Follow Up and Further Reflections on Consolidating NCSG, NCUC and NPOC

[Stephanie E Perrin]

I think an interest group model would have a lot of appeal, and would 
allow for regional divergences in priorities as well.  In any case, we 
need to focus on the actual work we do, and figure out administrative 
structures that support that work.  The actual "merger" may not be the 
desired goal for the immediate future, although folks should understand 
what it entails, and how much our administrative structures actually 
contribute to our work, or not, as many have pointed out.

Stephanie Perrin

On 2020-07-28 11:49 p.m., David Cake wrote:
> While by no means as much the ’NCUC old school’ as some, either in 
> longevity of involvement, or in that I have been involved with NPOC as 
> well since then - it is worth looking back to the model that NCUC was 
> proposing for NCSG back in the far off days of 2008/2009 or so when 
> the NCSG model was set. That model got a lot of pushback from the 
> board at that time, for reasons that I think many of those on the 
> board at the time would now admit was a mistake (in fact, a few then 
> board members have privately admitted as much to me).
>
> That original, proposed, model was that instead of Constituencies that 
> served distinct stakeholder groups like CSG, and so needed to have 
> distinct allocations of resources and representation, we had more 
> lightweight internal Interest Groups formed around particular policy 
> or structural concerns, with the explicit acknowledgement that, as is 
> normal in civil society, there was a large degree of overlap in 
> membership. So the operational concerns of non-profits would be one 
> such interest group, and so much of the value of NPOC as a group could 
> be preserved, but acknowledging that most of the non-profits likely to 
> be heavily involved in the GNSO also have policy concerns that overlap 
> with many other civil society actors. And interest groups like privacy 
> or security or free expression would overlap with groups or 
> individuals that currently may be involved in NPOC, NCUC, and/or NCSG.
>
> Our current model is an awkward compromise between our original model 
> and the CSG model, largely imposed on us by a board who had both fears 
> and hopes for NCSG that we can reassess far more realistically now 
> that we have over a decades experience in working with it. Some of the 
> hoped for changes since then have come to pass (for example, concerns 
> about ideological diversity within NCSG have been allayed by the 
> demonstration that orgs with very different political positions could 
> work together constructively in the IANA transition process), others 
> have been shown as unlikely to happen (large civil society orgs that 
> do not have a specific reason to involve themselves domain name policy 
> debate are very difficult to engage, no matter how important and broad 
> their role in society at large might be). We are now able to think 
> about redesigning NCSG with practical knowledge to back up our 
> positions. You can see how aspects of our original preferred model 
> made it into the NCSG Charter and continue today, and aspects of the 
> CSG model. We do not have hardwired council seats like the CSG, we 
> develop most policy positions together, our councillors are usually 
> not bound to a specific policy position, recognising our internal 
> policy diversity, and an organisation can be a member of multiple 
> Constituencies - but we do have separate leadership models and 
> resources allocated to Constituencies. And I think it is clear from 
> experience that the times when we work together as a unified body we 
> are more effective at policy.
>
> Having experienced working with and within all three organisations 
> extensively, I also think that the core policy concerns of NPOC might 
> actually be more effectively served that way - without the overhead of 
> NPOC having to perform its own outreach and administration work, and 
> without the duplication of effort we all experience, but able to 
> promote specific policy and policy support activities for non-profit 
> organisations across the broader NCSG.
>
> And we clearly are no longer in a position where we are able to see 
> much of a coherent difference in policy concerns or membership that 
> makes apparent sense to outsiders. Sometimes, if you don’t know the 
> internal ICANN history or individuals involved, it is very difficult 
> to see why a particular organisation might be more involved in NCUC or 
> NPOC.
>
> I’ll admit I don’t have a good feeling as yet for how we might 
> organise this Interest Group model across NCSG to more meaningfully 
> support a broader range of policy work. But I think it is worth 
> considering that the model of heavily siloed constituencies does not 
> reflect the reality of civil society, and is not the most efficient or 
> effective way to organise ourselves internally. How we might more 
> meaningfully reallocate resources for policy work on this different 
> model, and seek alternate means of supporting as well, I don’t know 
> (but would be happy to be involved in discussions).
>
>
> David
>
>> On 28 Jul 2020, at 9:42 pm, dorothy g <dgdorothydg at GMAIL.COM 
>> <mailto:dgdorothydg at GMAIL.COM>> wrote:
>>
>> So the idea is to just have NCSG,  no more NPOC and NCUC.  So if the 
>> group persists in going in the consolidation direction the 
>> participation in the group to engage with ICANN should be 2 from NPOC 
>> and 2 from NCUC.  I do not get the point of any participation from 
>> the umbrella group as everyone there is from either NPOC or NCUC.  If 
>> we have definitional problems all we need to do is to provide a clear 
>> standard definition. Your argument  seems to tend to the dissolution 
>> of NPOC as you explain the logic for setting it up no longer exists. 
>> NPOC members may have a different view. I just wish we could focus on 
>> getting people to participate more effectively. Merging will not in 
>> my view solve that fundamental problem.
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-discuss/attachments/20200729/d985a964/attachment.htm>