Procedures/Individual/organizations membership at NCSG

[Stephanie Perrin]

I agree.  I think it is entirely problematic to provide more votes for 
larger organizations.  I also share a concern about differentiating 
between the participation of a member as a rep of an organization, or as 
an individual.  People should declare their status and that is an end of 
it.  If a member who represents an organization has a strong personal 
view in a matter that is not supported by their organization, surely 
they can explain their viewpoint with a caveat.

We should try to make this uncomplicated, whilst protecting against 
undue influence of a particular organization.  As to whether privacy law 
prevents us from asking members who they represent, I am consulting my 
legal contacts because I am sure there is a legally compliant way to do 
this.  I do not share Raoul's view that this is "paranoid".  I think it 
is essential to have sound principles in place in our policies, to 
protect the diversity of our membership, and the essential human rights 
values of NCSG.

Stephanie Perrin

On 2018-09-10 16:14, farzaneh badii wrote:
>
> Farzaneh
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 9, 2018 at 3:41 PM Sam Lanfranco <lanfran at yorku.ca 
> <mailto:lanfran at yorku.ca>> wrote:
>
>     Dear NCSG Colleagues,
>
>     For private reasons I have been less involved in NCSG/NPOC for
>     2018. I have kept abreast of issues and have long been concerned
>     with those surrounding organizational and individual membership. I
>     would like to comment here from several slightly different
>     perspectives.
>
>     First, while we come from the non-commercial constituencies, we
>     address the concerns of the non-commercial constituencies. We do
>     not represent the non-commercial constituency stakeholder group
>     nor are we in any formal way accountable to it. We simply do our best.
>
>     Organizational members may represent the interests and concerns of
>     their organization, then again maybe not. Let me be personal here.
>     When asked to join NPOC and NCSG I had recently served as Chair of
>     the Board for Canadian global health ngo CSIH. This was early in
>     the ongoing discussions around the Red Cross domain name issue and
>     concerns about health relate gTLDs.
>
>     After a couple of years my NGO effectively untethered me, leaving
>     me to maintain a watching brief and reporting back on issues that
>     may concern them. The rest of the time I could simple engage in
>     addressing the concerns of the non-commercial constituency. My ngo
>     views its membership as part of its “good works”. I simply do my
>     best and only report back when a relevant issue emerges. I do not
>     speak on behalf of my organizational member.
>
>     It would be interesting to know how many organizational members
>     have a formal obligation to report back to their organization, and
>     how many pre-clear their positions on, and participation in, ICANN
>     policy matters. When that is not the case, being also an
>     individual member with the associated extra votes raises troubling
>     questions. That is why, although I could, I have not applied for
>     individual membership.
>
>     To cut this short, most of the serious ICANN work is done among us
>     on a consensus basis. What is important is the dialogue, the
>     knowledge sharing, and how hard working members produce useful
>     outputs. Voting is mainly for selecting among ourselves those
>     willing to put in even more work in essentially administrative
>     leadership positions. Those we elect do not have extraordinary
>     powers, they have extra duties. Voting is not about resolving
>     policy or implementation issues.
>
>     This leaves me to wonder why we do not simply have one membership,
>     and one vote, per member. Even the large organization small
>     organization distinction makes little sense.
>
>
> Totally agree Sam. Why we are giving organizations more voting weight 
> than individual members while what they do more or less is the same at 
> NCSG is a mystry to me. Sometimes organizations have one member or 
> employee! Orgs are not giving bigger dues (we don't charge dues) they 
> are not contributing more than individuals do in any other way.
>
>     We, individually or representing the express positions of our
>     organizations, bring evidence, logic, and context to bear when
>     deliberating policy and implementation issues. Hard fought battles
>     still end in consensus. They do not end because the vote was 51:49
>     and “ever vote counts”. What is important is the integrity of the
>     process and the quality of the consensual outputs. The scale and
>     scope of membership and voting rights should reflect this. As they
>     stand they address things that are really a non-issue here.
>
>     While I don't expect this to happen in the short run, I would
>     support simplifying participation to one membership and one vote,
>     and returning our energies to producing ICANN deliverables.
>
>     Sam L., NPOC
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     ------------------------------------------------
>     "It is a disgrace to be rich and honoured
>     in an unjust state" -Confucius
>       邦有道，贫且贱焉，耻也。邦无道，富且贵焉，耻也
>     ------------------------------------------------
>     Visiting Prof, Xi'an Jaiotong-Liverpool Univ, Suzhou, China
>     Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus), Econ, York U., CANADA
>     email:Lanfran at Yorku.ca  <mailto:Lanfran at Yorku.ca>    Skype: slanfranco
>     blog:https://samlanfranco.blogspot.com
>     Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852
>
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