> Currently, the ICANN by-laws have 47% UR on the ICANN Board, and the
> last I heard, the DNSO has less than a 20% UR in the DNSO.
That's not quite an accurate characterization of the current temporary
DNSO structure as reflected in the application to ICANN, at least as I
understood it from the Monterrey discussion. The original proposal of
50% of Names Council members being elected by the at-large constituency
was reduced to a percentage equal to the other constituencies (3 from
each), the idea being that when the contingents within the at-large
membership become better defined they will form new constituencies, each
of which will elect the same number of Names Council members. This
obviously has its own problems (e.g. what if there are eventually so
many user constituencies that they have more than 50%?), but was seen as
an expedient, under the no-consensus situation of the meeting, for
arriving at a temporary solution permitting the drafting of an
application.
What seems clear is that there is no way to make decisions about the
relative percentages of user participation without first deciding upon
the relationship - in numbers and in power - between the SO at-large
memberships and the ICANN at-large membership. Ignoring or avoiding that
issue because it's difficult to resolve will make it impossible to
proceed further on the definition of the SO at-large membership(s).
The contingents within the at-large membership need to be defined, at
least insofar as is presently possible, and members and representatives
of those contingents identified and asked to participate. This means not
only including representatives of independent end-users, but placing
corporate and non-profit organizational end-users within defined
contingents of the at-large membership (both of ICANN and of the DNSO),
and debating the limitations of their power, and their responsabilities.
Within this debate, the question of whether or not users will be
involved in some way in the Protocol and Address SOs needs to be
discussed, rather than a blind eye being turned to the present situation
in which this issue is not being addressed by the groups forming to fill
those SOs' memberships.
These are difficult matters, but avoiding them just postpones arriving
at any useful definition of the ICANN and SO at-large memberships.