[ga] Roberto Gaetano on ALAC Reform

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://forum.icann.org/lists/alac/msg01373.html

Wendy, and all,
[I included Chris in copy, as he might not read the
ALAC list, but has raised to me similar questions]

I think that there is little question about the fact
that there is, so to speak, room for improvement.
However, I think that different ALAC members are
approaching the issue with different strategies,
probably because of different approaches to life (what
the German philosophers call "Weltanschauung").
Let me explain what my vision is, and why I have this
approach.

I do believe that there is an urgent and important
need for user participation, to make the voice and the
problems of the people who do not have either a
commercial or technological interest or function heard
by the Board and influential in ICANN's decisions.
However, as Steff used to say, there's a difference
between "voice" and "vote". And, may I add, the latter
without the former is IMHO not useful to make things
progress, while we can live with having the former
without the latter for a while, building the
conditions to have eventually both.
This is how historically all successful movements have
built their way into systems from which they were
excluded.
The direct election of Board members by individual
users that had no influence in the process in between
elections is, IMHO, a mediatic success, but a failure
from the participation point of view. This is why I do
believe that the NA region takes the wrong approach in
refusing trying the present model. I would argue that
if instead of 22 certified ALSes we had now 222, we
would be half way to the solution. Once RALOs
established, each region could organize itself in a
way to have direct individual user participation (this
is the model that we are currently discussing in
Europe), but since our target is participation by the
thousands, I do believe that a two level model would
scale better. In other words, a representative
democracy model rather than a direct democracy model.
In this view, I would strongly recommend EFF, ACM,
CDT, and what else, to join and start working from the
inside to improve the mechanism.

Now a word on the "why".
This is my third attempt to build user participation,
and I am not sure I will have the energy and
enthusiasm to attempt a fourth one.
The first attempt was the individual users
constituency of the DNSO. A great idea, I thought,
lots of people supporting it. However, as I confessed
to a friend upon my retirement from the ICANN world
after the Berlin meeting, I succeded in having my
employer (ETSI) qualifying to join the PSO, but I
failed in having the individual users constituency
accepted in the DNSO. And I consider the failure
having been more significant the success.
The second attempt was the GA-DNSO. When I accepted
the Chairmanship, my dream was to build a voice for
everybody in a context in which civil discourse would
be the interiorized rule (meaning that people would
have behaved that way without need for enforcement),
the noise/signal ratio very low, the voting process
such as to be able to present community-consensus
proposals to the attention of the decision makers. We
all know how it ended.
This is the third one. The point is that I would like
to see some results, not to leave the task to my
childrens. To abandon the attempt without having
exploited its potential would, IMHO, bring us back to
square one. And the clock is ticking.

My recommendation would be, therefore, to strongly
advise the Board to conduct a review of the ALAC that
must include an evaluation of the mechanism as soon as
possible, ideally in 2006, while concentrating in
Vancouver on what we can do with the present structure
for making the users' voice heard.
This will mean to go ahead building the RALOs in the
regions where feasible (at least AP and EU, possibly
LAC and AF), a strong "last call for boarding" to
potential ALSes, the commitment for the newborn RALOs
to identify working mechanisms for individual (meaning
non-ALS) participation, revitalization of public lists
and public comment areas, and other items we might be
able to identify in the next days.
I have already started in the Board, and in particular
with Vint, to introduce the concept that RALOs might
have a representation mechanism that would allow
inclusion of individuals not related to organizations,
as a short term change, and the need for a voting
representation in the Board, as a medium term change.
But I am strongly convinced that the order should not
be reversed.


Best regards,
Roberto GAETANO
ALAC
ICANN BoD Liaison



	
		
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