NCUC Nomination for Poncelet

[Milton L Mueller]

No more constituencies, yes.
And end to SGs? No.

The SGs should be very broad, stable, neutral and balanced divisions of the groups and individuals involved, such as commercial v noncommercial or supply industry vs. users.
Then, within those broad groupings, one can have many short-term interest groups or coalitions or alliances form to push a particular position. Linking positions to structural groupings is a big mistake, which leads to divisiveness and fragmentation and power games.

The example of an "academic" constituency, e.g., is not useful because academics are already well-represented in NCUC. If some people from academia care about a particular position, they can organize around it. If two groups of academics disagree on what is the best policy, fine, let them disagree. We must not pretend that all academics, or all academic organizations, want the same thing, yet this what the whole idea of constituencies lends itself to.

Thanks Milton.

So what are you thinking: would you go as far as no more Constituencies? no more Stakeholders' Groups? a completely different model based on gTLDs communities? What are the practical alternatives to the current model of multiple Constituencies in the same SG? I can think of a few myself, but nothing short term and until the GNSO management review is completed, structures are better left alone, no?

Also, I noted the recent and spontaneous early thinking in Toronto during our NCSG meetings (notably by David Cake) about the "real" differences between NCUC and NPOC (We have all faced that question - Marie-laure and I got it from NPOC's session with the Fellows for instance), maybe we should work on that, so that we have a clear message out before the inter-sessional and Beijing meetings? Also, how about my "old" idea of an Academia Constituency somewhere in the future...? I sensed it was not very popular but many other MS organizations use a taxonomy that give a specific place to Universities/Academics.

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