thanks for the comments. Some valid points!
Esther
At 04:22 pm 10/20/1999 +1200, Joop Teernstra wrote:
>Below follows my comment on
>http://www.icann.org/general/bylaws-amend-redline-8oct99.htm#II
>
>The proposed language makes it clear that ICANN does no longer intend to be
>a membership organization as originally envisaged and mandated by the White
>Paper and by the earlier iterations of the bylaws.
>
>The fact that the word "member" is still used in the bylaws is misleading
>and the term "supporting individual" would be more appropriate.
>
>In particular:
>section 2. The power of the Board to waive fee requirements for selected
>groups of members might lead to accusations of favouritism for certain
>groupings of members.
>It were better if the Board did not have such powers but that independent
>foundations, not connected to any of the interests represented in the SO's
>would subsidize members individually or in groups.
>
>section 3. This should simply be a members-only mailing list, with proper
>list rules. This would be the only place where candidates for Council or
>Board could campaign.
>
>Section 4.
> (f) the word "methods" makes the intent of this article unclear. Is what
>is meant abuse of the mailing list privileges?
>(g) "prejudicial to the corporation" should not lightly be used to stifle
>honest criticism. More detailed procedure is necessary to determine what
>actually happens before a "member" can be ousted and how fair hearings can
>be effected.
>
>(h)(members can be expelled for any other reasons determined by the
>Board--presumably the Board minus it's at large members) is is too open
>ended and should be deleted
>
>Section 6. It would be better if this article actually specified a method
>of nomination and election rather than leave it to the yet unstructured
>body of members to make this determination.
>This would greatly speed up the process of getting elected AL Council members.
>Or is this perhaps not intended?
>
>Section 7. General Comment on the Geographic diversity requirements: these
>will serve to frustrate the membership in the election of globally
>acceptable candidates and cause division and possibly strife with
>regionally elected candidates with far less numerical support.
>
>Section 9 (b and c) do not provide sufficient safeguards that individuals
>strongly identified with and represented by SO constituency interests, will
>not gain additional support for their interests by standing for elections
>for the AL council.
>The basic idea behind the AL council is to create genuine balance on the
>ICANN Board and a counterweight for users' interests that are unrepresented
>by the SO's.
>
>(g) The comprehensibility of this article could greatly benefit by some
>rewording. Is it meant that a date will be established by which the number
>of members entitled to participate in an election be frozen?
>Or did I fail to comprehend it at all?
>
>Dropping the whole AL Board member elections when the membership falls
>below 5000- NO, DO NOT DO THIS.
>
>(h) This provision undermines the whole idea of ICANN as a membership
>organization. If the members are invited to join by a genuine open process,
>without special announcements to existing interest organizations or special
>membership fee privileges for such groups, the number of 5000 members
>should not be the be-all and end-all for the AL membership.
>
>The powers of the Board to make membership more attractive or less
>attractive could be abused to manipulate the membership number around the
>critical 5000.
>With this rule in place, being a "member" of a membership of less than 5000
>holds no attraction at all, leading to a massive negative feedback on the
>remaining membership as soon as the number would spiral below 5000.
>The conclusion that an insufficient number of individuals would have an
>interest in ICANN would become self-fulfilling.
>
>I strongly recommend that this provision be deleted.
>
>General Comment on these AL "membership" provisions.
>I fail to see how anyone would be interested to spend precious time, let
>alone money , on being an ICANN "member", unless this would come
>pre-packaged with the benefits of a membership in an existing organisation.
>
>This is exactly what should *not* happen, in view of the climate of
>suspicion of capture by certain industry -dominated groups that already
>exists.
>But unless these rules are substantially rewritten in the light of comments
>received from the community, it seems almost inevitable that no
>*independent* at large membership will come into being.
>
>Failure or capture of the AL membership makes it even more important for
>Individual Domain Name Owners to press for their admission into the DNSO.
>
>--Joop Teernstra LL.M.-- , bootstrap of
>the Cyberspace Association,
>the constituency for Individual Domain Name Owners
>http://www.democracy.org.nz/idno/
>
>
Esther Dyson Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
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