-----Original Message-----
From: Danny Younger [mailto:dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 07 March 2007 00:32
To: Karl Auerbach
Cc: Danny Younger; Roberto Gaetano; ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ga] More thoughts on a Registrants Constituency
Karl,
The question is not "how much of a vote does each domain name
registrant get?" but rather, who within a registrant's
constituency should get a vote?
Allow me to clarify what I mean by pointing to some text
drawn from Susan Crawford's "The ICANN
Experiment":
"The idea that "who shows up" may be taken as a
representative sample of the rest of the world is part of
ICANN's history (and that of other more technical groups such
as the IETF). ICANN has established constituencies within the
DNSO for business, IP, registries, non-commercial entities,
and others.
Because it is impossible to get a cross- section of (for
example) every non-commercial Internet user, the ICANN system
treats the Non-Commercial Domain Name Holders Constituency
(that is, the people who "show up") as the representative
constituency. This is a practical approach that can be
implemented with a simple contractual agreement to
participate, pay minor dues, and adhere to consensus policies
(to the extent applicable). With this contractual framework
in place, ICANN's ability to operate with "congruence" - to
be able to say that those bound by its rules are mostly the
same groups whose welfare was considered when making them -
becomes possible."
http://www.scrawford.net/display/Crawford2.pdf
As a pragmatist, I tend to believe that those of us that are
both registrants and "show up" through discussion on this
list and/or on other relevant lists (and are willing to both
enroll in a constituency and pay minor dues) warrant getting
a single vote -- the one-man one-vote principle.
I would think that this approach would be more practical than
the formulaic approach that you have suggested.
My two cents.
Danny
--- Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've had a couple of more thoughts on what I think is a sub-optimal
idea, a constituency for domain name registrants. (The optimal
solution is to allow individuals to have the direct vote for board
members. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.)
Anyway, the question is how much of a vote does each domain name
registratrant get?
Is it one vote per person/organization no matter how many
names they
have.
Or is it scaled according to the number of names.
Is that scale linear, i.e. twice as many names gives twice as many
votes?
Is there a factor for the time that the name has been
registered? I
feel that this is important because it is indicative of how
much the
registrant has invested into the name. Those who have had
names for
many years tend to have a much greater investment than
those who hold
portfolios for short term speculation.
So I suggest this - that the number of votes a registrant gets for
having a name is scaled according to a simple formula based on the
number of years that have elapsed since initially registered. Of
course, during the first year, that number would be zero.
So the formula I suggest is this, where Y is the number of
years that
have elapsed since registration.
Votes = 2**(Y-1)
(i.e. the number of votes is 2 raised to the power Y less one)
Thus the registrant would get votes according to the
following table:
YEARS VOTES
0 0
1 1
2 2
3 4
etc.
This means that one has to hold a name for at least a year
in order to
get a vote.
By-way-of disclosure, I have several names that were initially
registered during the 1980's, but whois doesn't go back
that far and
shows 'em as 1994.
--karl--
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