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Username: Aetius
Date/Time: Sun, July 2, 2000 at 7:56 PM GMT (Sun, July 2, 2000 at 2:56 PM EST)
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer V5.01 using Windows 98
Score: 5
Subject: Why geographical regions?  Doesn't make much sense

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It seems to me if 80% of Internet users are in North America and Europe, then they should be selecting 80% of the five representatives, or 4 of 5.  Now, this isn't "fair" according to the ICANN board, but would be a much more accurate representation of the electorate.  More to the point, why are we electing people on a geographical basis?  I (a North American) might want to have something say about the Asian/Pacific member because my websites are run from there (say, Taiwan).

I think I understand ICANN's reasoning behind the geographical separation of the @Large members, but I just don't see it as valid.  I believe that this merely makes a sufficiently determined group of individuals able to capture a majority of the @Large seats simply by organizing via the web across the lesser-populated regions.  A smaller electorate is more prone to being co-opted by a fairly small percentage of it's voters.  And mailing address is not a very valid way of determining residence -- I can obtain a mailbox in Venezuela for a relatively small sum, and a Venezuelan can get a box at a Mailboxes Etc the same way.

Respectfully, I would suggest possibly categorizing users by their ISP, or by groups of ISPs.  Of course, one can switch ISPs relatively easily, but when you do so, you become a de facto user of that other ISP (even if it's only a mail redirect) and therefore a valid user, entitled to a vote there.  As each user can only have one valid email address at a time, they can only vote as a member of one ISP.  And, if they have tried to bypass the system by having multiple accounts with ICANN claiming different ISP's, that's okay -- they are a user of each of those ISPs, are entitled to vote there, and can pay the $whatever a month it will take to maintain all of those email addresses.  The only problem might be doing this on grand scale -- would be difficult, but not impossible -- and I don't know how ICANN would deal with an organized effort to get people into as many regions as possible.  I think it would make the @Large directors much more representative of their electorate -- in other words, representation by Internet space, not Real World space.

Here's another idea -- perhaps a random (or specific) grouping of users by IP address or IP subnet?  Some technical difficulties, but not insurmountable -- even road warriors generally have a home ISP of some sort.  This might require a bit of instruction for our less technically oriented members, but would not be undoable.  Even with ipmasq boxes and proxy servers, it should be a fair enough distribution, although that might change over time.  Just some ideas -- I don't know if these have been worked over and rejected by ICANN or not, but they make a lot more sense to me.  I'm sure someone out there has a better recommendation;  lets hear it!

Aetius 
     
     
     

 


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