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Re: [atlarge-discuss] ALAC teleconference August 9, 2002 Notes




Sotiris,

Thanks for this comprehensive summary!

I am particularly interested in elections, so I note with interest the following:

Esther Dyson said that the ALAC need not go into
technicalities at this time, but merely to submit a
general outline and/or proposal to the ERC which has a
basis in current practicalities and defers election
matters to a later point once a time-phased approach can
be settled upon and submitted to the ERC/BoD and
thereafter approved.
Does this mean that the ERC-appointed Assistance Group will be silent on the question of elections?

Hans

(P.S. I always find it interesting to study the rhetoric used to eliminate elections. Here the keywords are "technicalities," "basis in current practicalities," "defer," and "time-phased approach." :-) )



At 03:44 AM 8/15/2002 -0400, you wrote:
All,

Here are the notes from the ALAC teleconference last
Friday.  Please forgive my tardiness in presentingthis
summary, but life has a way of intruding...

Nota Bene: I have uploaded Vittorio's PowerPoint Summary
presentation at:
http://www.worldatlarge.org/atlargestructuresummary.ppt
(you will need to view this summary to follow the notes
below).

Participants of Teleconference:

- Alexander Svensson, svensson@icannchannel.de (Manager,
IcannChannel.de, and DNSO General Assembly Alternate
Chair) (recommended an ALAC structure -- see
http://www.alac.info/)
- Denise Michel, coordinator@at-alrge.org (ALOC
coordinator)
- Esther Dyson, edyson@edventure.com (ALSC - ICANN
At-Large Study Committee,
www.atlargestudy.org)
- Edmundo Valenti, emv@southtech.com.ar (Internet Society
Argentina Chapter,
www.isoc.org.ar)
- Gabriel Piñeiro, legales@derecho.org.ar
(LatinoamerICANN, www.latinoamericann.derecho.org.ar)
- Izumi Aizu, izumi@anr.org (NAIS - NGO and Academic ICANN
Study; www.naisproject.org)
- Núria de la Fuente Teixidó, ateneas@retemail.es (STEC -
Sistemas Técnicos
de Enseñanza Consultores, www.stec.info)
- Sotiris Sotiropoulos, sotiris@hermesnetwork.com
(Icannatlarge.com,
www.icannatlarge.com)
- Vittorio Bertola, vb@vitaminic.net (ISOC Italy,
www.isoc.it)


Notes:

Denise Michel invited A. Svennson to participate as we
were to be discussing his plan as well. Vittorio had sent
the group a PowerPoint presentation outlining four
possible atlarge structure schemas.  Denise asked VB to
outline his four structures.  He started by discussing
schema number 1 (see PowerPoint presentation) for the ALOC
schema which was similar to what is “currently” in place
i.e. a variable sized Committee of appointed/elected
representatives of accredited at-large structures who
would potentially vote/select the NomCom and/or BoD
Member(s).  He mentioned that we would need to examine
criteria for accrediting at-large structures. VB pointed
out that a variable sized comittee, which could eventually
get out of control due to sheer unwieldy size was an
undesirable possibility. He went on to the delegation of
seats on such a variable sized committee that could be
allotted according to group size, type etc., or simply one
seat on the committee per accredited structure.  Again,
this committee (and not a general electorate) would elect
the BoD member(s) and/or the NomCom seats allotted for an
ALAC.  NOTE: VB did state that in all the current schemas
the Advisory Committee selects/elects the BoD member(s)
and/or the NomCom seats allotted and he emphasized that he
could envision no other way to work it out.  Also, he
mentioned that there was no method established for how an
ALAC would take its decisions. I asked him about the
possibility for elections among the membership(s) of the
ALOC structures, and VB responded that he was of the
opnion that the ALOC would be eliminated from the
structure entirely.  At this point, he and Esther Dyson
made it clear that either way the current ALOC is a
temporary thing soon to be substituted entirely by the
ALAC.  Denise summarized this first schema as the variable
sized non-election approach, and she did mention that this
creates a self-selecting committee that may or may not be
a problem for some.  I commented on the insular nature of
such a self-selecting committee when she asked for
objections.  No other comments were forthcoming on this
point.  Edmundo chimed in and requested that we allow
Vittorio to continue explaining all the models he had
summarized in his presentation.

VB continued on to Schema 2 (VB’s own plan), where the
At-Large Structures would appoint a part of the Committee.
But he said (and I was unclear as to his meaning but
included it exactly) ‘that there would also be a general
membership that would hold elections among the membership
to elect another part of the committee’.  He also said
that one fundamental point <we> needed to address the
question of election: to have them or not.  Whether to
have individual members vote for some, all, or none of the
members of the Committee etc.  His proposal/approach was
to find a compromise between he ‘appointed’ structures and
‘elective’ structures.  His proposal was for a fixed size
Committee with a mechanism to fill in the positions i.e.
half the seats appointed and the other half elected or
some such variant.  In the case where there were a
surfeit/surplus of at-large structures, that a random
selection process of some kind could even be instituted on
a rotating basis to select which structures get a seat on
the Committee for any given period of time (among other
criteria).  E Dyson stressed that the overriding criterion
on the size of the Committee was actual participation in
meetings and work production and that this would serve to
limit the size of the Committee, but that this also raised
the issue of quorum being proportionate to the number of
people who attend/participate rather than the total.  She
suggested that if there were (in theory) a Committee
composed of reps from all the AL structures, and then an
executive committee, which did all the actual work and
included some geographical/regional diversity that a good
result could be obtained. She went on to say that she was
unsure which model such a schema would fit, but that it
could probably fit into several.  Denise asked VB to
clarify if (still in his Schema 2) individual users would
be electing half of the Advisory Committee and whether the
other half would be appointed by a membership organization
similar to the ALOC, a membership organization?  VB
affirmed that the appointed half is chosen/nominated (in
an undetermined manner, perhaps by random or other means)
from among some membership of accredited structures.  VB
stated that since the actual ICANN membership option is
not feasible at the moment, there would still have to be
membership in some service organization which would
provide for the keeping the member rolls, arranging
elections, executive tasks etc. (the Panel in the ALMO box
in the PowerPoint presentation).  VB said that the main
element of his plan was that ICANN would delegate the
maintenance of the membership roll and the job of
elections to another organization that would be created
for this purpose, effectively the ALMO panel (which would
be elected by the ALMO members i.e. individuals who met
unspecified identity verification qualifications).  Denise
Michel asked VB to clarify further how the at-large
structures would select/elect their representatives on the
Advisory Committee.  Vittorio said that there were many
options that could be considered that have yet to be
ironed out and Denise said that it would be best not to
get into too many details in the interest of moving on
with the discussion.

Alexander Svennson was then called upon to deliver the
presentation of the third schema (his own).  AS’s plan
agreed with VB’s plan on a fixed size Committee for fear
of becoming unwieldy.  AS envisions regional groups that
appoint seats to a user council voting body; his original
idea was 1 vote for structures that have up to 500
members, 2 votes for up to 5000, and anything more than
that gets 3 votes, and then all of the reps in the
resulting user council vote for the members of the fixed
size ALAC that is composed of 2 ALAC members per region
(the original ICANN 5 regions appear to be the standard
here). This committee goes on to select/appoint the NomCom
and BoD member(s). I raised concerns regarding the
verification of the numbers of members claimed by at-large
structures and E. Dyson stated that if elections were to
be held, verification mechanisms would be looked into.
Denise Michel asked about criteria for recognizing an
At-large structure in this schema.  AS responded that the
start up phase would require that some group would have to
decide for the first elections, but given that objective
criteria could thus be established, an ALAC could
recognize (rather than evaluate) the fulfilment of
criteria for any new applicant organization/structure(s).
Izumi Aizu characterized this ‘recognition’ as a kind of
accreditation.  Denise thought that the ‘accreditation
approach’ was valid for Schema 1 and 3 respectively.  AS
then raised the point of ICANN funding for the travel of a
fixed size ALAC to the ICANN meetings to enable
participation for non-commercial reps etc.  Denise Michel
asked AS if he went into the issue of how the ALAC would
(s)elect the NomCom and/or BoD members, and from where the
candidates would be drawn.  AS did not have an answer.

Edmundo asked that we move on to the discussion of schema
4, the regional at-large organization approach, basically
comprised of two persons per 5 ICANN voting at-large
regional structures.  He and Gabriel Pipeiro expressed an
interest in a self-organizing regional structure approach,
which stressed the involvement of users throughout the
world.  I understood that their main concern was that
developed countries would end up with a large number of
accredited at-large structures whereas poorer countries
would not have such a capacity.  Therefore, they preferred
schema 4 to the preceding.  Izumi Aizu came forward in
favour of the regional approach, but he also stated that
he saw the merits in having at-large structures that do
not satisfy regional criteria and may still select members
of the ALAC.  He characterized his approach as a
combination of schemas 2 and 4.  IA’s idea was that half
the ALAC is selected from the regional structures and the
other half via the various remaining accredited at-large
structures (non-regional, perhaps issue-based orgs).
Alexander Svennson asked about how the differentiation
would be made between regional and issue based orgs.
Izumi responded that he wished to foster a situation which
preserved diversity and that the strictly regional
approach may be a limitation and/or obstacle to diversity
of viewpoints.

Esther Dyson said that the ALAC need not go into
technicalities at this time, but merely to submit a
general outline and/or proposal to the ERC which has a
basis in current practicalities and defers election
matters to a later point once a time-phased approach can
be settled upon and submitted to the ERC/BoD and
thereafter approved.  The call ended with a pulse taking
of opinions on the 4 schemas.  A general consensus on the
regional approach combined with consideration of
incorporating non-regional AL structures was evident by
the end of the call (i.e. a combination of schemas 2 and
4).

END



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