Question 4: role of NCSG representative or chair

[Avri Doria]

On 6 Oct 2011, at 13:32, Milton L Mueller wrote:

> Debbie:
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
> 
>> I will remain accountable to the NCSG by clearly explaining my
>> perspective, by reaching out to international noncommercial users and
>> openly participating in policy discussions and conversations about
>> important issues.  
> 
> A question for you about this. One of the most important things the GNSO Council does is elect someone to the ICANN Board. 
> During the last election, it seemed as if the entire NCSG was backing Avri Doria for the Board. During the first round you did vote for Avri, but on the second round, you switched your vote to the other candidate, who was not supported by NCSG. As a result, Avri lost. You were asked at the time why you made this switch, but you never made any reply. Perhaps now would be a good time to do that? 


I know I wasn't asked, but as the object in the question, I will posit a question to this now often asked question.  A question where my silence embarrasses me each time it comes up because it forces me to face the fact that other people are being blamed for my failure.

First let me say that I lost because I was unable to get enough votes to win.  The balloting was secret and though it is easy to extrapolate given CSG's united front against my candidacy that 2 people from the NCSG group voted against me, we can never really know for sure, despite our assumptions.  That is in the nature of secret ballots.  And while I beleive in the transparency of representatives telling how and why they voted, that is not required by a secret ballot.  Perhaps we should start a movement to eliminate the secret ballot for Board seats - I would support that, but it is not the case at the moment.

So the question I ask is why might Debbie have voted agains me, if indeed she did?

The CSG was against my candidacy because they did not agree with my positions on things, in fact I have heard they find many of them odious.  On many issues, I have taken a position against some of the things that they hold most sacred like maximal protection for Trademarks and the primacy of the Commercial aspects of ICANN's responsibilities.  They did not trust me to take their views into account as a Board member.  I content this is not the case because I try to always take as much as possible into account in coming to decisions when in a position of elected responsibility, but since they never had the decency of talking to me as a candidate, no matter how often I asked, how could they think otherwise?  The CSG set up a united front against my candidacy and there was every reason to beleive that there was no chance that it was going to buckle.

If indeed Debbie did vote against me, I assume that my minimalist position on TM protection was a part of it.  I have made no secret of my view that Trademark protection for words from common language is theft and the fact that I only support Internet protection, of any sort, for neologisms, i.e. I think that the NCUC is far too accommodating in regard to trademarks but they are they lawyers and the law is the law, so I pretty much stand back on this issue.  To me, protection of the linguistic commons, freedom of expression and protection of minority cultures are far more important goals.  Given that, and given that my opponent was a respected ex GAC member with no history of anti Trademark support, of course she would vote for him. This is especially so under the condition where it became clear that I was incapable of breaking  the CSG united front against my candidacy.  Given the realties, and given that she really would not trust me to support the primary reason she was appointed to the g-council by the Board two years ago as the representative of Non Commercial IPC interests, why would she vote me?  I think the fact that I possibly got her vote on the first round is remarkable in itself - I was given a chance - had I been able to get even 1 CSG vote in that round, all of this would have been moot. But that did not happen despite how hard I and others tried. I remain forever grateful to those in the NCSG who supported my candidacy, and I am sorry I let you down.

I assume that the mistrust of my future actions that the CSG and Debbie might have had is really no different than the mistrust that was responsible for NCUC pulling me off the NCSG-EC and for nominating someone other than me to be the first NCSG Chair, though the specific issue areas differ.  This is politics, if you don't trust what someone will do, for whatever reasons, you don't nominate them, you don't vote for them and you don't ask them to represent you on an Executive Committee.

So I hope that I have put to rest the questions of why: simply put, I was not trusted to do the right thing.

Personally I think that is a good reason for making a choice in voting.  In casting my votes in this election, that was certainly my guiding position, I did not vote for anyone I did not trust to do what I thought was the right thing. So how could I expect anyone else to do otherwise?

avri
as ncuc member and _not_ as Interim NCSG Chair

Note: Remember as the candidate statements keep rolling in, if someone's statement causes you to change your mind about trusting what they will or will not do as a g-council member or NCSG Chair, just go to the website mentioned in the ballot, use you ID and password and vote again.  Only the last ballot you submit counts, and online ballots are considered more reliable than email ballots - though all of them produce a receipt.  Happy voting!