Re: [ICANN-EU] RFD #1: Forum bylaws

[Alexander Svensson <svensson@icannchannel.de>]

Dear Harald,

>>To form a group that is managable in size the European forum limits itself
>>to European members as defined in V.
>
> does this mean that icann-europe will unsubscribe Jeff Williams and William
> Walsh? And what about the expatriate Joop Ternstra - is he in or out?

I would propose that non-European members should remain
list members, but that in case a decision-making mechanism
is agreed, they should be non-voting members. Obviously,
every list member has to accept the list rules.

> And nowhere do I see a decision-making function being defined... the group
> should have a method of deciding when to change its own rules....

Agree, although the Forum decisions will by it's nature
currently be non-binding. Nevertheless, there may be occasions
where we don't want to make the impression that "some bunch of 
people on some mailing list think that...", but rather that 
"the European At Large Forum has decided that...". 

I list some of the options we have:

a) "Rough consensus"
We may try to do this without any quantitative voting
mechanism. 
 Advantages: No software, no extra work required
 Disadvantages: Having no 'hard' criteria may lead
  to a lot of distracting discussions whether a consensus 
  has been reached or not.

b) Simple voting mechanism
We may set up a quorum (e.g. of cast votes and/or of
list members) and just gather the votes without a
voter registry. One e-mail address, one vote.
 Advantages: Software is readily available, not much
  extra work required
 Disadvantages: Risk of manipulation?

c) Advanced voting mechanism
We may additionally consider setting up a voting registry 
(e.g. see http://www.dnso.org/secretariat/b01rosterindex.html).
 Advantages: Transparent, maybe less risk of manipulation
 Disadvantages: Extra work for unpaid, trustworthy
  volunteers.

d) Wait for ICANN's member list
We may wait to get the list of At Large members in the 
European region from ICANN. 
 Advantages: Increase in legitimacy.
 Disadvantages: We may never get it. ;)

I tried intentionally not to get into lofty discussions
about percentages and voting mechanisms. First, we should
agree whether we want decision-making or not and how.

Best regards,
/// Alexander

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