RE: [registrars] Re: RESULTS: Restart of balloting on Domain Tasting, View 1 & View 2

["John Berryhill" <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>  Sufficient to say that View 1 (which View opposes Domain Tasting) 
> had a strong majority (supermajority?) over View 2 (which favours 
> some forms of Domain Tasting).  

Attempts to interpret the result beyond the propositions and the votes are
likely to be seen as imputing value judgments that are not necessarily those
of the voters.

There were propositions, there was a vote, and there are resulting numbers.
That's about as far is it goes.  There are multiple valid interpretations of
what the numbers mean.

If you took a poll of whether, say, a group believed that tobacco should be
legal or illegal, would you be saying that those voting for "tobacco should
be legal" are properly characterized as being "in favor of smoking tobacco"?
Because that is precisely the type of interpretation you are applying.  I
know a number of adamant anti-smokers who are not of the opinion it should
be illegal.  Calling them "for smoking" is unfair.

1.  If the statement had referred to a "majority" or "supermajority" of "RC
members" that would be distinguishable from a statement referring to a
"majority" or "supermajority" of "registrars", since RC members constitute a
minority of registrars.

2.  There is also the question of what a vote meant in terms of the
proposition stated as "Many registrars believe X" and "Many registrars
believe Y".  If asked whether "Many people believe in a deity", an atheist
would agree that the proposition is correct - many people believe in a
deity.

In your interpretation, the atheist who agrees that "many people believe in
a deity" is indicating belief in the deity.  Applying your interpretation to
the atheist's assent to the proposition "many people believe in a deity" is
an incorrect interpretation of the scope of the assent to the proposition.

3.  Going further, and assuming the vote is not directed to what "many
registrars believe" and taking your assumption that the vote was directed to
the underlying propositions X and Y - the propositions X and Y were stated
as "for at least one of the following reasons".  In other words, the
proposition is correct if, in the voter's view, one and only one of the
supporting reasons is correct.

View 1 had "at least one of" five propositions.

View 2 had "at least one of" two propositions, the second of which was a
compound statement containing multiple sub-propositions.  For example,
whether ICANN "is" a market regulator is a question of fact.  Whether ICANN
"should be" a regulator is a question of opinion.  In the opinion of DNSC,
ICANN "is" a market regulator as demonstrated by, e.g., the specific price
terms of the registry agreements and Verisign litigation settlement.  Hence,
whatever ICANN "should" be was irrelevant to the disqualification of that
proposition.

Hence the structure of the statement made View 1 a wider target.  However,
assent to only one of the stated propositions in the form of "at least one
of" was sufficient to vote for the stated "View".

DNSC, for example, found the "eroding confidence" proposition to be valid,
and hence voted for View 1, without consideration of any of the other four
propositions.   The two propositions under View 2 contained, in the opinion
of DNSC, inaccuracies, thus disqualifying the "both views" from DNSC's
consideration for purposes of the vote.

4.  The "both" votes are readily understandable in terms of point 3.  If a
voter found "at least one" proposition under either View to be correct, then
the "both" vote was appropriate.  The "neither" votes may "favor" or
"disfavor" tasting on any number of grounds, but did not find "at least one"
of the stated grounds to be correct.

5.  Abstentions were a subset of the original voters not to conduct the vote
in the first place.  Assigning a view to the opinion of "I didn't want to
have this vote, and so I am not going to vote in it" is a further imputation
of motivation that is based on an unfounded assumption.

Accordingly, it would be hazardous to present a personal "interpretation" of
the voting result, beyond the results themselves, as representing the view
of the RC.