if individuals that join At-Large aren't
being fully accepted in At-Large, compared to individuals from
organisations in At-Large.

Dev Anand


On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 1:53 AM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks Dev, based on your response, I then like to focus on item 1; the
> problem statement. Kindly find comments inline:
>
> Sent from my LG G4
> Kindly excuse brevity and typos
>
> On Feb 15, 2017 2:53 AM, "Dev Anand Teelucksingh" <devtee at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hello Seun, to respond to your questions/comments:
>
>
> 1. What is wrong with the current ALS structure that the "ISOC chapter
> like" setup as a replacement would address? If this is with regards to
> individual membership, isn't some RALOs already doing that? What can we
> learn from their experience and how can we improve on it sounds like a way
> forward to me.
>
> - A lot of time and energy is used in At-Large to "certifying"
> organisations as At-large Structures, whether organisations are end user
> focused, are organisations legitimate, how much members it has, what are
> the bylaws of the organisation - it takes months, sometimes years for an
> organisation to become accredited as an At-Large Structure with the
> ultimate end result being one or two persons in an organisation having the
> volunteer time, energy, passion to be involved in At-Large whilst serving
> their organisation. That's because many organisations' (including ISOC
> chapters) reason for being is not singularly focused on the narrow remit of
> ICANN issues.
>
>
> SO: Based on what is stated above, will reviewing the certification
> requirement address the problem?
>
>
> Many organisations are also facing the challenges of the Internet and
> Social Media, persons able to find technical knowledge online and network
> directly with like minded individuals without joining "formal"
> organisations.
>
>
> SO: Okay this seem to refer to individual membership which as you know is
> being attended to by some RALOs already (but ofcourse can be improved). On
> the other hand there are also people on AtLarge who are not even Members of
> any ALS at the moment so do you not think the current structure already
> provide accommodation for such individual who doesn't want a formal
> involvement?
>
> - The marketing of ICANN At-Large as a result is also confusing as it
> foremost focuses on organisations joining rather than individuals, the
> latter often joining in an ad-hoc manner.
>
>
> SO: I totally agree with this point, and this will then call for reviewing
> our outreach strategy. It makes absolute sense to reachout to individuals
> instead, get them to join as individuals, when they are in, they themselves
> can decide to take it a step further by inviting their organisation and
> having them join.
>
> - The motivation for ALSes to market to individuals in their country to
> join At-Large is not there as organisations would seek to have persons join
> and assist their organisation first than be involved ICANN At-Large.
>
>
> SO: Hmm...While I see your point, I think the other point is that current
> structure in some RALOs doesn't have option for individual hence an
> existing ALS is only motivated to encourage other organisations to join as
> an ALS which indeed can take time and make it discouraging. Still goes back
> to comment made above about making provisions for individual membership.
>
> - For countries with zero At-Large presence, individuals that may have an
> interest in Internet end user issues have an obstacle of forming a group
> first to then participate in At-Large.
>
>
> SO: Indeed, same Comment as above.
>
> - This is cumbersome and confusing with no obvious benefit. Its why groups
> in ICANN like NCUC which are easier to join (and market) appear to be more
> successful.
>
> - The replacement idea of online At-Large Chapters would unite users,
> individuals, organisation members as a Special Interest Group, the Interest
> being to focus on ICANN activites as it relates to the interests of
> Internet end users.
>
>
> SO: If the AtLarge chapters is just the title we want to use to
> accommodate individual membership, so instead of having just one ALS like
> organisation that serves as umbrella for all individuals interested to join
> (as some RALOs have done) we setup country chapters and have individuals
> join through that while the ALS continues. The other option for a start
> could be to have a chapter per RALO and then have country chapters formed
> once the membership in the RALO chapter from a particular country reach
> certain number. Overall I personally feel going this route will bring
> about more "online" administrative work but I will be fine if we are in for
> that.
>
> - The marketing becomes much simpler - have an interest, join the online
> At-Large Chapter in your country. Building relationships with other
> stakeholders (eg ccNSO) in country would also become easier.
>
>
> SO: Dev I am sure you know that current ALS/RALO is actually online (once
> the accreditation hurdle is passed), so I think onus of the whole issue is
> more about providing a means for individual membership to join formerly.
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> 2. I don't know about many ISOC chapters but based on the few I am
> familiar with, I doubt ISOC chapter is as successful as such, especially in
> the area of sourcing diverse input into a global process. Don't get me
> wrong, I am an ISOC member and this is not to play down on the ORG but to
> recognise that even as they strive to improve there will always be
> participation challenge which isn't anyone's fault (when it gets to certain
> level)
>
> - Indeed, the challenges of managing the bureaucracy of a organisation can
> drain the few volunteers in organisation that strive to fulfill the work of
> the organisation. Often those passionate few persons working in the
> organisation are the ones called on to get involved in At-Large.
>
>
> 3. I can assure you that the level of success that ISOC chapters may have
> achieved is among many things also because of the support/resources/funding
> that ISOC global provided to her chapters. Is ICANN ORG and community
> willing and ready for such commitment. Should we go into this and get
> blamed later?
>
> - We are getting blamed yesterday and today. :-)
> - The resources are primarily online ones - eg mailing list, online
> conference room, wiki accounts, online voting, essentially the online
> support offered to RALOs today. It is NOT about registering an organisation
> in country, paying rent fees, paying taxes as ISOC requires. The only
> significant dollar amount that could be needed would be for public outreach
> activites of the At-Large Chapter and that could be covered by the type of
> funding of local outreach activites  project implemented for FY17.
>
>
> 4. Currently the only significant things we do for ALSes is an opportunity
> to have one global meeting at every ATLAS event and in if some RALOs are
> lucky they get to bring their ALS reps to one ICANN event in their region.
> Based on this, we already have significant noise that ICANN already spend
> too much on AtLarge, you can't imagine what we will get if it were chapters
> because maintaining a chapter isn't cheap (especially if it's to effective)
>
> - Again, its not as expensive. Its the same support offered to RALOs, but
> done at the country/territory level.
>
> 5. It's easier to sell ISOC chapter to a country/Netizen than to sell an
> AtLarge chapter, so I see a significant marketing challenge there.
>
> - Indeed, ISOC chapters compete with local organisations for mindshare.
> And persons in an At-Large chapter can be involved in whatever
> organisations they want to be in, be it ISOC or otherwise.
> - Think of the At-Large Chapter as a online Special Interest Group per
> country.
>
>
>
> 6. ISOC chapters isn't just a virtual setup and getting an ISOC chapter up
> and running indeed requires legal documentation locally. If we think it
> will be easy to get someone interested in not just leading a team but going
> through that process then we should go interview some countries/localities
> who are still trying to get their ISOC chapter up and running (bear in mind
> that ISOC is more marketable).
>
> - Again, its not about registering companies in countries, the At-Large
> chapters are virtual, just like RALOs are today.
>
>
> 7. The current ALS is somewhat based on freewill hence ICANN/AtLarge has
> no serious obligation to ensure the ALS remain alive as the organisation
> runs independently. However once we put AtLarge on that path of chapters,
> we would have signed up for more upbringing responsibilities which would
> result to more administrative responsibilities (was ITEMS mentioning there
> is too much internal processes in current structure, wait for what is to
> come if we go chapter route).
>
> - But the metrics and tracking of involvement of the persons in an
> At-Large Chapter becomes much, much more easier to ICANN to audit. The
> processes and rules for each online At-Large Chapter will be consistent.
> At-Large becomes more accountable and transparent.
>
> Dev Anand
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 2:25 PM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello Dev,
>>
>> As much as I think what you've said is interesting, I doubt it's what
>> AtLarge require as an improvement. A few question/comments comes to mind as
>> I read through your proposal:
>>
>> 1. What is wrong with the current ALS structure that the "ISOC chapter
>> like" setup as a replacement would address? If this is with regards to
>> individual membership, isn't some RALOs already doing that? What can we
>> learn from their experience and how can we improve on it sounds like a way
>> forward to me.
>>
>> 2. I don't know about many ISOC chapters but based on the few I am
>> familiar with, I doubt ISOC chapter is as successful as such, especially in
>> the area of sourcing diverse input into a global process. Don't get me
>> wrong, I am an ISOC member and this is not to play down on the ORG but to
>> recognise that even as they strive to improve there will always be
>> participation challenge which isn't anyone's fault (when it gets to certain
>> level)
>>
>> 3. I can assure you that the level of success that ISOC chapters may have
>> achieved is among many things also because of the support/resources/funding
>> that ISOC global provided to her chapters. Is ICANN ORG and community
>> willing and ready for such commitment. Should we go into this and get
>> blamed later?
>>
>> 4. Currently the only significant things we do for ALSes is an
>> opportunity to have one global meeting at every ATLAS event and in if some
>> RALOs are lucky they get to bring their ALS reps to one ICANN event in
>> their region. Based on this, we already have significant noise that ICANN
>> already spend too much on AtLarge, you can't imagine what we will get if it
>> were chapters because maintaining a chapter isn't cheap (especially if it's
>> to effective)
>>
>> 5. It's easier to sell ISOC chapter to a country/Netizen than to sell an
>> AtLarge chapter, so I see a significant marketing challenge there.
>>
>> 6. ISOC chapters isn't just a virtual setup and getting an ISOC chapter
>> up and running indeed requires legal documentation locally. If we think it
>> will be easy to get someone interested in not just leading a team but going
>> through that process then we should go interview some countries/localities
>> who are still trying to get their ISOC chapter up and running (bear in mind
>> that ISOC is more marketable).
>>
>> 7. The current ALS is somewhat based on freewill hence ICANN/AtLarge has
>> no serious obligation to ensure the ALS remain alive as the organisation
>> runs independently. However once we put AtLarge on that path of chapters,
>> we would have signed up for more upbringing responsibilities which would
>> result to more administrative responsibilities (was ITEMS mentioning there
>> is too much internal processes in current structure, wait for what is to
>> come if we go chapter route).
>>
>> Overall maybe it may have been good to have a chapter like AtLarge in the
>> early 2000 before the community reduced AtLarge to a single Board Member
>> organisation and with advisory capacity, I doubt such is realistic in the
>> present ICANN not because it will not receive support of the community but
>> because it doesn't sound sustainable!
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Sent from my LG G4
>> Kindly excuse brevity and typos
>>
>> On Feb 13, 2017 15:05, "Dev Anand Teelucksingh" <devtee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's an idea for an alternative proposal for At-Large to the EMM model
>>> proposed in the At-Large Review
>>>
>>> My thoughts - The proposed EMM has flaws. Some immediate ones :
>>>
>>> - it destroys the community and with that, the consensus building of
>>> community with replacement
>>> of individuals with even less ties to the public community. Such
>>> individuals will promote and collude with other individuals to keep
>>> themselves in the loop. Also, with many of the policy discussions in GNSO
>>> being English, this permanently eliminates persons from developing/emerging
>>> economies from non-English from ever participating.
>>> - given that any individual could already participate in GNSO, we would
>>> be no different from such random individuals
>>> - it removes the mandate on oversight and accountability on ICANN
>>> activities from end user interests
>>> - a thousand individuals in one large country will override 10
>>> individuals from a small country  so there will be less diversity in the
>>> EMM model only from those countries with large number of  individuals.
>>> - Nomcom appointees to ALAC new to ICANN will serve as Liasions to other
>>> groups is not sensible
>>>
>>> There are many more problems but I want to focus on a IMO a better
>>> At-Large model than the EMM one:
>>>
>>> - ICANN establishes At-Large Chapters in each country similiar in
>>> concept to Rotary or ISOC chapters.
>>> - each chapter is open to anyone interested in ICANN from the interests
>>> of end users.
>>> - ICANN can set guidelines for each chapter - some examples: must do
>>> certain level of outreach, have term limits, have a public F2F awareness
>>> meeting to recruit new persons. ICANN would need to provide some funding to
>>> make this happen but this would be small and the chapters can account to
>>> ICANN for expenses.
>>> - ICANN can provide the tools (mailing lists, conference tools) to
>>> facilitate online discussions.
>>> - Because there is a consistent brand - At-Large Chapter in the country,
>>> marketing/promoting is
>>> greatly simplified and easier to explain.
>>> - Given that such chapters are virtual, it makes chapters easy to
>>> establish with only a few individuals from a country without the challenges
>>> of having formal organisations with bylaws and pay taxes.
>>>
>>> So an At-Large chapter ends up being a virtual ALS in each country in
>>> the ALAC/RALO/ALS model.
>>>
>>> The RALOs will consist of the chapters from each country in the region
>>> with each chapter electing two persons to coordinate the RALO work. The
>>> RALO will be better positioned to better fulfil its MOUs with ICANN and the
>>> RALO and ALAC would not have to bother with analysing whether an
>>> organisation meets the criteria of an ALS.
>>>
>>> The At-Large chapters will be better able to network with At-Large
>>> chapters in other countries and build consensus on policy issues and help
>>> promote and grow the At-Large Community.
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Dev Anand
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ALAC mailing list
>>> ALAC at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>>> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac
>>>
>>> At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org
>>> ALAC Working Wiki: https://community.icann.org/di
>>> splay/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
>>>
>>
>
>
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