Re: ISOC Chapters and NC membership

From: Kent Crispin (kent@SONGBIRD.COM)
Date: Tue May 09 2000 - 21:51:52 PDT


On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 07:16:24PM -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
> Tarek Kamel wrote:
>
> > just a another small comment before the formulation starts, I do also
> > support a stronger role for the ISOC chapters as they play a major role
> > of THE forum for Internet diffusion in a lot of the developing countries.
>
> Tarek:
> That may be true, but the question is whether these chapters are
> *already* represented through ISOC.

The answer is clearly "no". Membership in an organization does not
imply commonality of view -- witness, for example, the US Congress...

> Giving them an additional vote may unfairly multiply the influence of a
> specific organization. I note in this regard that you are on the
> Board of trustees of the Internet Society. So presumably the Egyptian
> ISOC chapter is quite well represented by the parent organization. Do
> you feel you need another vote?

Clearly, there is no particular reason to suppose that Don Heath is
going to vote as ISOC Egypt would. For example, Don supported an
American for the NC position; and Egyptian vote would far more likely
go to someone from a different region.

> The case of ISOC is even more complicated than, say, ACM or CPSR or other
> organizations with international chapters, because ISOC straddles
> several functions within ICANN. ISOC is heavily represented in the
> PSO, for example.

You are confusing cause and effect. Membership in ISOC is very common
for people active in the PSO. The same could be said for ACM or IEEE,
as well. (Note that I am a member of ACM, for example.) That does not
imply that ISOC has a unified point of view that is represented in the
PSO. Membership in ISOC is common for Internet professionals of all
stripes; recall that Roeland Meyer (no friend of ICANN) is a member of
ISOC, as well.

> ISOC is primarily known for housing of the Internet
> Architecture Board and its service as the legal entity for IETF. In
> this role, it has a major impact, if not the dominant role in PSO.

This is a stronger point, but suffers from the same basic flaw. The
basic criteria for membership in ISOC is an interest in the Internet --
do you think that therefore anyone who has an interest in the Internet
is adequately represented in the NCC by ISOC? That is the absurd
direction you are going.

> PSO elected Vint Cerf, founder of ISOC and Board member of ISOC, to
> the ICANN Board. Jun Murai, who has held roles in both ISOC parent
> organization and ISOC Japan, was selected for the initial Board of
> ICANN. Mike Roberts, another founding ISOC member, is the CEO of ICANN.
> The late Jon Postel, another ISOC charter member, selected the initial
> Board of ICANN.
>
> Many ASO members also have strong connections to ISOC. ICANN Board
> member Pindar Wong, for example.
>
> And I would note that Alejandro Pisanty, of ISOC mexico, was elected to
> ICANN Board from DNSO despite lacking voting membership. There was
> nevertheless widespread support for him among the non-commercial
> constituency, because he was a constructive force. So the absence of a
> formal voting role for ISOC-Mexico does not mean exclusion at all.
>
> Then there are organizations, such as the Policy Oversight Committee
> (POC), which was formed by ISOC and consists almost entirely of ISOC
> members, which have joined our constituency. Pindar was also a member
> of POC.

Interestingly enough, all the people you mentioned are male, as well.
Obviously, it therefore follows that we only need one male member of
the NCC...

> Can anyone reasonably conclude that ISOC in all its manifestations is
> insufficiently represented within ICANN? Or even the DNSO?

That question is just a red herring.

> My concern is that we badly need to make ICANN *more* representative
> and more broadly based than it is now.

Precisely. Right now a *bad* rule is *preventing* a more diverse
representation, because adding international chapters of *any*
organization (not just ISOC) is more likely to increase diversity.
Quite clearly, making ISOC-Egypt a voting member is going to *increase*
diversity, not decrease it.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain

--- You are currently subscribed to ncdnhc-discuss as: Kent@SONGBIRD.COM To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-ncdnhc-discuss-1729M@lyris.isoc.org



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Aug 09 2000 - 13:20:39 PDT