NCSG Policy Discussion on 2011-10-18 - a couple of follow-up points

[Alain Berranger]

Dear Colleagues,

1) We concluded yesterday, and I agreed, that it was better to resolve
constituency issues in-house, if at all possible of course and, to be sure I
added, if it was not too late.

Nobody remarked that some of these issues were actually made public in
September 2011 by the paper authored by now elected NCSG Chair Robin Gross.
If you want to check for yourself, you can consult:

http://www.apc.org/en/pubs/issue/governance/civil-society-involvement-icann-strengthening-futu

This same paper was later flagged by Dr Konstantinos Komaitis on the
NCSG-DISCUSS list. All at NPOC agree that this paper is a trust destroyer
rather than a trust builder. Also, I noted that many NPOC actions - some of
which I learnt about yesterday - were considered trust destroyers by other
NCSG members. I know that Avri rightly says you must read the archives, but
frankly I have often simply ran out of time for ICANN issues on many a day,
and ICANN is not the only activity I have in my life.

Hence we talked about the need of rebuilding our stakeholders' group trust
(I and others at NPOC agree it is badly needed), but wonder, beyond specific
outrages and offenses, if the root problem is not really with the basic and
perhaps even ad-hoc taxonomy of the NCSG (NCUC + NPOC + CC in the making)? I
wonder if it is not time to revisit our taxonomy as part of a strategy to
make the NC voice stronger in ICANN?

In the current NCSG, I guess it is obvious that individuals speak for
themselves (although some individuals are also part of NGOs appearing as
separate members - not a problem for me but simply a fact that should be
reflected in SOIs); but in the case of NGO staff or volunteers, or
academics, I wonder if they speak for themselves and/or their institutions?
For NPOC anyway, we onlyseek institutional not-for-profit/NG Organizations
memberships (millions of NFP/NGOs in the world, so probably deserving of an
ICANN constituency of its own).

I will say up front that I believe we should think about this and perhaps
debate in NCSG, and if so, my opening debate would be to have a zero-base
redesign of the NCSG taxonomy, along the line perhaps of: i) Individuals
(interalia internet users, consumers, etc..); ii) NFP/NGOs; and iii)
Academia (profit and not for profit)...etc... if I have missed a NC group
which cannot be align with one of these three? Re the above, I probably have
a rookie question (sorry if it seems naive to ICANN old-timers): isn't "At
Large" a sufficient constituency for individual internet users?

2) I think Bill Drake - please correct me if I got the wrong speaker - said
he was puzzled by the meaning of the terminology "Not for Profit Operational
Concerns (NPOC)"... In fact, so am I... I recall we had originally proposed
"Not for Profit Organizations Constituency (NPOC)". The latter was rejected
by NCSG-EC. Those on the list who were party to this "compromise" may
explain to the rest of us how that was arrived at and why that name was
chosen?

Cheers, Alain
--
Alain Berranger, B.Eng, MBA
Member, Board of Directors, CECI,
http://www.ceci.ca<http://www.ceci.ca/en/about-ceci/team/board-of-directors/>
Executive-in-residence, Schulich School of Business, www.schulich.yorku.ca
Trustee, GKP Foundation, www.globalknowledgepartnership.org
Vice Chair, NPOC, NCSG, ICANN, http://npoc.org/
O:+1 514 484 7824; M:+1 514 704 7824
Skype: alain.berranger
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