RE: [ga] primary objectives of the General Assembly mailing list

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

Joop has put forward a very reasonable concern.

The power of the Chair to determine rough consensus
can easily be abused (as is the case at the moment
within the GNSO's WHOIS WG where the BC Chair Philip
Shepard is declaring "agreement" on language where no
such agreement exists -- and we've seen this happen
before when BC members have chaired other working
groups such as the earlier DNSO Review WG).

With that said, I think we're making a mistake by
becoming infatuated with the notion of attaining and
representing a consensus view.  If this body will ever
get to the point of issuing documents to the Board, it
will be more important to record and transmit all
views and the rationale for such views (as this body
is, by definition, not a constituency that has the
obligation to endeavor to represent a rough
consensus).

As such, I would change the wording to read "to
ascertain and transmit the views of the membership".

Please note that as some list participants are
articulating the views of special-interest communities
(this is a cross-constituency platform), the output of
this body cannot necessarily be viewed as the "views
of the ordinary citizen".  


Joop wrote:

Frankly, I'm a bit worried about any mechanism that
purports "to ascertain and represent the consensual
views of the ordinary citizen as a collective" if it
isn't based on voting and counting.



       
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