Re: [ICANN-EU] Bylaws Version 0.2

["Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette@medea.wz-berlin.de>]

> 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.

What about.... define common positions of its members

or ... define postions shared by its members ...?



According to majordomo, we are currently a bunch of roughly 170
people, the majority of whom is just listening - listening if we are lucky,
that is. We don't represent anyone but those actively contributing to
this list. I don't see at all why we have to agree on voting mechanisms
at such an early stage. Should this list ever grow significantly, new
members would surely want a say in any rules imposed on them.
Thus, we should be precise about the list's focus or scope and, for the
time being, as vaguely as possible about procedure related issues:
To be defined later at a more appropriate moment.
Gut feeling tells me, we'll have to change those rules endless times
anyhow, why then getting into this tiring business now?

jeanette

>
> 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>