Draft of the NCSG proposal for the membership criteria

[Fouad Bajwa]

Hi Doria,

Good effort so far but just a few observations:

Within the article F. Eligible Individuals. I am not comfortable with
the type of domain bindings that come with the package. I also feel
developing country individual participation is not as developed or
advanced as that of the individuals in the developed. Buying a domain
and having it managed/hosted is sometimes equivalent to half a months
salary for the most population.

A developing region person may or may not have a domain registered but
may be hosting his website or blog on an existing website service
provider and may be advocating for Internet/Domain/ICANN related
issues on a blog hosted by a third party due to skill deficit,
unavailability of money to maintain or pay for website development,
blog design, hosting etc.

I would like the individual to be treated more as an individual
instead of him binding to a domain strategy business building idea.
That feels like ensuring a commercial objective that NCSG members will
also be buying out and owning domains. Their need or use then becomes
secondary that what they do with their domains whether for family or
non-commercial use. Holding a domain is a financial commitment on that
individual thus the process makes it a vice-versa commercial to
non-commercial conversion which in my opinion is unfair.

I totally agree with "Individual persons who agree to advocate for a
noncommercial public-interest position within the Stakeholder group
and who fall within one of the following three categories are eligible
to join:"

> i)   An Individual who has registered domain name(s) for personal, family or noncommercial use;

This should be really re-considered. Can be a third party free service
hosted domain too, no? How about a developing region participation
criterion?

> ii)   An Individual Internet user who is primarily concerned with the non-commercial public-interest aspects of domain name policy, and is not represented in ICANN through membership in another Supporting Organization or GNSO Stakeholder Group;

This is developing region friendly.

iii) An Individual who is employed by or a member of a large
noncommercial organization (universities, colleges, large NGOs) and it
is too complicated or the Individual lacks the standing to get his/her
organization to join on an organizational basis can join in his or her
individual capacity.

This feels like a stereotyped exaggeration in my opinion if it
matters. I think this should be revised and add that independent
Academics, Researchers, Social Entrepreneurs, Independent Developers
can join in. We also have to see that many young scientists,
technology students that have direct work related to internet
addressing and internetworking/IP/Security will be interested and are
interested to join so this last statement should be more inviting to
the independent non-commercial participants.

Many developing region participants on the list will be able to relate
to what I have commented. I hope my perspective from my developing
region background can be incorporated.

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Avri Doria <avri at ltu.se> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> At the meeting in Seoul, as well as part of the Transition Plan, the NCSG (Currently NCUC + Board Appointed council members) decided that membership in the NCSG should be opened as soon as possible so that organizations and people who were interested in joining the NCSG but perhaps not in joining the NCUC would be able to join. In order to make that possible, it was necessary to create a Membership Criteria document.   There is consensus in the NCSG-EC on sending the draft out for review at this time.
>
> A draft of this document has been posted on the NCSG Executive Committee (NCSG-EC) wiki page:  https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/ncsg-ec/
> in http://bit.ly/4uOAT4
>
> A rtf version of the document is attached.  A pdf is available on the wiki.
>
> As we would like to open membership as soon as possible, I would like to ask people to comment on this document by 11 January at which point I will ask the NCSG Executive Committee members to review all comments and decide on any necessary changes.  After that, the plan is to open membership to the NCSG.  The intent is also that this membership criteria document would be folded into the yet to be developed NCSG Charter, which will need to be approved by the Board and then would replace the Interim Charter.
>
> The next step for the NCSG-EC, which we have already begun, is documenting the process for forming an Interest-group/Constituency.  As mentioned during the NCUC monthly meeting, we are currently working on this without trying to determine the final state question of whether the NCSG  ultimately has Interest Groups or Constituencies, since we feel that the basics of forming such a group are pretty much the same regardless of the end decision on Interest-group versus constituency - briefly: first gather a group people of a particular interest, then organize and then start to contribute to the NCSG and the GNSO.  As with this document, once we have a draft that has NCSG-EC consensus for sending to review, I will send it out for review.
>
> I will also be forwarding this email and the draft to the Board's Structural Improvements Committee for their comments.
>
> Avri
> acting as Chair NCSG Executive Committee
>
>



-- 
Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa