Independent Examiner’s Final Recommendation | At-Large should adopt the proposed Empowered Membership Model (EMM) with a view to removing the barriers to participation for Internet end-users, and encouraging greater direct participation by At-Large members in At-Large policy advice and related “Outreach and Engagement” processes. (See EMM Recs) |
Issue Identified | At-Large has struggled to reflect/process end user-opinion; barriers to individual participation; perception of unchanging leadership group. |
Does ALAC Support Recommendation? | The ALAC rejects the EMM as recommended by the Review. The ALAC does, however agree with the of some aspects of the EMM and will address them under the EMM-specific recommendations. |
If Not, Please Provide Reasoning. | The ALAC believes that if several aspects of the EMM were implemented, the end effect would be to irreparably damage At-Large's ability to fulfill its mandate in ICANN. Among these changes are the merger of RALO Officer and ALAC Member roles, the elimination of the ALAC ability to select appropriate Liaisons to other ICANN AC/SOs. This recommendation includes two related elements. The first and main element sets the goal of more participation by individual At-Large members in ICANN Working Groups. The second, subordinate element suggests a method by which the goal, in the opinion of the reviewers, would be achieved. The ALAC supports the goal and notes that work to achieve it is already well underway. But it resolutely rejects the suggested method, which is not necessary for achieving the goal, and could lead to unintended consequences detrimental to At-Large and to ICANN itself. However, the ALAC does support the prime intent of the Empowered Membership Model (EMM) - to ensure that all regions can and will accept Individual Members. The EMM is effectively a generalization of the Individual Members concept that currently exists in three of the five RALOs. The ALAC supports the overall concept, and fully intends to ensure that such members are allowed into all RALOs. To be clear, the ALAC supports enhancing the focus on those individual user members not affiliated with an ALS. No evidence is presented as to why or how the vote-empowered membership will be significantly more attractive to end-users world-wide (It must be noted that in most other parts of the ICANN volunteer community, the potential participants are well acquainted with ICANN. This is certainly true for Registrar, Registries, Internet Service Providers, Intellectual Property Lawyers, etc. This is definitely not the general case with users, even technology-savvy users), or why the ongoing potential to vote will encourage people to actively participate in what has been acknowledged as a complex, and time-intensive space. Moreover, many of these users are not fluent in English which is the language used for most of these activities and no proposal is presented on how that might be overcome. The ALAC has found it difficult to get ALS members to participate in working groups, At-Large or Cross Community, mainly due to the fact that they are all volunteers and do not all share the same commitment of time, or similar levels of expertise or knowledge on the content areas. With the intensified engagement required to get up to speed, the ALAC does not see that the number of people interested in, motivated enough and ready to carry out the voluntary services required within At-Large would be any different between the ALS model and the EMM model. Moreover, “direct” participation by an increased number of individual members, does not guarantee that they can truly represent the interests of billions of end-users any more effectively than the current model, where ALSes at least provide outreach capacity at local level. There are more elements of the EMM model which the ALAC continues to have difficulty comprehending, not only as to the rationale but also to the value that they would give the At-Large Community, for example, giving Empowered Members the right to vote for their leaders or on other actions, should a vote ever be initiated. As ALAC and RALO decision-making is often by consensus, it is difficult to understand why this voting issue is such a key feature of EMM. Another example is the use of Rapporteurs, and giving them travel slots after a year. For ALAC members selected by their RALOs, it would be typical that a minimum of two years of active participation in one or more working groups would be expected before members were elected to the ALAC and achieved travel slots. This delay is not to penalise new workers, but to give them the time they need to get up to speed. The ALAC notes that if this recommendation had been limited to the universal acceptance of individual members with an implicit lessened focus on ALSes, this recommendation would very likely have been fully accepted. However, with the accompanying requirement to redefine RALO Leadership, ALAC Membership and Liaison selection; overly detailed specification of exactly how individual membership should be implemented; and what it should be named, we had no choice but to reject it. |
If ALAC Does Not Support Recommendation, Does It Suggest an Alternative Recommendation? If so, please provide a suggested alternative Recommendation. | The ALAC sees one potential outlet for the objective of enhanced individual participation in the current Fellowship or NextGen programmes. These programmes are geared specifically to get interested and enthusiastic individuals from across the globe up to speed about the workings of the ICANN ecosystem so they can find their own niche areas of interest for subsequent engagement. These are two already successful programmes from which ICANN itself has started recruiting staff, while other former alumni have not only joined the ICANN Community but have also become members of the ALAC and now, even the ICANN Board. The ALAC believes that the ALS membership model should remain because it is the At-Large link to grassroots inputs. In their local context, ALSes are recognised as established organisations, in some cases older than ICANN itself, and they play a role in national-level multi-stakeholder cooperation that clearly benefits ICANN and the user community they represent. ALS members also form a prime pool of potential At-Large workers, and ALAC and RALO leaders. Plans are underway to enhance outreach to them and to engage those who are intrigued by ICANN and its work. Ultimately, there may be some merit in more uniform rules for Individual Members across regions. But at the moment, it is clear that the needs and views differ greatly, and allowing regions to address their unique characteristics in in accordance with the ICANN Bylaws section 12.2(d)(ix)(D) "To the extent compatible with these objectives, the criteria and standards should also afford to each RALO the type of structure that best fits the customs and character of its Geographic Region." |
Prioritization | |
At-Large Comments | As above. |
Possible Dependencies | |
Who Will Implement? | |
Resource Requirements | |
Budget Effects impact? | |
Implementation Timeline | |
Proposed Implementation Steps |
AT-LARGE GATEWAY
At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)
At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development
13 Comments
Aida Noblia
Recommendation 2
Fundamentals- Reasoning
We share with ITEMS the vision that in the Internet community, presents some problems that need to be solved, especially in this stage after the transfer of IANA functions, and in its new role of Empowered Community.
However, we do not share the ITEMS solution, although we understand that the complexity of ICANN and the Community and its role are not easily understood because it is a complex organization.
The ITEMS Report does not provide theoretical elements that solidly base its solution or practical elements that allow to trust in the viability and positive effects in its application.
First, with regard to the theoretical foundations:
a) the organization they propose is not suitable for a global system of representative democracy, suitable for structures that encompass millions of people; b) the inequity of the system of representation they propose, affects the human right to equality, given the system of counting votes. (An ALM has a vote regardless of the number of people that comprise it: from 1 to n: Part II Results 16.2 pag 101); c) the representation of the interests of the end users is in the hands of individuals who volunteer to participate, without being established requirements and with a minimum time of experience in complex issues; d) it is not taken into account that non-profit organizations, in general, have a different performance, since most people must devote much of their time to their livelihood; E) they do not express grounds for the new system will be more reliable than existing ALS, RALOS, which are allowed in the new structure with the sole function of communicating with end users to stimulate their participation .
In addition, the model proposed by ITEMS contradicts the global trends of organizations, in the public, private, business, cultural and academic fields. In this so-called information and knowledge society, the model promoted is teamwork, "collective intelligence", "brainstorming", that is, working in groups. Although the proposed solution is novel, it does not coincide with these tendencies for which there are many reasornings.
Second, with respect to the practical elements: the requirements for individual users that would replace the current structure of ALs and RALOS appear to be insufficient, given their responsibility and multiplicity of tasks. Problems arise for implementation, partly because of the impreciseness of the description of the new structure, partly due to the inadequacy, given the combination of different roles (theoretical practical) in individual subjects, burdened with tasks of high degree of responsibility and transcendence for ICANN, such as: participation in policy-making, representation of the interests of all end-users, of the New Empowered Community (which implies its smooth communication with it.). It is also unclear how individual users without a prior preparation or requirements could do a good work with an accumulation of roles difficult to solve in practice.
In Summary: The present form of operation, although it deserves criticisms in its operative aspects, is adapted to structures that embrace millions of people. This structure allows articulating different levels of participation and separating different roles, thereby achieving clarity even from the point of view of the responsibility to be demanded of each person.
In relation to the individual users they already participate in three of the RALOS and study their participation in the remaining two. A fair way could be to follow the European model, that is to say, that all the individual users of the Region integrate an ALs, which would have one vote, following the general rule that is applied, that is: one ALs, one vote, with Which would be governed by the same principles as the ALs.
Proposed Measures
The operational and functional aspects, in our modest opinion, could be corrected with the application of certain measures that are already underway and we understand that it is important to emphasize as priorities and to deepen: a) Awareness of the New Role of the Community to the members of ALses.- b) Training of ALS members so that they can adequately participate in quantity and quality, in their contributions to ICANN policies and other activities required as such
c) application of Metrics regarding such participation and d) "Accountability" of its activities.
e) With regard to the participation of individual users who would like to participate, they could do so in different ways. As it was expressed a proposal would be that all the individual users of the Region integrate to an ALs and that ALs would have a vote, like the others.
Aida Noblia
Proposed measures - Aggregates and clarifications
To the above: 1) Clarify: Regarding the point a) Knowledge of the New Role of the Community by the members of Alses, means not only to know that there is this new Role and its limits, but also to be aware of the importance that this new Role for the community and assume a proactive attitude, that is: that empowerment involves taking actions to effectively defend the interests of end users. On the one hand, to deepen the knowledge of the politics questions and to participate in the comments on the same ones. On the other hand, fulfill the mission that corresponds to the Alses regarding the dissemination of this role in their community: to disseminate to the Community such role and spread the need for more end users to actively participate in the ALs.
2) In relation to the proposed Measure in E): formation of a special ALs in the Region, which will be used by individual users of that Region, which are not integrated into any ALs or do not want to or can not integrate into any of the ALs of Your Region already constituted. The costs of creating an ALs are, in general, relatively low as well as maintenance costs. They have tax benefits (exemption from taxes), facilities and even economic support for the development of their activities, being social interest purposes).
A point to be resolved for your formal legal constitution is: in what country or space would be constituted and under what laws. We believe that a non-profit organization could be formed whose headquarters could be the Latin American Caribbean Internet House, since it is also home to several non-profit Organizations of the Region (LACNIC, LACTLD, ISOC, CLARA Academic Network, LAC-IX, ALAI, etc. It could also have representations in different countries or zones, to facilitate the integration and communication of the users, without detriment to the possible communications and meetings at a distance.
With regard to costs, these types of non-profit organizations are generally inexpensive for their constitution and operation, they have tax benefits and obtain cooperation from various organizations because they are organizations whose purposes are of social interest.
Aida Noblia
Regarding the mention of the "Casa de Internet de Latinoamérica y Caribe" is only for LACRALO. The other Region that is missing solve the problem of the individual users at the moment, could look for their own solution. The three remained Regions that have a solution now, do not have to change because they do not have the problem. It would not be fair or equitable to force the three regions, which are the majority, to eliminate de RALOs and ALS to adopt the model proposed by ITEMS.
Alan Greenberg
My thoughts
Status: Reject as a whole, but see specific EMM Recommendations
Comments: The ALAC rejects the EMM as recommended by the Review. The ALAC does, however agree with the of some aspects of the EMM and will address them under the EMM-specific recommendations.
The ALAC believes that if several aspects of the EMM were implemented, the end effect would be to irreparably damage At-Large's ability to fulfill its mandate in ICANN. Among these changes are the merger of RALO Officer and ALAC Member roles, the elimination of the ALAC ability to select appropriate Liaisons to other ICANN AC/SOs.
Glenn McKnight
Status: Reject
We have embraced the idea of Unaffiliated members and we encourage all end users to work with their respective ALS's and the RALO's to share their issues and concerns. Also as Alan points out the RALO Chair and ALAC Rep from a region doesn't make any sense given the time commitments of these positions. It would be very difficult to recruit volunteers to double their unpaid duties and provide duty of care
Ariel Liang
ALAC comment in the ALAC Statement on the At-Large Review Draft Report
==
The ALAC notes that this recommendation includes two related elements. The first and main element sets the goal of more participation by individual At-Large members in ICANN Working Groups. The second, subordinate element suggests a method by which the goal, in the opinion of the reviewers, would be achieved.
The ALAC supports the goal and notes that work to achieve it is already well underway. But it resolutely rejects the suggested method, which is not necessary for achieving the goal, and could lead to unintended consequences detrimental to At-Large and to ICANN itself. However, the ALAC does support the prime intent of the Empowered Membership Model (EMM) - to ensure that all regions can and will accept Individual Members.
The EMM is effectively a generalization of the Individual Members concept that currently exists in three of the five RALOs. The ALAC supports the overall concept, and fully intends to ensure that such members are allowed into all RALOs. To be clear, the ALAC supports enhancing the focus on those individual user members not affiliated with an ALS.
No evidence is presented as to why or how the vote-empowered membership will be significantly more attractive to end-users world-wide (It must be noted that in most other parts of the ICANN volunteer community, the potential participants are well acquainted with ICANN. This is certainly true for Registrar, Registries, Internet Service Providers, Intellectual Property Lawyers, etc. This is definitely not the general case with users, even technology-savvy users).
, or why the ongoing potential to vote will encourage people to actively participate in what has been acknowledged as a complex, and time-intensive space. Moreover, many of these users are not fluent in English which is the language used for most of these activities and no proposal is presented on how that might be overcome.
The ALAC has found it difficult to get ALS members to participate in working groups, At-Large or Cross Community, mainly due to the fact that they are all volunteers and do not all share the same commitment of time, or similar levels of expertise or knowledge on the content areas. With the intensified engagement required to get up to speed, the ALAC does not see that the number of people interested in, motivated enough and ready to carry out the voluntary services required within At-Large would be any different between the ALS model and the EMM model. Moreover, “direct” participation by an increased number of individual members, does not guarantee that they can truly represent the
interests of billions of end-users any more effectively than the current model, where ALSes at least provide outreach capacity at local level.
The ALAC sees one potential outlet for the objective of enhanced individual participation in the current Fellowship or NextGen programmes. These programmes are geared specifically to get interested and enthusiastic individuals from across the globe up to speed about the workings of the ICANN ecosystem so they can find their own niche areas of interest for subsequent engagement. These are two already successful programmes from which ICANN itself has started recruiting staff, while other former alumni have not only joined the ICANN Community but have also become members of the ALAC and now, even the ICANN Board.
The ALAC believes that the ALS membership model should remain because it is the At-Large link to grassroots inputs. In their local context, ALSes are recognised as established organisations, in some cases older than ICANN itself, and they play a role in national-level multi-stakeholder cooperation that clearly benefits ICANN and the user community they represent. ALS members also form a prime pool of potential At-Large workers, and ALAC and RALO leaders. Plans are underway to enhance outreach to them and to engage those who are intrigued by ICANN and its work.
There are more elements of the EMM model which the ALAC continues to have difficulty comprehending, not only as to the rationale but also to the value that they would give the At-Large Community, for example, giving Empowered Members the right to vote for their leaders or on other actions, should a vote ever be initiated. As ALAC and RALO decision-making is often by consensus, it is difficult to understand why this voting issue is such a key feature of EMM. Another example is the use of Rapporteurs, and giving them travel slots after a year. For ALAC members selected by their RALOs, it would be typical that a minimum of two years of active participation in one or more working groups would be expected before members were elected to the ALAC and achieved travel slots. This delay is not to penalise new workers, but to give them the time they need to get up to speed. Lastly, the merger of ALAC Membership, RALO Leadership and Liaison positions seems ill advised. All of these issues will be addressed later in this document.
In summary, the ALAC notes that if this recommendation had been limited to the universal acceptance of individual members with an implicit lessened focus on ALSes, this recommendation would very likely have been fully accepted. However, with the accompanying requirement to redefine RALO Leadership, ALAC Membership and Liaison selection; overly detailed specification of exactly how individual membership should be implemented; and what it should be named, we had no choice but to reject it.
Holly Raiche
One difficulty we didn't mention is the significant difficulties many regions have simply with connectivity - quite apart from differences in language and cultural traditions. One size does NOT fit all, and the way people communicate has to reflect the global diversity of our constituents.
That said, I really like some of Aida's comments. And remember the final paragraph Ariel has used: if the recommendation had been about universal acceptance, we would have said of course. But we must tailor universal participation to reflect the differences in simply available time (for volunteers), geography, language, culture, connectivity.
Alan Greenberg
I think connectivity is mentioned in the EMM replies. And also under the Rec on collaboration tools. Regional differences and a reference to the Bylaws allowing them is also there somewhere.
Aida Noblia
Most of the five regions (three of them) have solved the problem of the participation of individual users: they participate and have voting rights. The remaining two are in the process of being solved: one of them has the right to participate and the subject of voting is analyzed.
Holly Raiche
The three issues identified by ITEMS centree on a theme of broader paricipation by End users and end user groups - which then addesses the perception of a small and unchaging leadership group. Aida has very useful comments. But also look to some of what is mentioned: fellowship programs, capacity building, maybe more webinars oncurrent policy issues, a mentorship program. Much of this is already underway.
Aida Noblia
Objective: to achieve greater participation of the individual users representing their interests especially in the participation in the development of policies and also in the external diffusion.
Background: ALs and Working groups are not an obstacle but the best mode of participation of individual users and representatives of their interests.
Analysis of solutions: Continue the efforts that are being made and increase them.(Fellowship programs, capacity building... as said Holly )
Proposed solution: Actions to be carried out: 1. training: is being carried out. 2. Relate all existing working groups, establish whether they are working or are inactive, possible causes. 3. Establish key performance indicators: participation metrics and stimulate participation. Important: analyze motivation.
The training is being done, it was observed that few people attend. In LACRALO the strategy was changed: the training is given in the monthly meeting. What you see is that one hour is too short. Proposed goal: extend the monthly meeting in half an hour more. Encouraging travel is a stimulus for participation. It is necessary to measure participation to control its variability: it is important to establish participation metrics.
Deliverables: increase the participation of individual users in a percentage of ...? % In X time (6 months%).
Key Performance Indicators: Increased number of participants in policy development groups. Higher quality comments and participation.
Vanda Scartezini
I believe this theme has been deeply discussed and we all agree to facilitate individuals to participate in ICANN is important and we shall continue to find ways to improve such participation, but the EMM has lots of holes not included into the recommendation on how to solve the problems the model brings: rapporteur, for instance, is one of these points. Other colleagues already mentioned other points.
Fellowship program has been a great model to bring new interested members and since NOT everybody wants to participate, those interested- we have many good examples - continue to follow ICANN afterward and became relevant members of our community.
cultural behavior and lack of good communication infrastructure are more relevant barriers, but not under our role.
implement individual participation in LACRALO, for instance, is on its way, but may not impact too much our community since we have been always open to accept interested individuals to join our ALSs and start to work if they want to. Happened with my ALS for instance, and with other as well. we need to make clear that not every end user will be interested in work for ICANN or even, to know about it.
the new ONBOARDING Community Program is working to facilitate the entrance and the identification by individuals where is the best place for them to contribute. Difficulty to understand ICANN as a whole is a quite relevant barrier for individuals joining first time ICANN.
In LACRALO we are building an "elders council" - the name will change - but the idea is to have a group where any new comer can access to get explained anything they have doubt about and facilitate its participation and contribution to our work.
Priority - for me this is one relevant priority - and the priority here is to implement measurable ways to show reality and progress: easy to see for instance how many members our ALSs have as a whole and how many of them really work for ICANN, but they have been aware what is ICANN, they have access to information, but they DO NOT want to spend their time working for ICANN!
So we need to have TWO CATEGORIES of users in our statistics: how many are working for ICANN and how many have been touched and get informed about ICANN. Statistics ( Alberto have done lists inside LACRALo how many outreaches we have done and how many persons we touched with ICANN information) - start formal statistics is the way to go forward from here.
Such statistics will be good deliverables to make us more accountable to our community
Suggestions from AIDA about other statistics are relevant to show our progress and to see if our effort to attract new members are working or not - if not, surveys shall be implemented to understand why.
Aida Noblia
I agree with Vanda. Not all users can participate in the same way and less as volunteers. Many important and complex policy issues (WHOIS and personal data legislation, IPV6, new TLDs, regional markets for TLDs and their behaviors, etc.) now come together. This requires reading long documents with a lot of specific information that is not easy To understand at times totally. This is in excess of the possibilities of most Internet users. The proposal of individual users instead of ALs (and mentors chosen by lottery system, although not referred to this recommendation), seems in relation to this point quite inadequate and counterproductive.