Procedures/Individual/organizations membership at NCSG
Stephanie Perrin
stephanie.perrin at MAIL.UTORONTO.CA
Sat Sep 15 12:19:16 EEST 2018
Thanks Amr, I think you have touched on one of my concerns. While we
love having organizational members, as a general rule (to the best of my
knowledge, and I have not studied this at all) they are not fielding
representatives who are staffing the pdps, writing the comments, or
running for council. Thus, to those of us toiling away at the coalface,
it is hard to tell what their views are.
cheers Stephanie
On 2018-09-14 09:38, Amr Elsadr wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I’m personally in favor of weighted voting, but do acknowledge that
> some complexities in membership regulations need to be associated with it.
>
> Organizational members are meant to represent a broader base of views
> and decision making processes than individuals do. That may be the
> result of consensus building of the staff or members within the
> organization. I do not believe that equating that with an individual’s
> view is desirable. This isn’t a question of deference to institutions,
> but rather a question of actual representation.
>
> Also, it might be worthwhile to note that not all NCSG organizational
> members participate in the GNSO in the same manner. I can think of
> only a few organizations like EFF, The Heritage Foundation, IP Justice
> and Article 19, whose representatives have made significant
> contributions to policy development, and have funded their staff
> members’ physical participation at ICANN meetings (no offense meant to
> other orgs I might have overlooked). I believe this is something the
> NCSG should encourage. We don’t require membership fees, nor do I
> believe we should, but organizations dedicating funds to active
> noncommercial representation in ICANN processes is a great thing for
> us. Sure, it’d be even greater if the motivation to do this isn’t that
> the organization will be rewarded with weighted voting, but I doubt
> they really care about that. An organization that dedicated, time,
> effort and funds to noncommercial representation at ICANN likely has
> other motives than voting power within NCSG.
>
> Having said that, it makes no sense to me that individual members who
> participate in the decision-making processes of theses organizations
> have voting rights in NCSG elections, amendments to the charter,
> operating procedures, etc. The whole idea of weighted voting is that
> the views of those individual members are meant to be reflected in the
> org’s weighted voting power.
>
> There will likely be many nuances to this, such as differentiating
> between orgs where the staff and/or members actually do influence the
> orgs’ voting decisions. I’m sure there are others. I commend our
> Stakeholder Group Chair for attempting to deal with this issue,
> instead of brushing it aside as a topic that is too complex to deal
> with. I encourage her to continue, and encourage our incoming Chair to
> see this through, if it isn’t resolved before the end of ICANN 63.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
>> On Sep 14, 2018, at 5:41 AM, Raphaël Beauregard-Lacroix
>> <rbeauregardlacroix at GMAIL.COM <mailto:rbeauregardlacroix at GMAIL.COM>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Milton
>>
>> Would you care to elaborate more on your opposition to 1 member-1 vote?
>>
>> To me it appears that the vote is attached to the quality of member
>> and that an organisation is not "more a member" than an individual.
>>
>> I also find it surprising that an organisation would refuse to join
>> the constituency if it is not given more votes than an individual?
>>
>> I understand that this might have been put in place in a time where
>> NCUC transitioned into something opened to individuals.
>>
>> There might also be other good reasons to have weighted voting. I am
>> willing to be convinced :)
>>
>> Also as Re to what Paul mentioned above: I feel that an org who is
>> registered as a member only represents itself (as a legal person) and
>> not its members or employees or whichever else constituent part it
>> may have, even more so in case of large organisations...
>>
>> And is it the case that someone may choose to participate to NCUC
>> (that is becoming a member) "through" an organisation without being,
>> let us say, specially authorised by that organisation to participate
>> in NCUC?
>>
>> Otherwise, even if extra-large orgs deem it necessary to delegate
>> NCUC business to several people, I still think that such org should
>> only have one vote.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 10:43 AM Mueller, Milton L <milton at gatech.edu
>> <mailto:milton at gatech.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> I disagree, Stephanie.
>>
>> Indeed, I think it’s completely absurd to have organizations that
>> have 45,000 members with the same voting power as an individual.
>> Many major noncommercial organizations will simply refuse to join
>> a constituency with that kind of a voting structure. We make a
>> pretty simple and flat voting structure, with large orgs, small
>> orgs and individuals. There are more individuals than
>> organizations, so it works out fairly balanced.
>>
>> I agree with Sam that voting is relatively unimportant except
>> when it comes to election of officers.
>>
>> It takes a lot of trouble and time to organize a vote, so the
>> idea that every administrative decision has to be voted on by the
>> membership is impractical.
>>
>> For those unaware of the history, NCUC started as an
>> organization-only constituency, and so did NPOC. Because of the
>> problems many people have getting authorization to “represent”
>> entire organizations, and in order to allow for broader
>> participation, we allowed individual membership. We adjusted
>> voting shares accordingly.
>>
>> Dr. Milton L Mueller
>>
>> Professor, School of Public Policy <http://spp.gatech.edu/>
>>
>> Georgia Institute of Technology
>>
>> Internet Governance Project
>>
>> http://internetgovernance.org/
>>
>> *From:*NCSG-Discuss [mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>> <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>] *On Behalf Of *Stephanie
>> Perrin
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 11, 2018 8:24 AM
>> *To:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>> <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
>> *Subject:* Re: Procedures/Individual/organizations membership at NCSG
>>
>> 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 <https://samlanfranco.blogspot.com/>
>>
>> Phone: +1 613-476-0429 cell: +1 416-816-2852
>>
>
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