Re: [alac] [Fwd: Re: [governance] RALOs without halos]

["Clement Dzidonu" <clement@xxxxxxxxx>]

Vittorio -- Good piece of history to remind us all how the ALAC/RALO
concept all started after the Accra ICANN meeting.

Surely the discussion on this subject has generated good and strong points
from all sides...To add to this..it is important to note that, the
'at-large' issue since the begining of ICANN has never lack numerous
suggestions of alternative models and concepts proposed by well-meaning
people (who do not always see eye-to-eye on the subject)..

Yes it is true that the model we are now experimenting with is a
restrictive one..and we are not even sure if this is a workable model.
Although the RALO concept is still 'work-in-progress'and it is not yet a
proven concept..every one agrees that ALAC  has clocked some progress
however minimal.

Some may be inclined to argue that...why bother...why not throw this
'yet-to-be-proven' concept away and start all over again with another
model?...We should be careful here... else we end up throwing away the
baby with the bath water.

Best rgds

Clement


> Il giorno lun, 23/01/2006 alle 12.56 -0800, Bret Fausett ha scritto:
>> from the power of its ideas and input. This model, a shell of the
>> original At Large concept, is what the ICANN Board decided in Ghana,
>> rejecting the proposals of its own blue-ribbon Bildt Committee and the
>> independent NAIS.
>
> Actually, just for the sake of history preservation, in Ghana (March
> 2002) ICANN decided to eliminate any kind of At Large participation. It
> was only in Bucharest (June 2002) that a group of good-willing people
> (traveling on their own money...) met the Evolution and Reform Committee
> and convinced them to reinstate the At Large under the form of the ALAC.
> Then an "assistance group" was formed to work out how to implement it,
> and by the end of 2002 the concept of the RALOs was developed. Actually,
> if I remember well, the original proposal that was initially put forward
> in the group did not have the regional subdivision, but some members
> (Latin Americans in particular) proposed the change to a regional model
> in one of the conference calls. So, at the end of the year, ICANN
> approved the ALAC/RALO model and in January 2003 the initial interim
> members of the ALAC were chosen by the Board.
>
> Initially, it was very hard for us to work: we had almost no budget and
> support, and ICANN flew us to Rio (March 2003) with the agreement that
> that would be the only ICANN meeting the Committee would attend in the
> year. It took us the entire year just to obtain the budget to attend the
> meetings and actually do our job, and also, to let the other
> constituencies to actually know who we were and what we were doing (I
> remember that in Rio some of our requests to meet other constituencies
> were turned down or met with almost empty rooms...).
>
> I think that the work of the Committee has been valuable both in quality
> and in quantity. Sure, if you compare the ALAC with the utopian
> expectation that thousands of people would be willing to attend ICANN
> meetings and discuss DNS-related matters, you'll be disappointed; but if
> you compare the ALAC with the other ICANN constituencies and committees,
> then you'll discover that we're one of the most active.
>
> Eventually, I share your final consideration: if all these energies
> that, year after year, are being spent in name calling at every occasion
> and in dwelling again and again over battles that were fought and lost
> four or six years ago, were rather spent in collaborating to build an
> even stronger and more numerous At Large constituency, then the At Large
> would be even more important; and it would then be able to credibly
> claim Board seats or other ways to have a strongest influence on the
> actual decisions.
>
> I am sure that those who oppose the At Large idea altogether - mostly to
> preserve their power over ICANN - are extremely happy to see a divided
> constituency where most efforts are spent in endless structural
> quarrels, rather than a united group that can exploit fully its immense
> potential.
> --
> vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
> http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...
>
>