> It was "consensualized". From the notes:
>
> Glen: There is no general constraint on DNSO member participation
> in multiple constituencies, but constituencies may apply their own
> requirements [example: At Large constituency rule mentioned above]
> such restrictions must be approved by the DNSO at large (consensus)
As I recall from the meeting, this matter was basically left in abeyance
pending further discussion. The fact that there is a wording in the the
meeting notes doesn't mean there was a vote or a final consensus. It's just
where things were left. My memory of it is that we were pressed for time and
the precise mechanism was not decided.
> > was seen as a means of allowing individuals with more than
> > one expertise to participate in the work of various committees so that the
> > variety of their expertise would not be constrained and lost.
> Nope. That wasn't it at all.
Again, I recall that this was the argument used to convince people to allow
a person representing a single entity to be in more than one constituency.
> > It was not
> > seen as a permission for the same interest to acquire a vote
> > disproportionate with their actual size, which is what is being permitted in
> > the very specific case of the trademark people.
>
> No, that is not what is being "permitted" for the trademark people,
> or anyone else. Membership in multiple constituencies doesn't have
> that effect.
>
> In fact, the voting rules are rather subtle, and your fulminating
> simplifications really don't do them justice. As currently
> constructed, the constituencies nominate their representatives, but
> the nominees are voted on by the entire membership. Each member gets
> one vote for each constituency. The precise language is:
>
> Each member of the DNSO may cast one vote for one nominee for
> membership in the Names Council from each of the constituencies.
This is rather ambiguous, isn't it? What does "from each constituency" mean?
Since there are three
or more people from each constituency on the NC, and since there may be more
than this number of persons
nominated but not less, the sentence above doesn't make much sense, does it?
If each DNSO member can only
vote for one nominee from each constituency, will you then take the three
with the most votes? Suppose all of the members vote for one of the
nominees, and none for the others? Your system won't work. To have the
entire membership vote, each member would have to vote for three nominees
from each constituency. However, this whole question is utterly academic,
because there won't really be any election, only a nomination (see below).
> In other words, the constituencies nominate, the membership elects.
>
> So if a company is a member of one constituency it still gets to vote
> for the nominees frome each of the other constituencies, as well is
> its own. BEING A MEMBER OF MULTIPLE CONSTITUENCIES DOES NOT CONFER
> ANY ADDITIONAL VOTING RIGHTS, AS FAR AS ELECTING NC MEMBERS.
>
> It does confer the ability to nominate in more than one
> constituency, but that is simply not a big deal --
How is that not a big deal? There probably won't be more than three nominees
in practice, so the nominees will become the electees. That's what's
happened so far in all these Internet-related organizations. That's what
happened with the ICANN Board: those people were originally called
"nominees", but since there weren't any other "nominees" they automatically
became the Board. That's exactly what will happen in the DNSO. So in effect
the nomination IS the election, and, INTA's business interests having two or
more constutiencies (the business one and the trademarks one, and maybe
others), they will "nominate" more NC members than they rightfully should.
> the "at large" constituency
> will undoubtedly command far more votes than any other constituency,
You mean because there isn't any at-large constituency, only a
business/organization constituency, which will be filled with businesses?
> so in practice, the nominees attractive to the at large will tend to
> be elected.
Another good reason for not giving them another constituency in the
trademarks.
> Furthermore, the membership of the various
> constituencies will not have a uniform point of view -- far from it.
I suggest that this just isn't so, as regards the trademarks issue. All
e-commerce has a fairly uniform position: restrict the domain name
registration process, and give priority in domain name selection to business
interests, the larger the business the greater the priority.
> So a dissatisfied member can always nominate someone very popular
> with the at large constituency.
This escapes me altogether.
> > No one mentioned exclusion until the INTA proposed it in their application.
> > That is a fact. You will not change that by your dishonest portrayal of me
> > as the excluder. You attack me for proposing the exclusion of the trademark
> > lawyers as a constituency, separate from the businesses who pay their wages,
> > yet you entertain the proposal of the INTA, which is that the users of the
> > Internet be excluded from the DNSO.
>
> The INTA document does not exclude users of the Internet from the
> DNSO. The definition of "legitimate interest" is as follows:
>
> Any individual, firm, association or corporation having gross
> revenues of or spending at least $xx in connection with
> Internet-related activities...
>
> "$xx" could be anywhere from "$10" to "$99", I suppose.
Needless to say, that's not what the INTA has in mind. What they apparently
have in mind are much larger sums of money. No one has gross revenues from
the Internet of $100. Any entity having revenues from the Internet at all,
has far higher revenues than that. But the point is that it excludes those
who have no revenues from the Internet, to wit, the millions of
non-commercial end-users, the free nets, the public services, etc.
That hardly
> seems like a significant exclusion -- especially since we were going
> to charge dues in that range anyway.
This has absolutely nothing to do with dues. It has to do with making a
requirement for membership that an entity have revenues from the Internet.