RE: [ga] More thoughts on a Registrants Constituency

[sotiris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Roberto, you know very well that nobody listens to the disenfranchised. 
Voting is a necessity for the registrants to be heard.  Please don't play
cute with us, you are aware of the history of ICANN and you know that the
registrants did have a voice at one point: when we could vote for our own
Board members... promoting anything less than that is simply patronizing.


> I have a problem with the fact that most of the time when an
> organizational
> issue is put on the table, the conversation ends up in counting votes. Am
> I
> the only one who thinks that with this obsession on voting power we miss
> opportunities to make our voice heard?
>
> Regards,
> Roberto
>
>
>
>> -----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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>
>