> What worries me most is getting the electorate to be
> representative in the first place. ... No matter what scheme you
> use to weigh and tally votes among them, it'd be hard to generate a
> satisfactory election, since the electorate itself wouldn't
> approximate what we think of as "fair." To me, a fair electorate
> is one that's a good cross-section of the population affected by
> the acts of whoever's elected. To others, a fair electorate is
> seen as one for which any member of the affected population had an
> opportunity to join--regardless of how many actually do join or
> exercise their rights to vote. ... The danger is, if one allows
> membership to happen organically--without serious outreach--the
> composition of the membership may or may not be representative of
> the Internet at-large.
Im more worried by the fact that a Harvard man talks in terms of
'getting' the electorate to be anything, and the 'danger' of 'organic
(meaning, I suppose unconditioned or unmanipulated)
membership.' This is not the language I learned my civics in; while
there may be a need to 'reinvent governement' how does that
become a need to reinvent the language of governance?
Shall we try to make an IFWP Glossary? We could have entries for
electorate
representative
scheme
generate
solution
approximate
whoever's elected
rights
outreach
at-large
for a start; I recognize the first two, but I wouldnt swear you're
using them the same way I would, either. Overall, your entire
paragraph begins to sound circular; shall we start on this
definitional task with the Internet 'at-large' as a known entity, or
with the nature of an organization which aims to 'represent'
something by first sifting out a 'membership' which 'elects'
'representatives,' even though the organization is already extant
with a sitting board making amendments and judging whether
some 'self-organizing' 'constituencies' are better than others to
mediate the process?
You see, what I learned in school was that when a bunch of people
saw a need, not just for cooperation among, but *organized,
structured cooperation among themselves, they first of all agreed to
organize as a 'committee of the whole' in order to construct rules of
organization they could all accept (lets suppose they call it
'democracy'). Then, following the rules ('bylaws' or 'constitution'),
they took up certain roles ('offices,' such as president and
secretary and representative), in which they would act on behalf of
everyone to apply the rules to whatever the original need was.
How does this primitive model relate to the present case? If some
higher cause has been invoked that supercedes it, what is that? If,
further, that cause justifies taking over the primitive vocabulary, isnt
there a need to (re)define the terms? And if there is such a need,
who has organized around it to ensure that they apply equally to
all? Oops, thats the old model again -- who has *dictated the terms
without making their (re)definition clear, leaving those to whom they
are *supposed* to apply to figure out for themselves whether they
are members, whether so-and-so represents them, and whether
'who[m]ever's elected' does in fact act on their behalf and not just
from his or her personal prejudice? As Bill says, the time has
come to quit trying to have it both ways: either we *know who is
the electorate, or we havent got a democracy. Any outfit that tries
to use the language of democracy to tell us yes, that what we
have, but no, our knowing it is dangerous, ought to be ashamed of
itself -- and if it isnt, the Internet at large can (and, I begin to
suspect, will) shame it.
> Some on this list don't fret about the internet user in the street
> having a voice in ICANN--they believe that ICANN's members should
> comprise the elite who actually know enough about what's going >
> on (and care) to be able to know one acronym from another. Others
> want extra power in the hands of rank-and-file users, precisely
> because they can't be reasonably expected to participate on the
> playing fields that the elite are using, even though they're
> affected by the decisions. I've found that this disagreement is
> often the real point of contention in arguments about membership
> and voting.
>
If they think that 'elite' and 'rank-and-file' are part of the vocabulary
of democracy, it's no wonder there is confusion.
> There's also the "stakeholder" problem: one can define stakes so
> many different ways. What if current big stakeholders don't
> support a proposal precisely because it will disadvantage them? A
> reasonable enough position to take.
If, after all, Im just out of date, and talk about 'big stakeholders'
and the 'reasonableness' of their seeking their own advantage is the
language of democracy, why not just let Esther run the show for a
year, raise some money, hand down some edicts -- and after her,
her appointed successors? If she's not a supermajority, well then,
we can call her a supermajorette.
kerry
