On Mon, Jan 04, 1999 at 12:39:23AM -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
> Kent:
>
> Kent Crispin wrote:
>
> > This is not a matter of "correct" or "incorrect". It is a matter of
> > "consensus". The fact is that the participants of the Barcelona
> > meeting came up with a list of constituencies that they thought
> > clearly needed representation; that was a consensus item; there were
> > no trademark representatives at that meeting pushing them into it;
> > the Monterrey meeting reinforced that consensus.
> >
>
> The "consensus" that emerges from the meetings of the Barcelona meeting, run by Core
> members, its web site operated by ITU, means nothing to me.
Your openness is legendary. You of course insult all the people at
Barcelona who were not CORE members (I guess you insult the CORE
members as well, come to think about it), and you insult the people
who attended the Monterrey meeting. However, we didn't have the
luxury of following your wise advice and ignoring them. We take the
consensus that was developed.
In any case, the consensus at issue was the notion of membership
classes. CORE has no particular vested interest with respect
to membership classes, neither does PAB, POC, or, even, the ITU.
[...]
> > So, it would be perfectly reasonable to creat the constituency you
> > describe. Mike Heltzer, the person that I understand did most of the
> > drafting of the INTA document, has suggested to me in private email
> > that there should be a "Free speech and Consumer Interests"
> > constituency, which I think would be a good idea.
>
> Unbelievably disingenuous. If you take the idea seriously, add that constituency to
> your draft NOW. All it takes is a few strokes of the pen.
Such an action would be totally irresponsible, under the
circumstances. It doesn't take a few strokes of the pen, it takes
consensus, or at least a strong majority, before such a thing can be
contemplated. Let me explain a bit further, since you seem somewhat
oblivious: Adding a new constituency is a non-trivial matter because
it changes representation patterns. I am in no position to
unilaterally gerrymander those through a casual stroke of the pen.
[...]
> > The majority of entities involved *do want* membership classes
> > structured to reflect constituencies.
>
> But is this the best way to do it, Kent? Or is it just that they all think that they
> will be able to gain some form of exploitive economic power over the name space?
My assessment is that no one but the "prospective registries" and NSI
are interested in "exploitive economic power" -- oh, and a couple of
weird ccTLDs, operating in a very gTLD-like way, as well. Without
exception, everybody else is coming from a primarily defensive
position. That is, they are afraid of what the DNSO might do to
their current and already existing interests [of course, NSI is
interested in *both* exploitive economic power and protecting its
current interests -- which happens to be exploitive economic power.]
> > I don't have a particular ax to grind here -- if there is a clear
> > and substantial move away from a constituency basis, then it will
> > happen. I don't see such a move, however.
>
> As long as you're in charge, you don't care whether the system fosters justice or
> special interest turf battles, eh?
Now there's a clever insult. I'm sure you are quite proud of yourself.
> > Personally, I don't think it matters too much from a practical point
> > of view, as long as the number of special interests is fairly large,
> > and no one of them has obvious control.
>
> There is no reason to solidify special interests in the form of membership classes.
> Special interests can operate and be heard without them.
>
> At what point in this exchange are you going to give us a *reason* for membership
> classes other than long, drawn-out, fancy ways of saying:
> "...because that's what we've already decided to do?"
It should be completely obvious to one with your background, but I
have ceased to be amazed by the strange gaps in your knowledge.
The primary reason for membership classes is protection against
tyranny of the majority. There are about 250 registries; and easily
10 times as many members in the total membership of the dnso.
Therefore, the 2500 could easily vote to do something that would be
against the interests of registries -- something that would be a
genuine injustice.
For example, the DNSO could vote that all registries will pay
$5/SLD/year to support the DNSO. [This matter of a second level
domain tax came up at the Barcelona meeting, and was argued against
very strenuously by some of the ccTLD registries.]
There are other means of protecting against the tyranny of the
majority -- "bill of rights" style guarantees for minorities, for
example. That was an idea I pushed for a while -- in fact I even
wrote a paper on it, as I recall. But a bit of exploration revealed
that a "bill of rights" in this case is very tricky document to agree
on, and it is much simpler to use constituencies as a means of
guaranteeing representation.
Some other alternatives were discussed, as well -- there was one
scheme for a "supermajority on demand" voting regime that we worked
on for a while, hoping to fix the obvious problem with it.
--
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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