Andrew McLaughlin wrote:
> The ICANN Board of Directors held its third quarterly
meeting in Santiago,
> Chile, today. The Board passed a number of resolutions,
including the
> following:
>
> ...
> - Implementation of At Large Membership
>
"Implementation" is an interesting descriptor for what was
apparently done.
Some might call it "newspeak."
I understand that voting will only occur when 5,000 people
sign up for
membership. A small fraction of that number have
participated in the
IFWP/ICANN process, to date. And, there is nothing for
individual members of
ICANN to do but vote for part of the board. If only 4,999
sign up, they won't
get to do that.
The resolution provides:
1. The At-Large membership shall be geographically
diverse, broadly
representative of the Internet user community, and shall
consist of at
least 5,000 individuals.
And, to make the objective even more difficult to achieve,
the board
FURTHER RESOLVED [99.__] that, ...the Board reiterates
its
determination that
the At Large membership will ultimately be expected to
fund its
operations (including
the election process)...
Considering the history of participation, the limited role
contemplated for
members, the likelihood of membership fees (or poll tax) and
the subject matter
of the organization, I now feel like the black law professor
from Harvard who,
after passing the English literacy test for voting in
Mississippi in the '50s,
was tested in Chinese. He astounded the registrar by
accurately reading the
passage upon which he was tested:
"This black man is not going to vote in the state of
Mississippi."
Does anyone read the board resolution differently? What
have I missed?
