Re: [ALSC-Forum] Consensus

[Sandy Harris]

Bruce Young wrote:
> 
> Other than ALSC members (who obviously have their marching orders from the
> board), does anyone have substantive disagreemant with the following five
> points Jeff lists below:

Three out of five I completely agree with:
 
> 1.) That ANY and all Staekholders/Interested Parties are now, and must
>      be considered At-Large members and can self declare themselves
>      at any time, as such.
> 
> 2.) That 9 At-Large directors must be elected by the At-Large membership
>       or at least 50% of the total number of BoD members seated.
> ...
> 5.) That any member or user of the internet community is eligible for
>       At-Large membership without exception.
 
The other two, I agree in principle, but I'm not certain that they are
practical.
 
> 3.) That a method(s) of registering At-Large members is available that does
>       and must, be secure, insure personal privacy, and is predominantly
>       funded by ICANN.

I think ICANN is obligated to do this as best it can. A 1998 letter from
Esther Dyson (then board chairman) to NTIA:

" ... the Board has an unconditional mandate to create a membership
  structure that will elect the At Large  Directors of the Board

Note the word "unconditional". As I see it, the board is obligated to
find some reasonable way to get nine At Large directors openly elected.
Period.

That said, I cannot agree that "a method ... is available". This is a
hard problem. In another thread, there is much good discussion of how 
to tackle building methods for this.

I don't think that difficulty lets the board off the hook. As I see it,
ICANN is obligated to do this as best it can. I don't think any perfect
method is available, so we likely have to use some imperfect method,
but we still need public elections of nine directors.

Also, note that changing the number of At Large seats does nothing to
simplify this problem, unless you drop it to zero and dispense with
elections altogether. 

Anyone attempting to use the difficulty of running elections to
justify a change in the number of seats has either mis-understood
the problem or is deliberately being deceptive.
 
> 4.) That the ICANN BoD and/or staff may determine a membership fee
>       that is in line with the person(s) that may or are
> stakeholders/Interested
>       Parties or will become so equivalent or in keeping with the average
>       national income of his resident country or area there of within his
>       indigenous country.

A good idea in principle. I think I was the first to suggest it.

But how do you apply it to a country like India with an average annual
per capita GNP under US $400 a year? Can any procedure that is reasonable
for ICANN collect enough there to cover costs? If not, should Indians and
others from really poor nations get a "free pass", which is in some sense
unfair to the rest of us. Or should we run the procedure in India anyway
on "level playing field" grounds? Can we afford that?