Re: [wg-review] Message from Jonathan

[DPF <david@farrar.com>]

From: Jonathan Weinberg <weinberg@mail.msen.com>

>*Should there be a constituency for individuals, and if so, how
>should its membership be constituted?*
>
>*How do you ensure that individuals who choose to form an
>individual constituency represent the vast interests of individuals?*
>
>There should be a constituency for individuals.  

I also strongly support a constituency for individuals and have been
pleased to see that so far there has been a very high level of
support.

While there are many issues to do with implementation and structure to
work through I believe it could be useful at an early stage to test in
this WG the level of support for the principle that individual domain
name holders are a legitimate stakeholder in ICANN/DNSO and that if a
constituency structure is to remain, that there should be one to
represent domain name holders.

I personally can not imagine how one could argue that domain name
holders are not a group deserving representation.  One can argue about
how will they fund, what level of membership there should be to be
viable etc but I believe it will be useful and important for the QG to
deal with the principle in a timely manner.  If we have clear
consensus on that point then we can more usefully advance the debate
about the "how" rather than the "why".

>So far,
>relatively few individuals have participated in the proposed IDNO.  An
>important reason why participation has been so low, however, is that so
>far it has had no payoff.  

Indeed.  Almost 100,000 people have joined ICANN as at large members
because they saw the payoff that they get a vote for a BOD member.  

I have no doubt that once there is a constituency (or representation
of some sort) for domain name holders then participation will increase
from its current woeful level.  Note that the constituency need not be
a single organisation but one may find a couple of dozen domain name
holder organisations come into existence and the constituency will be
a balanced (presumably on membership strength) representation of the
multiple organisations.  This opens up a few worms though which are
probably best left until we get past whether we support the principle
of representation.

>At some level, to demand assurances that an individuals'
>constituency will "represent that vast interests of individuals" may place
>on this proposed constituency a burden not imposed on the others.  It is
>hardly clear, for example, that the Business and Commercial constituency
>represents "the vast interests of businesses," as opposed to the interests
>of the particular businesses who are most active in that constituency's
>affairs.

I think we can deal with these assurances by ensuring the constituency
has rules which have a low level of entry barrier.  This poses some
challenges with funding but again details which can be worked on.

>Because the GA is powerless, participation in the affairs of the
>GA as a body has no payoff.  Because participation has no payoff, few
>people participate in the GA's discussions.  That result is inevitable so
>long as the GA, as a body, has no function.

A brilliant summary.

DPF
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