Re: Motion to accept Re: PAB charter

From: Jim Dixon (jdd@vbc.net)
Date: Thu Feb 05 1998 - 09:17:15 PST


On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> > However, I do not agree with you here(that Jim is right). I do agree
> > that PAB needs more members and new blood but I don't agree that we
> > should agree to let one person represent 500 members. At the end of
> > day, we don't get much new blood this way.
>
> Indeed.
>
> Jim is basically requesting increased personal power.
>
> I will remind people that Joseph Stalin demanded a seat in the
> U.N. for every one of the USSR's components (Russia, Ukraine, etc.) --
> of course people easily saw through that. Jim is demanding a seat for
> every member of his EuroISPA organization. Well, if they want seats,
> let them join. All they have to do is fax a signature. Seems cheap to
> me.

It is much more productive to talk about the real issues than phoney
ones.

For the Nth time, the proposition is: EuroISPA will urge its members
to join [fax in a signature] if two conditions are met:

[1] each can appoint whoever they wish as their representative and

[2] each designated representative will have as many votes, where
    votes are relevant, as there are organizations appointing him or
    her as their representative.

For example, if N members of ECO sign the gTLD MOU and designate
Michael Schneider as their representative, then Michael Schneider
will have N votes in situations where voting is relevant.

EuroISPA has nine member associations. I would expect that if we
really push hard, we might get a significant part of each association
to sign; something in the 20-60% region. Of these some would choose
to represent themselves; more (70% ?) would choose a common
representative. Since I am the person on the ISPA UK Council most
knowledgeable in this area, I would probably be asked to act as
ISPA UK's default representative. If I accepted, and if my
guesstimates are correct, I might act as representative for 12-36 UK
organizations out of ISPA UK's 83 or so members.

I cite these numbers just to make it clear what the possible results
of an agreement on this issue would be.

What we are asking for is not unusual or unreasonable. You want (or
should want!) support for the gTLD MOU. We can deliver some degree
of support.

I expect that an agreement on this issue would bring in a small
flurry of signatures from the UK, followed, after a short delay,
by support from other European countries as people saw how things
developed. The infusion of new blood would doubtless scrap a good
deal of what you are working on to concentrate efforts on developing
support from elsewhere, most importantly from North America.

This is what is really important: support. You need the support of
thousands of organizations. In order to get that support, you must
re-engineer the PAB so that it can attract thousands of members and
operate effectively with thousands of members.

You also need to rewrite the gTLD MOU; I would concentrate on
reducing it to something that anyone in the Internet community
could agree upon. Well, anyone except NSI, I suppose.

There isn't a lot of time for this.

--
Jim Dixon                  VBCnet GB Ltd           http://www.vbc.net
tel +44 117 929 1316                             fax +44 117 927 2015



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 30 2000 - 03:22:22 PST