Re: [ICANN-EU] At Large Members Meeting (Los Angeles, Nov. 12)

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Vittorio,
The discussion about @large issues are on this list. Andy's list
is to discuss matters outside or wider than the @large scope (the
@wide scope). So your points are well addressed here and your
mail is very well done.

I suggest that we do not confuse the issue and keep the list of
action points for LA as clean as possible. I will therefore keep adding
to the current list "LA @large meeting preparation" the action points
discussed in posts like yours, as I did with Jeannette's and Gupta's.
And will update it regularly.

I discuss your points here in that spirit, the current responses
showing that:

-   we want to stick to points really concerning the @large
     woldwide organization (to build the parliament house and to
     convey all the people before starting debating and voting there)

-   we do not want to be imposed anything by the ICANN and
     certainly not Uniform Sleeping Rules and Structures.


At 06:09 14/10/00, you wrote:
>a) Internal discussion: how should members participate to community
>life? Should there be discussion boards, and of what type -
>moderated/unmoderated, web/mail/Usenet, announcements/general
>discussion/debate on specific issues...? should they be supported or
>organized by ICANN, or "privately" managed? do they have just to
>discuss, or should they get to consensus, and how? how to solve the
>problem about different languages?

IMHO this is a problem for the regional, local "chapters". I would hate
the French group to be submitted to worldwide rules coined in the USA.
I suppose you too.

>b) Web sites: should there be an "official" site for every region or
>country? should it be supported or managed by ICANN, or by the At
>Large Forum if created, or be left to anyone's initiative?

The current listed point ask for the ICANN to accept to links all the
@large oriented sites and MLs. This is your suggestion "left to anyone's
initiative". So I suppose this is OK. As you recall Alexander has the
infrastructure well in hand. May be could you start the http://icann-ita.org
site yourself as I have reserved the http://icann-fra.org ?

>c) Intermediate organization: should there be a formally constituted
>At Large Forum and/or At Large Supporting Organization? regional or
>worldwide? should it be supported by ICANN (i.e. paid expenses for
>meetings...)? how should its members be (s)elected? how should it
>work?

I understand you ask questions to this list. So I will wait for responses
by the ML. Current listed points ask a focal point in the ICANN to the
service of the @large consistuencies. No the other way around. This
person already exists, so no additional budget and worries for them. I
suppose they want to keep @large low key so let do not make it a big
issue until we know it it works or not.

>d) Relationship with the Director: should the Director be
>"independent" from his community and from the At Large Forum, or
>should he be asked to consult with the Forum on main issues, or even
>be forced to submit his positions to the Forum?

IMHO Andy has responded to that already (so better not to have Japanese
or Sout American rules imposed on us). The European Director has an
@large oriented list which is this one, and an @wide oriented list which
is the icann-debate@ccc.de one. He reads bothe. Up to us to organize
with him.

>e) At Large elections: are we satisfied with the current process, or
>do we want to have it changed and how?

IMHO this is what ICANN wants us to sleep over. The study is foreseen
for that. Like the DNSO GA which spent all its time to vote on the way
htey will vote and now has to vote on the way they did a good job of it.

There are two concrete action points in the list:
-  the PIN to be totally resent using a serious postal service like NSI's
-  the election of the 4 remaining ALDs using a worlwide constituency
    with the rule that a region can onlyhave one ALD elect (otherwise
    there would be an unbalance in favor of Asia).

>f) Conflict of interests: is it right to allow people who play a role
>in other SOs to run for seats in At Large elections? and people who
>have direct interests as players in the market, such as ISP or ccTLD
>managers?

Good point. As discussed with Gupta, this is a very difficult issue.
If we do not want to be buried in it, I suppose we should accept that
Members are individuals and it is upto us to get Members. After all
in Italy every Italian vote, not only the poors, the retired, the small
businesses, etc... I suppose a general debate should be initiated
in Andy's Mailing List as this is an external point: you cannot ask
people to commit suicide: there are active people on this list who
belongs to large groups, manufacturers, ISPs, etc...
What about Karl Auerbach who belongs to Cisco?

>g) Scope of the membership: should At Large membership just care about
>matters directly related to ICANN and DNS, or should it try to promote
>Internet self-governance in general?

Hoops! Seems rather a political issue. Not a brick and mortar one.
I suppose people will do what they want anyway you may want to rule it.


>h) Representativeness: is the different participation among countries
>in the same region a problem? should ICANN and/or the At Large
>organization take care in promoting membership everywhere? or should
>we just say "every country runs for itself"?

Good point. IMHO we should leave the htinks as they currently develop
between icann-europe, icann-fra, icann-candidate etc... lists. I do not
even know if we are country and language driven. We argued a lot about
".eu" so we do not even know if we are "ccTLD" acceptable....
You are a kernel of Italians, so you would probably be the next active list?
We are 26 in France. If we can have a kick off meeting with Andy M-M
in the French Parliament, we would probably do a lot of press and
new participants. But obviously we would certainly work together
with Swiss, Belgium, Africans... I start having some contacts with
@large Canadians ... Hence the reason of icann-fra and not icann-france.
But there is an at.large.france ML.

>i) Membership fee: should membership be free, and supported by the
>money collected from the domains market? have a small cost (a few
>dollars)? have a high cost (20-100$)? should it be funded by private
>efforts as it has been until now, or even by governmental entities if
>they want to?

Good point. This is certainly something to address among ourselves.
May be would you like to make it a topic per itself. So we might
derive an action point from the discussion. I am only worried about
us paying anything to ICANN as it would mean making us dependant
from them. I would prefer them to foot our accepted bills.

An alternative I would find very acceptable would be that @large
membership be included in DN registration for $1 per year. So the
@large constituancy would be really @large, we would know
all the Members, and this would be real democracy.

>j) Relationship with other non-profit societies: should ICANN At Large
>cooperate with ISOC, and ISOC take part in the membership organization
>process, as some propose? Or other similar societies? Should the
>membership itself try to formally constitute non-profit orgs in each
>country?

Good point again. This is an internal question again, so no action
pointtaken yet.

IMHO response is two folded:
- as @large (ie this ML) we cannot relate with others. @large is a
   constituent of the ICANN. DNSO/BC is not supposed to deal
   directly with the IEFT. Otherwise is "divided realm".
- there is obviously a need for direct relations with IEFT etc...
   -  this should be achieved in introducing the @large concept
      in the IEFT, etc...
   -  the global end user approach supporting that @large oriented
      effort everywhere in the internet governance is the @wide effort.


> >P.S.: it seems funny to me that Vittorio and myself will meet in person for
> >the first time on the other side of the earth ;>)
>
>And this will also happen with many other people from this list, I
>suppose. And with Andy, of course. By the way, it would be interesting
>to know what does Andy think of this meeting, if he will participate,
>etc. I'll mail him.
>
>I'd also like, if it will be possible, to prepare an analysis about
>election results (I love numbers), so I'm asking Andrew McLaughlin if
>they accept to give us some data (I'll ask Andy's help on this).

This would be very very great. We would certainly need for the
LA meeting a good understanding of the votes we could use as
a support to our demands. Also some projections in different cases:
-  keep the current Members
-  permanently add new Members
-  open to every DN holder

Jefsey