Re: [ICANN-EU] Horizontal organization

["Roberto Gaetano" <roberto_gaetano@hotmail.com>]

One thing I would like to add about organization.
The initial plan of ICANN, as presented in Cairo, was for an "AtLarge 
Council", elected by the AtLarge Membership. What was bad in that plan was 
the fact that the election of the AtLarge Directors was performed by the 
AtLarge Council, therefore not with "direct vote" by the Members.
BTW, this is similar to the structure of the Supporting Organizations.

The idea was much opposed, and consequently direct election was introduces.
But the concept of an AtLarge Council in itself could not be bad.

Regards
Roberto Gaetano
(still the same as before, but with a different email - sorry for the 
confusion)


>From: Vittorio Bertola <vb@vitaminic.net>
>To: icann-europe@fitug.de
>Subject: [ICANN-EU] Horizontal organization
>Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 15:50:25 +0200
>
>This is my draft proposal about "horizontal organization", a term with
>which I indicate a way through which the regional At Large Director
>could inform and discuss his positions with all At Large members, to
>get their thoughts and consensus. It seems to me that many of us agree
>on the opportunity of such an instrument, which I find fundamental to
>make the At Large concept successful, so I'd like to discuss and get
>to some practical action in a short time.
>
>Since it does not seem feasible to me to have a mailing list with
>35'000 subscribers, I guess that the European community should be
>broken down into local communities, where "local" can be conceived in
>a variety of meaning: by country, by type (business, no-profit,
>underground...), by job, by age... However, the most natural way to
>proceed seems to me to be by nation, for one simple reason: the
>language. Everyone feels more comfortable with his own mother tongue,
>and not everyone speaks English.
>
>However, we do not need to start from zero. There are a number of
>independent sites run by activists. Many of them already have forums
>or mailing lists. We should establish a network of independent At
>Large sites that diffuse information and gather ideas through the
>community, and try to promote participation in these sites and in
>their forums (maybe with some underlying commitments by the site owner
>ensuring free participation and fair information).
>
>The European coordination could then be delegated to an intermediate
>level, which could well be this mailing list. However, I am wondering
>whether we'd need to give some formal structure to this. I think that
>ICANN and the At Large concept would be strengthened if there was some
>formal and credible way of gathering consensus among At Large members,
>and of proofing that the positions that the European At Large Director
>will take, whoever he will be, are shared by a majority of the At
>Large community in Europe. A mailing list could do, but there should
>be some way of keeping reasonable the number of its subscribers, so
>that they don't get overwhelmed by the amount of messages, and that
>polite and profitable discussions can take place. And the participants
>should somewhat proof that they represent something more than
>themselves alone.
>
>But how can we select this intermediate level of representatives? IMHO
>there's a very simple and effective way: let's say that the N
>candidates with the highest number of endorsements, with a reasonably
>high value of N (i.e. 25), can be considered representative enough to
>participate in this middle level - or else, all candidates that get at
>least X endorsements in this phase, with a low value of X (i.e.
>10).[1] For candidates who withdraw formally, the number of
>endorsements at the withdrawal moment will count. I think that this
>would be a good balance between having an open and wide participation
>in this level and granting that the consensus that will be reached
>here can credibly represent the consensus of the whole community.
>
>However, another possibility is simply keeping this list open or open
>to all candidates, but I fear that its representativeness could then
>be easily attacked.
>
>Comments? Ideas? I think that many here share the feeling that some
>higher degree of organization in the community is necessary, so I hope
>that we can find consensus and act on this in a short time. I'd also
>like to hear from the 4-5 candidates that really have chances to get
>to the ballot whether they would agree at least to discuss, if not to
>submit, their decisions with such a structure.
>
>
>[1] I've done a quick check with this morning numbers:
>
>Endorsements	# of candidates
>100 or more	3
>50-99		1
>10-49		7
>5-9		7
>2-4		19
>0-1		37
>------------------
>TOTAL		74
>
>Guess that the Gauss curve is narrowing...
>
>--
>.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
>Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39 011 23381220
>Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for Technology

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