Re: [ICANN-EU] European At Large Council

[Geza Giedke <ggiedke@fe-c705.uibk.ac.at>]

Dear Vittorio and all,

thanks for the nice summary of questions to be addressed. 
In my opinion, an open list would serve our needs best. I think it
would be wise to avoid as much as possible formal issues like
(s)electing representatives or deciding about a mandate.
I'm talking about a ML below - but as I stated before I think a
newsgroup might be even more suitable.


Vittorio Bertola writes:
> On Tue, 29 Aug 2000 13:19:27 CEST, you wrote:
> May I propose a sequence of points that we should solve to proceed?
> 1) Should it be a closed group, or an open one?
open

> If it will be closed:
> 	- How big should it be?
> 	- How do we select its members?
> 	- Should we make an open call for anyone who wants to be a member,
> 	  and then close the group?
> 	- Should there be some limitations (i.e.: not more than 1/4 of
>         the members from the same country)?
all these difficult and tedious questions are avoided if the ML is open

> If it will be open:
> 	- How do we avoid the group being taken over, flooded, or accused
> 	  not to be representative?

I think there is no possibility and no need to have the ML be
representative of anything but its active members;
it has a much better chance to be representative "of active netizens"
if it is open;  

> 2) What should its mandate be?

does a ML need a mandate? who can give this to it?
i should think that a topic would be enough for a start; the ML would
then be a repository of opinions, ideas, knowledge concerning ICANN's
duties and policies (both interpreted very widely) 
if it is the only (or the largest) community of @Large members online,
this will sort of legitimize it 

> 	- Should it advise the Director?
let's ask the candidates what they think of that sort of advise;
the ML members will try to give advice anyway
 
> 	- Should it try to work out a proposal on official At Large councils
> 	  and further At Large membership enhancements?

this should be on-topic on the list

> 	- Should it promote participation, organize open forums, lists etc.?
> 	- Should it try to issue press releases and get attention from the
> 	  media?

no, or at least not at first

> 	- Should it explicitly support one or more candidates in the final
> 	  ballot?

no
 
> I've rethought at my original proposal, and after the discussions we
> had, I think that we should try to form a closed group (though open
> for reading to everyone) with somewhat "representative" people - but
> we should also try to get the best possible and most active persons
> in it. So I'd make an open call to everyone who wishes to get in,
> but (in case we get more applicants than the number of members,
> which I'd like to be about 20-30) I'd say that 60-70% of the places
> should go to candidates in this election, sorted by their number of
> endorsements, and then those people should opt-in the others
> choosing between the applicants. This would allow to bring in
> persons who were not candidates or could not get enough support but
> that are thought to be influential or important to have a good
> result, but would nevertheless ensure that the resulting board is
> somewhat representative of the At Large members' wish. The call for
> members should be adequately made public, i.e.  with a message to
> all candidates and all At Large members in Europe, if ICANN allows
> us to do it.
> What do you (everyone) think of this?

except for an election conducted by the @Large members I cannot think
of any way to select a "representative" group of ML members - and I
don't think there is any need for this: let opinions and ideas speak
for themselves in an open ML; if signal-to-noise gets too low, use
scoring and killfiles; if traffic gets too much, the list should be
subdivided according to more specific topics

regards
 Geza