Charters RESPONSE

[Milton L Mueller]

> -----Original Message-----
> 
> 1.	The Alternative Charter is not too late.  I have again talked
> with ICANN staff and there is no "deadline" that was missed.

Cheryl your comments are very misleading. 

First, there is a deadline. The whole process of chartering the GNSO
stakeholder groups must be completed before June 2009. We are in very
good shape because we are starting earlier. 

It took us 6 months to develop a first draft, it could easily take
another 4 to settle on the final version. The sooner we finish, of
course, the better.

It should be obvious that ICANN wants and needs a single proposal that
the existing noncommercial stakeholders agree on. It does not want (and
will not) put itself in a position of choosing between factions in the
group. Or is that what you are hoping for? Do you think that you can
submit a draft that only you support, and somehow get the central
administration to impose it on the rest of us? That is a fantasy. It
won't happen.

So here's the bottom line, and frankly we both know this: 

We have a working draft. Over the next few months many people will read
it and make comments, suggestions, criticisms, etc. Based on those
comments, amendments will be made. Whatever ideas you have about how the
NCUC draft should be changed will be part of that process. They will be
amendments to the draft we are working on. 

An additional misrepresentation discussed below:
 
> The business users group, for
> example, is made up of 3-4 constituencies who do not always have
> "similar interests," but sometimes widely inconsistent and
> competing interests that have to be negotiated.  (Do you want

Wrong. It is a matter of documented fact that the three business
constituencies vote the same way 89% of the time. If you take out some
relatively meaningless procedural votes and concentrate on substance it
is more like 95% of the time.

> We must avoid the kind of dialogue that conveys
> this message: "There is this bigger, scary political dynamic and rules
> and deadlines you can't understand, and you, as a newcomer, don't
> have nearly enough history, background, insider connections, and
> expertise."

That's true. But we must also avoid people who exploit newcomers'
unawareness of ongoing processes in an attempt to promote a position
that has no support among the membership.

> I see no reason to continue any discussion other than on the merits of
> the two proposals.

Here we totally agree. If you want to propose specific modifications of
the draft we are working on, you are free to do so. If however you frame
the issue as choosing between two proposals, you will instantly lose,
because one proposal has the support of the majority of participants and
the other has only one supporter.