[atlarge-discuss] Membership Fees & Bylaws

[DannyYounger@cs.com]

Richard,

ICANN is a cartel.  Their livihood depends upon those that feed their 
coffers.  Public interest groups, no matter how representative, moral, 
transparent or replete with integrity cannot on their own successfully 
pressure a cartel.  Try "pressuring" OPEC and see how far it gets you.  Those 
that control a monopoly resource only fear those that have the muscle to 
impact their revenue stream.  If icannatlarge.com ever develops a 
multi-million dollar war chest and then uses those funds to legally threaten 
ICANN, then perhaps you can make some progress.  ICANN is "pressured" by the 
ccTLDs because they are in a position to impact the revenue stream.  You are 
not.  And it won't matter how large you become if you don't start accruing 
financial reserves and begin retaining a legal staff.  Your own agenda and 
your own community mean absolutely nothing if you can't back it up with the 
money necessary to fight your battles.

I have raised the issue of membership fees on many occasions, only to watch 
you folks dodge the issue.  Perhaps you are afraid that once you start 
charging a membership fee your roster of members will disappear and instead 
of a thousand members you will only have less than fifty.  You might as well 
start facing your financial realities now.  That means having the panel doing 
the job it was elected to do.  Since the panel has already forgotten what 
their task was, let me remind you...

Your job was to draft the bylaws.  Once bylaws are in place votes may be held 
to deal with such matters as incorporation  and the need to elect a treasurer 
and other officers.  Bylaws allow for finances to be raised, for transparency 
to be preserved, for legitimacy and accountability -- none of which is 
currently guaranteed to your membership in the absence of such bylaws.  Who's 
in charge of getting the bylaws drafted, and when will we see a draft ready 
for ratification?  This should have been your top priority, but I don't even 
see it on anyone's radar screen.  Perhaps the panel thinks that picking a new 
name is much more important than working on the bylaws... if so, I think the 
panel has its priorities screwed up.
 

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