SPAM-LOW: Re: NPOC Q&A Document

[Andrew A. Adams]

Rosemary wrote'
> I think we have a real problem...
>
> Our Charter describes Constituencies at 2.3 (below) but it seems we are arg=
> uing against even the possibility of a Constituency within NCSG????

Remember that our charter is not the current one under which the NPOC is
being propsoed. The NPOC is being proposed under the current board-imposed
interim charter.

I don&t think the tone of comments here suggest people are against interest
groups, or constituencies as the board insists we call them. What people are
arguing against is both the principle and practice of this NPOC proposal.

So far as I can see if the NPOC constituency within NCSG is created then
we&re hemmed in to only two constituencies' organisations and users. Very few
organisations that are both eligible and intersted in joining NCSG will not
be non-profits, I suspect, particularly under the broad definitions of the
NPOC proposal. That leaves us with individuals on one side and NPOs on
another. The NPOC is way too broad and seems to me to be either naively
over-broad o cynically empire-building, at the very least, and perhaps an
attempt at political spoiling as has been suggested.

I would also say that I am completely opposed, at this stage *and probably
will be later) to any proposal that seeks to create a constituency/interest
group in NCSG that doesn't already have a significant membership in the NCSG
as a whole, or at the very least a list of eligible members who feel there
isn't a suitable interest group/constituency for them to join. The only
reason NCUC exists as an explicit constituency within NCSG is that the board
insisted that we have constituencies right from the start, IIRC, and so
everyone go to lumped into a single constituency. Over time we should expect
that NCUC will either disappear as other more focussed interest groups form,
or become the default place for members of NCSG who don't fit into a group
and don't have enough others with whom to form a new group.

We're still in the formation stage of NCSG really, and need to be very
careful how we allow our political structures to develop. Historical
institutionalism and path dependence lessons tell us that once we've got
structures in place it will be difficult to change them. Much better to get
them approximately right first time and then tweak them than have to fight
internal political battles to slice and dice  a group set up too early with a
way too broad remit. Yes, this places NCUC in an unnaturally strong position,
but that was forced on us by the board rather than being something we've
sought for ourselves, and I actually have reasonable faith that the majority
of current members will not seek to undermine our work in getting the NCSG up
and running in ICANN by using NCUC's position to attempt to dominate NCSG.


--
Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/