Re: [ICANN-EU] Re: European At Large Council

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@vitaminic.net>]

On Fri, 1 Sep 2000 01:02:20 +0100, you wrote:

>Comments?

You know, I'm a supporter of the "closed and elected group" principle, but
it seems that consensus is roughly going the other way, and also the open
way would be fine by me.

However, I definitely think that something named "European At Large
Council", even if it were just a couple of mailing lists, must exist. It
gives visibility and credibility to the whole concept and puts some pressure
over ICANN not to completely wipe out the At Large concept. It is easier to
get attention from other ICANN entities and from media on something named
like that, rather than on "a mailing list". But we must know that, if we do
not want to use the results of this election as a way to select and
legitimate a council, then we will not be able to hold any election for that
until the next Director election. I don't think that it would be feasible to
organize another election in a few months to create formally such council,
and have participation. So if we walk the open way, we'll stick with it for
a while.

By the way, there's another variable no one mentioned yet. This is the first
election and At Large membership is free, so it was easy to build sentences
as "an historic event in online democracy" and have people register. But if,
next year or in 2002, there will be another election where membership won't
be free, ICANN will have disappointed our hopes, and there won't be any
historical event any more, are we sure that we'll be able to get as much
"independent user" participation as now?

I guess that if membership were not free any more, 90% of the members would
not renew their membership. Almost only lobby-backed members would stay.
-- 
.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39 011 23381220
Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for Technology