Re: [ga] Arguments for an Individuals Constituency

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

Hello Joop,

Saturday, May 05, 2001, 8:22:15 PM, Joop Teernstra wrote:

> Yes, the arguments have been presented many times, although I do not know
> what "documentary form" the Board would require and why such documentary
> form would not be required of other constituencies to justify themselves.

> Our Chair may not have been around long enough, but I have listed  the
> arguments in Berlin and Santiago for the GA and for the Board. 
> The ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)  has enumerated arguments in
> Berlin . We have had them on the IDNO website for the last two years.
> www.idno.org/arguments.htm.  
> They are simple and have not been refuted:

I'd settle for a small business constituency right now.

The problem with our existing constituency structure is that they tend
to try and force stakeholders into belonging to various industry
associations, and then those associations are the members of the
constituency.   Take the ISP constituency has an example.  While they
permit individual ISPs to be members, there has been little outreach,
instead preferring that ISPs consider themselves represented by
organization ISP associations.  The problem with that is that many
times these associations have agendas that are vastly different from
the large numbers of their individual ISP members, not to mention that
it makes it easier for the reps from those associations to cut deals
with other constituencies (esp. the larger corporate/IP interests)
that their members would never approve of if they were required to
approve them in advance.  The ISP constituency needs to toss our the
associations on their rear ends and require members to actually BE
ISPs in order to join.

We need more constituencies, for certain.  I think a "catch all"
individual's constituency (for those who just feel they don't fit in
any of the others) and a small business constituency would be 2 that I
think would be most needed right now.  And I don't feel the two should
be considered the same, as when you get right down to it, an
individual and a small business owner are not necessarily going to
have the same issues and concerns.

And this would also provide a balance to the current dominance in the
big corporate/business/IP block.


-- 
Best regards,
William X Walsh
mailto:william@userfriendly.com
Owner, Userfriendly.com
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