[council] FYI - New GNSO Constituency Notice of Intent - Not-for-Profit Organizations Constituency

[Milton L Mueller]

Amber:
Thanks for communicating with us. 

>I have been a lurker on this list serve for a while now and I believe
>that the NCSG does not promote various opinions and discussions from its
>"dynamic representation of various social classes".  The NPOC would
>allow not-for-profit organizations to affiliate and respond to various
>DNS issues, as it pertains to our organizations.

That would also be possible under an "interest group" structure. 

You may not be aware of the very long history of debate we have had over the problem of constituency silos
There are many, many ways in which locking participation into rigid constituency structures causes political conflict, because it creates a zero sum game - any Council seat or representation one constituency gets is taken directly away from another constituency. 

That is why 95% of the ~200 organizations and people currently in NCSG rejected the constituency silo model and ratified the charter. Do you think these people should be disenfranchised because 2 people, representing 2 organizations, want to form their own exclusive club? 

A more direct way to confront you with this question is to ask: if NPOC becomes a "constituency," does it get the same amount of resources and representational seats as NCSG, which has (literally) 100 times as many members? 
What is the threshhold that has to be reached? How many other constituencies can be formed after NPOC? Will they subdivide the number of available Council seats

The NCSG "interest group" charter solves this problem neatly. You get to form your own group, and you get specific kinds of representation. But you still have to function in an intergated fashion within the NCSG as a whole. There are no rigid barriers. 

The issue is not really whether membership should be or could be expanded.  NCUC has done more to expand civil society participation in ICANN than any other entity. There are now more people involved here than there are in the entire ALAC. It simply is not possible to allow every little group of people to have its own structural Constituency. But it is possible for them all to form interest groups that function within an integrated SG structure. Please read our charter and try to understand it, before you secede from it. And before you form your own group, how about actively and publicly soliciting support from the other nonprofits who are already here? How can you justify the lack of openness in your approach?

--MM