Re: [ICANN-EU] Bylaws Version 0.2

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

On 2000-09-29 16:25:07 +0200, Iliya Nickelt-Czycykowski wrote:

> It is the goal of this forum to discuss ICANN related topics and define
> positions that can express the view of the majority of the European At
> + Large Members. Forum members are invited to promote these, especially
> + by communicating with ICANN's At Large directors

I have some problems with the "majority" notion and with the voting
procedure in general.  

In short, the results your proposal is likely to produce are
unlikely to be useful.

For instance, the process you suggest seems to be quite open to
topic-oriented take-over of the list.

Think about a close 51-49 result on any topic: It would most likely
let the forum go under in a sea of flame wars, as would a result
which was influenced by members who joined during the 48 hours
before an voting period was closed.

Additionally, if we start a forum from this list, the membership
won't be too representative for the Internet At Large.  Instead,
it'll be a highly biased, and small, sample.  To make things still
worse, the mechanism you propose is open to the introduction of fake
identities, since we don't have ICANN's membership registration
mechanisms at hand.  That part could be solved by trying to set up a
forum together with ICANN, and restricting voting rights to
activated ICANN At Large members.

Finally, with your proposal, every single member can torpedo
discussion and consensus-building processes by calling for votes
regularly, and thus polarizing things when this isn't necessary.


To circumvent these problems, we can do several things:

- Restrict the voting right further by, e.g., requiring that voters
  must have been members of the forum for at least three months.
  
- Restrict the possibility for individual members to call for a
  vote.  For instance, at certain number of members (5% or 20
  individuals, whatever is more?) should be required to start a
  vote.  A single dissenting voice should certainly not be
  sufficient to force a vote upon the forum.  There'll always be
  such a voice.

- Try to avoid voting even on most controversial issues.  We don't
  have to come to decisions on every topic - documenting dissent and
  the arguments behind it may be just as helpful.

- Make votes qualified by requiring a consensus of 60% or 70% of the
  voters, and participation of x% of members.  Only if 70% (60%)
  agree with a proposal, it's considered to have been accepted.
  Only if 70% (60%) disagree, it's considered to have been rejected.
  Everything else is counted as "no consensus could be reached", or
  "undefined".

  (By keeping things symmetric, we can avoid the filling of position
  by way of cleverly-negated questions.)

- Votes could be forced into the form of a poll: To get voting
  started, every dissenting party puts together its opinion, and a
  rationale for this opinion.  Members are then asked to decide
  among the possibilities presented.  As a result, one would get a
  report on the opinions present in the forum, and the backing these
  opinions have.
  
  I could imagine this to be quite useful.

What do you think?


While we are on it, what's the general impression about
consesus-building versus votes?  Andy Müller-Maguhn seems to have a
very pronounced opinion of this, even comparing ICANN's
consensus-building process (or what's there of it ,-) to late
Stalinistic dictatorships...

-- 
Thomas Roessler                         <roessler@does-not-exist.org>