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Re: [atlarge-discuss] offlist: RE: [atlarge-discuss] Provisional Membership Committee (copy to all members)
Abel Wisman Wrote:
> I suppose this is what some think bottom-up democracy is or should not
> be: a group with no verified support in the membership that takes the
> decision who to send off a newly elected panel without the decent form
> of a vote of no confidence from the entire membership, without proof of
> non-existence? Are you all of a sudden ruling over the members and the
> new panel based upon assumed guilty till proven innocent ?
Abel:
We all need a Panel to lead us forward.
The Panel that we elected consists of a number of people that are unknown to
most members, and they were asked to confirm who they were and to introduce
themselves to the membership. Some have not done so. You may be very happy
to work with people who have refused to answer a simple request that they
identify themselves, that they confirm that they are willing to serve on the
Panel and that they introduce themselves to the people that they were
elected to serve. Others, however, are not happy with that scenario. Some
have been vocal in their concern and some have tagged the unknown
Panelists-elect as "ghosts".
Since there is no "authority" at this time, Sotiris asked members to
volunteer for a committee to verify that the "ghosts" really do exist. So
far 9 people have stepped forward to offer their services. It is a
thankless job, but unless someone looks at this issue, we are likely to stay
without a valid Panel until there are cries for a new election and then
screams that the existing election has been overturned. That could mean
that a basic Panel to bootstrap this organization is no closer than it was a
year ago. I offered to join the verification committee. Every member had
that opportunity. This is not a group of anarchists, it is the few people
who stepped forward when asked to undertake a job that needs to be done.
Whether you, or anyone else agrees or disagrees with the methodology that
Sotiris, has used in his one man committee so far, you should not use that
experience to condemn a committee that will not start to function until
00:00Zulu Saturday, and not even then if the membership is satisfied that we
have elected 11 real people who are willing to serve on the Panel. However,
unless all the elected Panelists do make themselves known to the membership
within the next 30 hours, I suspect that the membership as a whole will not
consider the Panel legitimate.
In order to avoid that scenario, those of us who have volunteered to do this
work, will attempt to contact the "ghosts" and ask them to verify that they
are who they say, that they are willing to serve in the office they were
elected to, and that they are wiling to introduce themselves to the
membership that they were elected to serve. We will report our findings
back to the membership.
> Define your proposed working methods, your proposed actions upon
> failure, what constitutes failure, how you gonna get approval of the
> membership to conduct all this and finally what binds each and every
> committee member PERSONAL liability for personal information gathered
> about anyone getting out of your committee by any member of that
> committee. Are you gonna hold yourself to any rules at all or are you
> going on a rampage like SS did and start calling ex employers or even
> worse, customers of either of us for this so-called verification?
You may be sure that I will not be a part of any system that includes going
on a rampage and calling ex employers or customers. Privacy is a very
important issue with me and I will not be a part of the collection and / or
dissemination of any private data. You have seen my earlier posts condemning
such practices.
> I did not volunteer, I was asked, I was nominated and accepted. I was
> persuaded to make it acceptable that I was a real person and I did. For
> me the game ends there.
The reference to volunteers was the Provisional Membership Committee, not
the Panel.
> What is to stop the next from rising and saying: I do not have faith in
> that committee and want the job done again and this time I want to see
> all the data myself! Please don't tell me it wont, because it is exactly
> what is happening now.
> What is there to stop any member from proposing and organizing a vote or
> gaining enough support to have a vote organized that does just that
> again on the premise of this (second!) action not being "within the
> rules of democracy" and to state the committee acted upon themselves
> without the support of the majority. And so on and so on.
>
> As Richard Henderson said (freely translated) let's make some rules
> before you create a process.
In my opinion, the only thing that is likely to stop the clamor for another
election, and another, and another... is if we can seat a duly elected Panel
now and let them codify a constitution that makes the next election a viable
one. That is my only concern here. It is the only reason that I
volunteered to undertake this specific task.
I have previously and privately advised four members of the membership
committee that I will publicly ask them to excuse themselves from this
particular task. I will copy below my message to them so that everyone
understands why. The result would be a committee of 5 members unless there
are others who wish to join before 00:00Zulu Saturday and who meet the
simplified verification standards, that have been met by the current 9
volunteers.
--------copy of message previously sent to four committee members---------
Good morning, Sotiris, Mauro, Jeff and Kristen:
I note that we have 9 members who have volunteered to serve on the
Provisional Membership Committee:
1. Sotiris Sotiropoulos Verified
2. Micheal Sherrill Verified
3. Joe Borda Verified
4. Kristen Doyle Verified
5. Ron Sherwood Verified
6. Mauro D. Rios Pending
7. Jeff Holt Verified
8. Jeff Williams Pending
9. Joanna Lane Verified
Sotiris' list notwithstanding, I am satisfied that all of these volunteers
are real people and that they are verifiably qualified to serve on a
Membership committee to be tasked by the Panel to work on any membership
related issue. The first duty of this committee, however, is to verify the
newly elected Panel so that they may be seated.
This singular task raises some "conflict-of-interest" issues. Therefore, in
order to avoid the possibility of C of I allegations, I plan to publicly ask
certain volunteers to excuse themselves from this particular duty.
Three of the volunteers; Sotiris Sotiropoulos, Mauro Rios, and Kristen
Doyle, are open to Conflict of Interest allegations due to their election to
the Panel or their potential to become a Panel member if elected members
disqualify. The fourth volunteer with a potential for Conflict of Interest
allegations is Jeff Williams, who has repeatedly and clearly stated that he
does not accept the election of any of the candidates under any conditions.
It would therefore be wrong to expect him to participate in the
qualification process of candidates that he clearly does not believe have
been elected to serve on the Panel.
It might raise the status of each of these volunteers in the eyes of the
membership if they were to excuse themselves before being asked.
I want it to be quite clear that this request is for this issue only. I
still believe that all of the volunteers on this list should remain on the
membership committee to serve in other areas where there is not the same
risk of C of I allegations.
I look forward to working with you all.
Ron Sherwood
-------end copy--------
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joanna Lane [mailto:jo-uk@rcn.com]
> Sent: 06 June 2003 16:56
> To: Ron Sherwood; Daniel R. Tobias
> Cc: atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de
> Subject: [atlarge-discuss] offlist: RE: [atlarge-discuss] Provisional
> Membership Committee (copy to all members)
>
>
> Ron,
> Good job, but I have taken the liberty of doing an edit of your letter,
> to be a little more specific about what is being asked of them......
>
> First, it doesn't need to be signed by a Chairperson, neither do we have
> one, so best just to sign it "from the Provisional ID Verification
> Committee" or similar and list all names and email addresses, so there
> is no excuse for not contacting any one of us.
>
> Sorry about the wrap thing if I messed it up.
> Joanna
>
> _____________________________________________________
>
> "Dear X,
>
> Your ranking in the recent ICANNAtLarge Panel Elections placed you in
> the top 11. In order to confirm whether on not you will be taking up
> your place with immediate effect, and to introduce yourself to the
> membership, would you please provide:-
>
> 1) Simple proof of your existence as the person you represent yourself
> to be. You may submit copies of official documents, such as driving
> license and bank statement, in private to any one of a group of
> volunteers acting as a Provision ID Verification Committee, whose names
> and contact details appear below. These volunteers will not share your
> information outside the committee. In addition, would you please make a
> $1 electronic payment at www.Paypal.com , made payable to
> sotiris@hermesnetwork.com, which $ will be returned to you promptly. If
> you are unable to comply with these requests, please contact a member of
> the ID Verification Committee to discuss alternative procedures to
> verify your identity that may be acceptable.
>
> 2) Accept your Panel seat by sending a note to the AtLarge discuss list
> to confirm your willingness to serve on the Panel for its duration (or
> for a lesser duration if that is your preference).
>
> 3) Introduce yourself to the membership by sending a copy of your CV/
> Resume to the AtLarge discuss list, or the URL where this is posted
> online.
>
> A number of candidates are unknown to the
> membership, and because of the possibility of pseudo
> personas standing for election in an on-line voting
> process, it is essential that candidates who receive sufficient votes to
> be elected Panelists, satisfy minimum criteria to verify their identity
> within a reasonable period of time after the election finishes. On this
> occasion, the grace period is seven days, or the candidate forfeits
> their right to be seated on the Panel, and their place is offered to the
> candidate with the next highest number of votes.
>
> Please be advised that grace period expires on Sunday June 8th at
> 00:00Zulu (Midnight Saturday GMT)
>
> We look forward to your early response.
>
> Sincerely,
> for and on behalf of the ICANN@Large Verification Committee
>
> (list all members with email addresses)
>
> ___________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ron Sherwood [mailto:sherwood@islands.vi]
> > Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 10:46 AM
> > To: Daniel R. Tobias; atlarge-discuss@lists.fitug.de
> > Subject: Re: [atlarge-discuss] Provisional Membership Committee (copy
> > to all members)
> >
> >
> > Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
> >
> > > Your message is malformed; its line length doesn't meet the standard
>
> > > of RFC 2822. See this screenshot:
> >
> > For those members who have an email client that
> > does not handle word wrap, I resend the message:
> >
> > Dear Provisional Membership Committee volunteers:
> >
> > I have been asked to prepare a draft letter to be sent
> > to all Panelists-elect.
> >
> > Since the last day of the 7 day grace period starts at 00:00Zulu
> > Saturday, and since that is 8:00pm Atlantic time today, I propose that
>
> > the committee elect their chairman at that time and immediately send
> > this letter out to all Panel-elect members.
> >
> > Draft letter below for your approval
> >
> > Regards, Ron Sherwood
> >
> > ----------Draft Letter----------
> >
> > Dear Candidate:
> >
> > You offered to serve as an officer of the Panel of representatives to
> > perform certain bootstrap tasks on behalf of the 900+ registered
> > members of the ICANN@Large Internet users group. In the election
> > process, you received sufficient votes to be seated as
> > a member of the Panel.
> >
> > Because a number of candidates are unknown to the
> > membership, and because of the possibility of pseudo
> > personas standing for election in an on-line voting
> > process, it was determined that the elected Panelists
> > should be provided with a grace period of seven days
> > to fulfill three simple requirements, or to automatically disqualify
> > themselves from the right to take office. That grace period expires on
>
> > Sunday June 8th at 00:00Zulu (Midnight Saturday GMT)
> >
> > The three requirements are:
> >
> > 1) to provide to the membership discuss list, or to a verification
> > committee, simple proof of your existence as the person you
> > represented yourself to be as a candidate. The method was left to you,
>
> > but several options were offered.
> >
> > 2) to confirm your willingness to serve on the Panel for
> > its duration (or for a lesser duration if that is your will).
> >
> > 3) to introduce yourself to the membership by posting
> > to the atLarge-discuss list.
> >
> > A number of members have volunteered to act as the Verification
> > Committee and will spend the 24 hours prior to the expiration of the
> > grace period in an attempt to contact all Panel members-elect to
> > verify their compliance with the three above requirements.
> > Please accept this message as our notice of that
> > contact attempt. If you have not yet met the above
> > requirements please do so immediately.
> >
> > Your early response is requested.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > for the ICANN@Large Verification Committee
> >
> > ?????????, Chairperson
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
>
>
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