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



Sotiris and all stakeholders or other interested parties,

  First thank you Sotiris for your very good notes here.  I am sure
many members will find them very interesting reading, as I did...  >;)

  My comments on Sotiris's well done notes:

  I Knew that VB would get around to wanting to "Appoint" instead
of elect some or all of the representatives.  It is clear now as it has
been
to me at least for some time that Vittorio is not interested in a
democratic structure or determination for an "Atlarge" representatives.
As such, to call anything an "Atlarge" that has appointed representatives

is a pure sham...

  To me anyway, the idea in Vittorios schema 2 is simply another
way of restating the ALSC all over again.  Of course that was soundly
rejected some time ago now.



Sotiris Sotiropoulos 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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