Re: [ICANN-EU] Horizontal organization

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@vitaminic.net>]

(I'm answering to both Iliya and Roberto)

>>Very true. The concept you discuss here reminds me of that, too. However,
>>the possible greater influence of the AtLarge members will be part of the
>>election study and the discussion thereafter. So carry it there.

I'd agree if we wished to established some official At Large European
council. However, it seems to me that some way to structure the At
Large community should be ready since the very first day of the At
Large Director's mandate, since it is a key element to make the
bottom-up process work. The risk is that otherwise the Director will
not have a clear way to detect and promote consensus in the community,
which should be his main role - especially for environments with which
he is not directly in touch. We are not electing a person to *rule* us
for two years. We are electing someone to bring our voice in the
Board.

>>Please
>>also note that ICANN always requests comments on the big topics via their
>>website and does take them into account.
>>I guess that an AtLarge forum is a simple thing that the staff could
>>implement after the elections

I took part to those forums before they were closed. I never noticed
any real participation there by any ICANN Director or staff member,
though some of the proposals were in fact taken into account.
Moreover, many people seem to forget that in a wide user community
like ours a significant percentage of the members, if not the
majority, are not comfortable with English. I don't like basing
democracy on one's skill with foreign languages.

>I am not blaming anybody, of course, but I'm saying that *now* we have this 
>list and *an embryo* of structure, it will not be wise to drop it, and 
>postpone the discussion to a future to-be-created activity.

I agree with Roberto. I think that all of us who share this thought
(and many of us do, according to the posts) should work to make this
real and to get it recognized by the community and supported by the
future Director. I do not want to support a candidate who will not
accept to discuss his views with an effective, skilled and
democratically representative subset of the underlying community.

Then, if ICANN next year will establish some other way to do it, we'll
follow it. But we really need it from now.

-- 
.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39 011 23381220
Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for Technology