Re: [ga] The Real World

[jefsey <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

Dear Roberto and Kent,
I already adressed Kents' interesting position. For having prepared an 
initiative in that area which has been killed by the annoucement of Stuart 
just when we started a boostrap, there is a basic flaw that creates 
confusion. This is the Dennis Jenning's compromise perpetuated by Joop 
Teernstra.

You have to chose. Either you consider:

- non profits
- business
- small businesses
- individuals

and IMHO they have interests far beyond the scope of the DNSO and form the 
@large - may I recall you that the current @large Directors are : one user 
expert, one developper, one small business, one university member and one 
large corporation.

Or you consider

- Registries (g/s/ccTLD)
- Registrars
- Registrants (individual, corporate and bulk)

with possible implications of special technical interests like ISP and IPC.

As long as this is not clearly sorted, I am afraid we will and Joop (who is 
confusing @large with individual domain holders - or worse "owners") only 
present a confused proposition not really appealingto anyone (BoD, 
Employees, and @large/individual/registrant/etc. )


On 08:45 28/05/02, Roberto Gaetano said:

>Good morning.
>
>I believe that the points made by Kent should be discussed further.
>
>Kent Crispin wrote:
>>
>>You are mixing two things: the idea of representation of the interest of
>>individuals, and the idea of an individuals constituency as a practical
>>construct.  There is very wide support for the former, in ICANN, and in
>>the constituencies.
>>
>>However, there is much less support for the latter, and for good reason
>>-- the various activities in that area have been essentially incoherent,
>>and dominated, not by the actual interests of individuals as they
>>pertain to the domain name system, but rather by the interests of
>>zealots and would-be demagogues, advocates of generalized internet
>>democracy, speculators, alt-root proponents, kooks, and other vocal special
>>interests that are in fact a vanishingly small proportion of the real
>>individual users of the Interenet/DNS.
>
>Let's be clear. We are talking here about the creation of a Constituency 
>for Individual Domain Name Holders.
>There is no doubt that there will be many of the categories you mention, 
>but I do believe that there will be also normal individuals seeking a 
>representation in the grand scheme of things. Maybe they will not be the 
>most vocal participants, but they will be there.
>
>I think that the assumption that this constituency will be dominated by 
>kooks (in terms of voting weight, not in terms of flooding the list) is 
>not supported by evidence. But even if this were the case, we are speaking 
>of additional three NC seats on a grand total of 24, hardly a possibility 
>of disrupting NC (although I admit that a couple of past NC votes that 
>passed with a tiny majority could have had a different outcome).
>
>So, on one hand we have a limited risk and the chance of a big improvement 
>in the representativity of the DNSO, on the other hand we have the 
>maintenance of the statu quo, and the legitimate doubt about the claimed 
>willingness to open up to new participants. Maybe the real answer lies 
>exactly in the few cases where the NC votes passed by tiny majority, 
>because that will be the only practical effect?
>
>My past experience as GA Chair is that a non negligeable number of good 
>contributors got tired of the endless discussions non counterbalanced by 
>any real chance to influence things. These contributors would be still 
>part of the GA now if the situation was different. This, IMHO, means that 
>if a real constituency will be given a chance, there will be many 
>potential good contributors who would participate. Of course there will be 
>kooks, but a constituency would be better equipped to deal with them than 
>the GA, for instance.
>
>A last comment on representativity. Would this constituency be 
>representative of "all" Individual DN holders? As you said, probably not. 
>Probably the only constituency that enjoyed this global representativeness 
>of its potential membership has been the gTLD Constituency in the old days 
>of NSI's monopoly, but it was so special that ICANN needed a special rule 
>to deal with it.
>Jokes apart, yes, it will not be representative of its potential 
>membership, at least initially. But, as you note, neither the NCC does, 
>nevertheless, it exists and plays a useful role.
>This problem can be cured, if there is real availability and openness at 
>ICANN's and NC's level. What about an initial charter, with a reasonable 
>"evaluation time" and concrete (achievable) targets for 
>representativeness? After this time (one year?) ICANN could revise the 
>situation and definitively endorse the constituency, or disband it.
>I do believe that, given the chance, the Individual DN Holders could make 
>good use of this "probation time" to outreach the potential membership, 
>and get them involved (and eventually outnumber kooks). But if this chance 
>is not given, things will never happen. It is dramatically different to 
>bring people that have a real interest in the issues into a well-formed 
>constituency, with representation at the NC level, and a chance to have 
>its voice heard, and to bring people into a mailing list like the GA.
>
>Regards
>Roberto
>
>
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