This issue has been resolved.
Roberto:
Dear all,
I wanted to make a little summary of where we are with the discussion on criteria for acceptance of Unaffiliated Individuals.
The first question that came up was whether we should keep the strict requirement that an individual not be at the same time a member of an ALS. The rationale for this, when the norm has been established in the early days of the RALOs, was that we did not want to give to an individual the opportunity of influencing the vote of her/his ALS and at the same time keep for him/her the right of vote as individual.
However, in none of the RALOs have the Unaffiliated Individuals an individual vote - at the most there is one single vote for the aggregate of all individuals. It seems therefore that the possibility of influencing an outcome is very slim, now that each RALO has dozens of ALSes. The question therefore arises on whether this requirement can be loosened.
Remembering similar discussions at the ALS Mobilization WP, I wonder whether we can require that an Unaffiliated Individual not be in an ALS in a leadership position. This could be a possible compromise, noting also that it will be virtually impossible to check whether an individual is a member of an ALS or not. We even had cases where an individual did not know that he/she was a member of an ALS. This “compromise” solution could also address the case in which on a specific topic a member of an ALS has a different opinion than the majority of the organization: this will give the possibility of hearing minority voices brought by people as Unaffiliated Individuals.
I would like to have all members and participants of this Working Party think about what would be the best solution, and express their opinion in the mailing list. We might launch a poll at a certain point in time, but for the time being I would like to hear the voices for or against one of the following options:
- to keep a strict rule (as is today) about incompatibility of being at the same time an Unaffiliated Individual and a member of an accredited ALS;
- to allow people being at the same Unaffiliated Individuals and members of an accredited ALS without limitation;
- to allow people being Unaffiliated Individuals only if they are not in a leadership position in an accredited ALS.
Of course, if you have other options beyond the three above please voice them out.
The second question that came out from the discussion was whether individual users can join as Unaffiliated Individuals only in the region where they have their residency or that they are citizen of, or whether they can join in a different region. In case the latter option is preferred, we should also decide whether an individual user can be an Unaffiliated Individual in one region only, or whether we allow multiple membership.
Also in this case we have multiple options, and I would like to hear the opinion of all WP members and participants on these alternatives (if you see other possibilities not listed please voice them out):
- an individual user can be an Unaffiliated Individual only in the region where she/he is resident or is a citizen of (this is the status quo in most of the RALOs, if I understand correctly)
- an individual user can choose to apply to be an Unaffiliated Individual in any region
- an individual user can be an Unaffiliated Individual in a region that is different from the region of citizenship or residence, but in this case he/she will have a special status (e.g. observer instead of full member) with limitations to be defined, related of the right of vote within the Unaffiliated Individual community of the region, or to the ability to have a leadership position in that community, or other (this is the case of EURALO, that has 60+ full members and 5 observers)
The additional question is whether an individual user can be an Unaffiliated Individual in more than one region. My reading of the current bylaws and other documents is that it is not formally forbidden, but that we do not have such a case. I am thinking of a person that is a citizen of a country in a region, and is a resident of a different region. We had in EURALO two cases of people who moved to North America, joined there as Unaffiliated Individuals, and resigned from Europe - but had they not resigned I am not sure how the case could have been dealt with according to the rules.
Please provide your comments on these points.
78 Comments
Alperen Eken
Seun:
Hello Roberto,
Thanks for your mail, how I will respond to the 2 questions will be dependent on a fundamental question of whether individual member will have a voting right going forward.
Regards
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
The main issue with Unaffiliated members is their capacity to vote. Unaffiliates votes are aggregated into one vote so I agree with Roberto that the possibility of influencing an outcome is very slim.
I also believe that Unaffiliated members can contribute as much as ALSs do. Also, I think that at-large will be more inclusive by doing this.
Based on these facts my recommendation is at follows:
[1] Allow people to be Unaffiliated Individuals and members of an accredited ALS without limitation.
[2] Allow individual users to apply to be an Unaffiliated Individual in as many regions as they want.
If the outcome of this discussion is to go with 1 & 2, I suggest to change the title of Unaffiliated members to Individual members. The reason is that the word Unaffiliated will not have any meaning going forward.
Alperen Eken
Bill
Dear all,
I think the basic question is: What exactly are we trying to accomplish here, by creating this group? Are we trying to give a voice to individuals who are not, for whatever reason, a member of an ALS? Or are we trying to give a home to unaffiliated individuals, in the hopes off attracting more of them from outside ICANN? Or something else.
When we have that clear, the answer to who should be members will be a lot clearer.
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
To Bill:
Both. Give a voice to people who are or are not members of an ALS and a home to unaffiliated people. In other words, add more "face-to-face" people to our ranks.
Alperen Eken
Bill:
To Eduardo,
Except if our goal is to give a voice to unaffiliated individuals, then ALS members would need to be, at most, non-voting members here. Whereas if we are just looking to give new unaffiliated individuals a home, then ALS membership is irrelevant.
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
Even if they vote, it will be an aggregate vote to become one vote. The possibility of influencing an outcome is very slim.
ALSs will still be relevant. One ALS is equal to one vote. One Unaffiliated individual is equal to a very very very small percent of a single vote.
Alperen Eken
Bill:
It seems to me that what we have here is (potentially) the equivalent of an ALS. That is, we might collectively get one vote. An individual here would have roughly the same weight as an individual in an ALS -- with about the same prospect of influencing the way that vote goes..
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
In fact, that is the way EURALO Unaffiliated members are set-up. Roberto manages that group.
Alperen Eken
JZ:
Let's be blunt. We are trying to get more folks to do the work of the At-Large to prevent volunteer burnout. However we end up describing it later, THAT is our real purpose: Recruiting.
Alperen Eken
Dr. T V Gopal:
MY CHOICE:
To keep a strict rule (as is today) about incompatibility of being at the same time an Unaffiliated Individual and a
member of an accredited ALS;
Most of us have been with professional societies. Most of these societies draw a clear distinction between
Individual and Institutional membership options.
In the present case, Institutional is approximated to ALS. Individual is the Unaffiliated Individual.
An Institutions is always larger than an individual.
Once an Individual is from ALS, he or she needs to be mostly with the ALS and we should ensure this
as well.
An ALS is a wholly independent organization from ICANN.
In UIM, we need to harness the discretion of the Individuals. This is the Unique nature of UIM.
Individual discretion may be far less damaging as well and holds more promise to make best practices
Institutionalized.
There are grey areas of mapping individuals to regions. This is a separate concern. There has been no
single answer in any professional society that had such geography based regions.
We can deal with this on a per case basis.
MY CHOICE::
To keep a strict rule (as is today) about incompatibility of being at the same time an Unaffiliated Individual and a
member of an accredited ALS;
Hope this helps.
Alperen Eken
Alan:
Jonathan's got it almost right. I would drop the "to prevent volunteer burnout". There are a number of reasons we want more people ACTIVELY involved and preventing burnout is just one of them.
But the bottom line is we want more workers and more people paying attention and contributing in a variety of ways. So unaffiliated members remove the requirement of joining an ALS just to contribute.
And ALSes exist for number of reasons, but the reason we did not scrap them as recommended by the At-Large Independent Reviewer was that each ALS is a source of potential contributors - their members.
Alperen Eken
David:
Hi All,
As I read through the different responses to Roberto's original email, I see a number of valid perspectives which are relevant to our work, but not yet tightly connected. This seems reasonable at this stage of the working party.
Alan's and Jonathan have clearly stated the At-Large organization's goal for the UIM-WP which is recruitment in order to get more people actively participating in the At-Large community. The formalization of UIM rules must achieve this result.
At the same time, I think it's unrealistic to expect anyone to volunteer without receiving something in return. I believe the other commenters in this thread have been implicitly talking about what new individual members are being offered ... a Voice and a Vote.
I would add an additional intrinsic value to a potential recruit which is the chance to "Make the Internet a better place". This generalized feeling may not be directly connected to any formalized criteria, but it might be worthwhile finding a place to express it somewhere.
Back to the Voice and Vote ...
Alan raises the point that elimination of ALS recommended by the At-Large Independent Review was rejected because each ALS is a potential source of contributors (their members). Unless that changes, then we end up with the current situation described by Eduardo, which is votes by individual members are aggregated and the aggregated individual member vote is equal to the same vote as an single ALS within each RALO. The result is I don't think we can do much to recruit new individual members by offering them effective voting power. The ALS-Mobilization effort offers voting power to ALSs, but we don't have that advantage in this group.
So, we are left with the need to recruit new individual members, by offering a Voice to Make the Internet a Better Place.
It would be a good idea to make sure the formalized rules we come up with support the recruitment effort, as well as, give valid reasons for individuals to join the organization. The success of our working party depends on our ability to create rules which attract individual members rather than having individuals stay as curious bystanders observing our community from the outside.
Cheers!
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
To David:
Need to make sure to change that you can be an Individual member even if you are a member of an ALS already.
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
Thanks Roberto,
I do agree with the majority of opinion here, that the ALS members whether they are officers in their ALS or not are allowed to be unaffiliated individual members in the hope they get engaged and contributors to ALAC work. Given their vote is an aggregate work.
The way is done so far in APRALO that unaffiliated individuals vote for their candidates to be the one who cast the vote on their behalf. The question here are we giving the representative of all individual members a leadership status in their RALO?
In general, the expectations that those decide to join as unaffiliated individual might outperform than their ALS representatives.
Hence I support the following
“to allow people being at the same Unaffiliated Individuals and members of an accredited ALS without limitation;”
I also support the second point regarding the
“an individual user can choose to apply to be an Unaffiliated Individual in any region” Given the fact that they are only allowed to vote for aggregate in ONE region.
Alperen Eken
David:
To Eduardo:
Yes, I agree with Nadira and others ...
“to allow people being at the same Unaffiliated Individuals and members of an accredited ALS without limitation;”
I believe this gives a greater voice to individual members who are also a member of an accredited ALS. A greater voice to this category of individual members supports the recruitment goal for the UIM-WP and the larger At-Large Community.
Cheers!
David
Alperen Eken
Maureen:
ALS members already have an opportunity to contribute as individuals without having to become separate individual members.
That was the point of the ALS mobilisation to get these individual voices heard, but being able to also return to their ALSes and communities to pass important messages on.
This is one of the results of the meeting workload survey, the results of which are coming out soon.
This is the breakdown of survey participants. The voice of individual ALS members is still strong.
Gopal Tadepalli
Maureen: This is very useful. Thank You.
I suppose, we need to segregate as RALO Specific ALS & RALO Specific Individuals.
Gopal T V
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
Thank you Maureen,
The problem is that not all ALSes do communicate with their members even if the RALO asks them to do so.
There will be always the bottleneck guardians in many of the ALSes.
Myself is a live example, if I didn’t make my way through to be as second representative to my ALS, I wouldn’t have been in the system now. That was before the mailing list made open to all. Now, I’m just an ALS member, witnessing the lack of information dissemination to the rest of my ALS members. However, I still try to share whatever relevant information to the members, that is the responsibility of the ALS representatives.
Alperen Eken
Maureen:
Your situation has been a tough one, Nadira, and there are a few others like you in our At-Large community who are unfortunate enough to not experience the same levels of collegiality that most of us enjoy in our ALSes. However we should not consider this a norm, nor should we encourage the breakdown of successful ALSes by encouraging the breaking away of members from their organisations. Something we need to be mindful of in our discussions.
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
Thank you Maureen for running the “meeting workload survey”. Congratulations on this effort
The results conveys a handy information to build on.
The survey doesn’t convey the response of ALS members but at-large/RALO leadership as we can see from the emails.
In the discussion of this tread- I cannot recall now who suggested that there is no need to certified an unaffiliated members and I tend to agree with them.
This approach what we discussed in the ALS Mobilizations WP, that ALSes encourages their member and those who develop an interest in the narrow scope of ICANN to join different communities and working groups. In this case, they can send a form to declare their interest and which ALS they belong to.
As per my case, it could be found in many of ALSes. I’m in good term with my current ALS representatives and do ping them when At-large need a the representative response.
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
To Maureen:
What I understand that is being said (and I agree with it) is that a member of an ALs can be also an Individual member at the same time without limitations. That alone provides a sense of belonging to the region.
Alperen Eken
Natalia:
Dear Roberto and colleagues,
thank you!
Until Maureen's message, I could have said that I supported the option "To allow members of the ALS to be individual members of the RALO too" (sometimes in order to improve the situations described by Nadira and to compensate for the INactivity of the ALS and to bring the voice of the region).
However, we can thus disrupt the organizational structure of each RALO, the relevance of finding/being structures important for us, and we make less sense for the work to activate ALSes.
Therefore, I can say - by supporting the option "to keep a strict rule (as is today) about incompatibility of being at the same time an Unaffiliated Individual and a member of an accredited ALS" but recommend again to expand without restrictions the list of ALS representatives who want to actively participate in the work of RALO and improving transparency and access to information within the ALS.
And I guess in the rare cases when the member of ALS has a serious reason to become Individual member of the RALO, to consider such applications individually and solve the problem "why" together with the ALS and this member.
Geography:
For the purposes that Alan and Jonathan and David are talking about, and to support the very essence of regional division of participants and representation of the region and its real challenges, I would support the option:
an individual user can be an unaffiliated person only in the region where he / she lives or is a citizen, or choose a" non-native " region and RALO as an observer. There is the model Of the Association of individuals in Euralo. Works well.
Alperen Eken
Narine:
Dear all,
This discussion touches many interesting points related to global governance, it is not surprise that diverse opinions are expressed.
The approach which I find important is that new proposals, or revisions should be aimed at improving the work of the community, raising the efficiency of the established organisational structure and using the existing potential of human resources.
Therefore I support part of this paragraph from Roberto's proposal:
-an individual user can be an Unaffiliated Individual in a region that is different from the region of citizenship or residence.
At the same time, I advocate for giving observers the right of vote within the Unaffiliated Individual community of that region and the ability to have a leadership position in that community.
As Natalia mentioned, currently there are 5 observers within Euralo Individuals.
Best wishes to all,
Alperen Eken
AK:
Hi,
I do agree with most of the Eduardo's Suggested at the beginning of this thread. I also agree that the aim is to have something that would allow for more volunteers in the community and I very much agree with Nadira. However, I do think the current problem is not attracting more volunteers but keeping the few volunteers that are showing up.
In relation to the scope of its group, I would say its a good idea to consolidate the vote of individual members into one vote as currently been done by EURALO but what I think is critical is what would happen when you have a sizable number of individual members say 100 or 200 who are active. Would their vote still be consolidated into 1?,
Alperen Eken
Dr. T V Gopal:
Dear All,
I have been reading several posts on this subject. Very interesting opinions have been nicley
expressed.
Types of groups that apply / have expressed interest to be an ICANN ALS include:
As hinted in the trace of this mail, this is roughly the same as Institutional Membership to a
typical professional society. The Institution names "N" number of professionals [based on the
membership dues as per the rules of the professional society] who can represent
it in the professional society.
Others in the Institution can become Individual Members on their own right and voluntary spirit.
If this is what is being driven home it is fine.
I remember seeing similar context in a typical ALS application. Some professionals are named. Those not named explicitly
by ALS to represent on ICANN but belong to ALS are Individual members.
We can check the semantics.
My experience with the Computer Society of India [CSI] [established in 1965] dates back to 1988. I made
the attached presentation soon after being elected to the office of the CSI Division II [Software] and it was
a very productive outcome. However, the division has a technology focus.
Your thoughts...
Sincerely,
Gopal Tadepalli
For the records:
I am sure Dr. Satish Babu, Chair ,APRALO would remember our efforts in making the Computer Society of India [CSI] an ALS during 2012. I was serving as Chairman, CSI Division II [Software]. Organizing the Alan Turing Year [2012] and Norbert Wiener India events through this Division of CSI got some help through this association with ICANN.
I am sorry, the attachment with my earlier post is not found in the migration to the Wiki. It was on the value of "Volunteering".
Alperen Eken Many thanks for diligently copying the mails on the UIM mailing list to the Wiki. Please look into the missing attachment and do the neeful.
Gopal T V
Alperen Eken
Roberto:
Dear all,
Following up the discussion, I am under the impression that we do not have consensus on neither questions, although it seems to me that there is a majority for allowing ALS members to join also as Unaffiliated Individuals and to allow Unaffiliated Individuals to join in a region different from their citizenship/residence.
For both questions there are also more complicated sub-questions, like whether the right to vote is affected, whether joining in multiple regions will be allowed, and so on.
Since not every member of this mailing list has spoken, I would propose to ask Staff to launch one or more Doodle polls with the alternatives, encouraging also participants to the poll to indicate in the comment space in one short sentence - no long speeches, please - why they prefer this option. Staff can then summarise the results in a table, including the comment, that we can post in our working space for transparency.
So, let’s dedicate part of the next teleconference to a short discussion on this topic, and within a day or two after the call I can formulate the poll questions and staff can launch it. We can give a week or so for providing the choices.
I will also reply individually to the questions raised in this thread by a couple of you.
On a different topic, for the rest of the call - intended to be the main topic - I will send a message later today, so that Staff can prepare the agenda.
Cheers,
Alperen Eken
Seun: (In line)
To Eduardo
SO: If the above is/was the goal of this working group then there may be no need for an ALS anymore.
Alperen Eken
Matthias:
+1 to Roberto
I agree with Abdulkarim and in my humble opinion the procedure regarding the voting within EURALO is an appropriate one, which is balanced and makes sense.
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
To Seun:
ALSs will be the primary entity always. One ALS = 1 vote. This is just another option for people to feel free to participate either through their own ALS or as Individual. One Individual = 1/total number of individuals.
Alperen Eken
Seun:
To Eduardo:
Working out an appropriately weighted vote to individual members is no issue for me, but what I understood from your previous mail was that one who is already a member of ALS can also be an individual member thereby resulting to a double deep
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
Regarding the individual vote = 1/total number of individuals, might be an issue a per Abdulkarim’s comment.
I would like to suggest and if number of individuals exceeds 150 members to split the number by 2. Which means that every 75 members could have one vote.
Alperen Eken
Seun:
Hello colleagues,
At a global level like this I suggest that we be as generic as possible by setting maximum weight to both ALS and Individual members.
So assuming the total votes of ALS and Individual members is 100% or 1, then one could say maximum total weight for ALS votes should not exceed 70% or .7 while that of individual members not exceed 30% or .3. Each RALO can then work out how they will arrive at that figure since RALO environment and scenarios are different and diverse.
Regards
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
To Seun:
That will happen if the ALS rep to the region is also an Individual member which does not make sense (ie. should not be allowed). Now if you are part of an ALS and also an Individual member your vote counts as a very small fraction of one vote in both your ALS and as an Individual member, and that is if the ALS checks with its membership on every vote which we know it does not happen in some cases if not in the majority of the cases.
Alperen Eken
Roberto:
Dear all,
We had an interesting discussion on the criteria for individual membership, with quite a few different opinions. The status quo is generally that it is not possible to be at the same time a member of an ALS and an unaffiliated individual and that it is not possible to be an unaffiliated individual in a region where you are neither resident nor a citizen of - with the exception of EURALO, that accept not voting observers from outside the region.
My sense of the room is that there is a majority willing to remove, at least in part and for special situations, the limitation as stated above. However, I have checked the logs of the teleconferences and the mailing list archives, and not everybody has expressed an opinion - not even all the “official” members.
I need therefore to have a tool to get in a more objective way the sense of the room. As anticipated during the discussions in the last weeks, I will ask staff to launch a Doodle poll to give the opportunity to everybody to have their opinions recorded.
The matter is quite complicated, and to try to put all the options in a single poll will inevitably create issues - so I am planning to go step by step in order to narrow down the options that have more support.
I would like to start with an overarching question, that is whether people believe that unaffiliated individuals should not be allowed at all to be members of an ALS, neither in a leading role nor in a simple membership role. The rationale for asking this simple question is that if the majority is in favour for this restriction, there is no point in continuing discussions and try to figure out how to weaken this restriction. If, on the other hand, people believe that some relaxation can be envisaged, we will continue the discussion and try to figure out whether we can recommend different guidelines - notwithstanding the fact that a final decision will be taken by ALAC and that the decision might allow different Regions to apply different rules, provided that they are not contradicting the Bylaws and other founding documents.
We will briefly discuss this course of action during the next call, and unless there is opposition I will ask Staff to launch the Doodle in the following days.
Cheers,
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
Thank you Roberto for wrapping this up.
I do support of developing of a questionnaire to solicit the current perspective of the group members after the discussions took place in the emails and the zoom meetings.
Alperen Eken
AK:
Dear Roberto,
Thank you for taking this critical step and making sure you understand exact need of the community.
Personally, I think membership of an ALS can sometimes be quite complicated and undefined. For example, an ALS can appoint someone as a board member. Does that mean the person is part of the ALS. Another Scenario is what Judith mentioned a while ago; some people feel they should not talk if they don't have the permission of the ALS. Yes, we usually don't speak on behalf of an ALS like it is done in places like the ITU when you don't even need to mention your name but your country or the sector member you represent.
More importantly, for most ALSs, it's only one or two persons that are active. Therefore, I see no reason why one cannot be part of an ALS and also be an individual member provided the person is not holding a key or influencual position in the ALS. This is only required if there is a need to vote. But the problem might be how to determine influencual or key position. But this is not a problem provided individual members don't cast a direct vote.
Yes let us have the questionnaire. It's a brilliant idea.
Thank you for doing a wonderful job.
Alperen Eken
Seun: (In line)
SO: We can't control nor can we effectively monitor this so I think a yes or no response to the question above may be difficult to implement. What may be possible question is whether an existing ALS member can be accepted as an individual members (or unaffiliated as it's used in other RALO)
Regards
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
Following Seun email I wanted to bring here an idea about ALS members that I raised and didn’t discuss at the ALS Mobilizations WP.
One of the expected requirements of ALS is to find the channel to communicate with its members to encourage them to get involved in ICANN working groups and AT-large activities.
Since there is
ALS representatives
ALS main representative voting member
These two in their engagement with At-Large / RALO meetings they will represent the views of their ALS unless they indicate otherwise.
So the third category is the ALS members who will join ICANN workings groups and those usually will contribute with their personal views.
For the later category all what we need to do is to introduce a category for them such as ALS individual members.
In this case there will be a difference between Unaffiliated individual members and ALS individual members. The unaffiliated individual members will be grouped for one vote by their unaffiliated individuals representative.
The logistics of this process is simple and doable.
I hope the WP discuss this proposal.
Best wishes
Nadira
Alperen Eken
Seun: (In line)
SO: The ALS member are already allowed to participate in any working group and infact most (if not all) working groups are open to anyone to participate. So unless there is some special rights and privileges that we want to assign to that category (which I don't think should be the case), what you've stated is exactly the current norm.
SO: Usually the 2 questions between ALSes and Unaffiliated (which some RALO refer to as individual) members both of which are all about rights/power related:
1. Who should have voting rights
2. Who should have the right to nominate and/or be nominated.
If we can answer those 2 high-level questions then details may be easier draft
Alperen Eken
Nadira: (In line)
NA: It could be the norm in few ALSes, because not ALS representative pass information about ICANN to their members.
The privileges here that members of the ALS doesn’t have to wait to the mercy of the ALS representative to receive updates. They can directly chose to access directly their area of interest in ICANN.
NA: If the classifications is introduced the staff will keep track of the type of membership by each individual, the voting will continue as is in some of the RALOS, only unaffiliated members will consolidate their votes through the one person to cast one vote in the behalf of all unaffiliated individual members. While the proposed ALS individual members has nothing to do, because their opinion is casted through their ALS voting member representative.
NA: The current norm any one with the right qualifications can nominated/ or be nominated to the matching role. Myself is a living example, I’m an ALS individual member nominated myself to the NomCom and was nominated to APRALO vice chair.
Alperen Eken
Maureen:
Interesting discussion.
I think Nadira that your situation exemplifies the benefits of ALS membership, for example:
1) you can act independently once you are in At-Large, as an individual member, regardless of your affiliation to a particular group (your ALS). You can bring your own opinions and value judgements which may not necessarily be those of your ALS.
2) you already have a network with which you can liaise in order to help you to spread the word about ICANN and its important policies to your own local and regional networks and communities
3) you don't need to worry about the administrative side of your ALS - that can be left to other people within your group who may or may not also be involved in what we do in At-Large or somewhere else in ICANN. Voting is rare.
I think that it is important for everyone to understand that ALS members act and participate in At-Large activities as individuals just as UI members can and do . For this reason, I am unsure why there should be a focus on ALS members transferring to UI membership - unless you don't want to remain part of your ALS which would not normally be the case we would hope, because item#2 above details the very important role that ALSes have in At-Large, and as a member of that ALS you play an important part in distributing our messages within their already established networks..
M
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
+1 Maureen, the only thing we need to do is give a name to the ALS members to identify them from the ALS representative. My suggestion was ALS individual members and staff can keep track of those members.
By the way, one of the good metric to evaluate the ALSes could be how many of their members become an individual members.
Alperen Eken
Seun: (In line)
SO: But isn't the above the case at the moment? as an ALS member, I don't need to wait for ALS representative to reach out to me before I get information or before I participate in ICANN
SO: I get the point now, you are basically saying we should classify what currently happens in practice; by giving members of an ALS who are not the ALS contact a title? but......
SO: ..... without the above, do you think it will in any way improve their participation?
SO: This is not applicable for all RALOs
it seem to me that some of the strategies being proposed are more of how to improve individual members participation yet it is not clear what has hindered their participation as I think whatever hindered individual membership/unaffiliated membership participation will also be applicable to ALS members.
Ultimately our aim as a working group may need to be clarified.
Alperen Eken
Alan:
I would suggest that on the issue of an individual member also being a member of an accredited ALS, I suggest that we ask two separate questions to ensure clarity:
1. Is it acceptable for an ALS member who IS NOT a formal representative of the ALS to At-Large and IS NOT a member of the ALS Leadership to also be an Individual RALO member?
2. If 1. it is acceptable for an ALS member who IS a formal representative of the ALS to At-Large, or IS a member of the ALS Leadership to also be an Individual RALO member?
If the answer to either is NO, we should be prepared to identify the harm that is being prevented.
On the issue of a RALO having Individual Members from outside the region, as previously noted, the definition of an Individual Member in the ICANN Bylaws requires them to be a resident or citizen of the region. EURALO has the concept of "observers" which is fine. I cannot speak to other RALOs, but NARALO has never had a formal concept of observer, but we have ALWAYS welcomed anyone, regardless of region, to participate in our activities and there is a long history of such involvement.
Alperen Eken
David:
I agree with Alan's suggestion to use the two questions for clarity.
We may also wish to consider whether the answers to these two questions advance the role of At-Large as defined in the following sentence (ICANN Bylaws Section 12.2.d.i) ..."The role of the ALAC shall be to consider and provide advice on the activities of ICANN, insofar as they relate to the interests of individual Internet users."
Alperen Eken
Natalia:
Dear all,
I agree with Seun (I don't see how existing rules prevent members from being included in the At-Large work, even if the information is not passing inside the ALS (as we would ideally see), there are open doors to join which Seun said about. (even with their own opinion that differs from that of the ALS representatives).
I support Alan's suggestion. Can we conduct a survey on these two questions?
I would have said - no, no.
The ability to be an observer from another region - Yes.
Let me go a little bit further:
We are now seeing that the activity and engagement of new members are going down.
And there are many reasons. My guess is that 10% of At-Large members only have a clear commitment (I hope I'm wrong), while the rest need some good reasons to show themselves and participate in the development of ICANN policies.
We can assume which ones (to be in the public field and in the community, for example). But I offer to make a survey - we now have a week between meetings to get the results and work with them in our UIM W-party.
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
There should be one simple question since the region question is already answered in the ICANN by-laws (as pointed by Alan).
[1] Shall RALOs accept Individual Members regardless of its ALS affiliation?
Alperen Eken
Judith:
To Alan,
Thanks for your clarification. I am fine (yes) with 1 but not fine with 2 (No)
see you all soon
Alperen Eken
Dr. T V Gopal:
Hello Alan,
My response would be yes to 1 and for 2 it's a "Yes" assuming the individual member will have no decision making power (voting), but it will be a "No" assuming the individual member has decision making power (voting)
Alperen Eken
Justine:
Even after analysing the points raised and discussions that have transpired thus far, including listening to the 5th Oct call recording, I have to confess I continue to fail to see a mutual exclusivity between ALS membership and Unaffiliated Individual membership as a problem requiring fixing at all.
With the sole exception of voting - and even then voting within At-Large is typically ONLY associated with RALO elections - there is no barrier to participation in At-Large (even if you are neither an ALS Member nor an UI-member) and unless I have understood incorrectly, there is no barrier to participation in RALOs save for what's in the ICANN Bylaws on geographic designation based on residency.
As mentioned by some on the call, everyone who participates in PDPs, CCWGs etc are contributing inputs on their own behalf; in the case of "At-Large" folks, that's the case even if you associate yourself with the At-Large, with the only exception being ALAC-appointed representatives and/or Liaisons/liaisons who are required to present the views or positions of the ALAC.
Everyone who participates in the At-Large are also contributing inputs on their own behalf unless they state otherwise. Therefore I don't see why anyone who is already an ALS member requires an (additional) "Individual Member" status to contribute inputs. If an ALS has rules which prevent its non-leadership members (or those who aren't the ALS' formal representatives) from contributing their own input, and if that's something the ALS' members disagree with then it's up to those ALS members to change the rules for that ALS. It isn't up to us as At-Large to intercede in the affairs of an ALS.
So unless we are proposing to strictly limit participation in At-Large to just accredited ALS members and accredited Unaffiliated Individual Members (which I don't believe we are) then what's wrong with maintaining mutual exclusivity between ALS membership and Unaffiliated Individual membership?
I fear attempts to complicate the present straightforward demarcation will blur the lines so much so that we could find ourselves actually proving the recommendation by the At-Large Review consultant to do away with ALS to be meritorious when that was explicitly rejected by the ALAC through the At-Large Review Implementation Plan.
Perhaps the only question I find useful is the one of whether someone should be allowed to join another RALO outside their region of residency, and if yes, how can we achieve that.
Alperen Eken
Dr. T V Gopal:
Dear All,
Thank you for another nice interaction on 05 October 2020. I could access the chat on the confluence.
Is there a quick manual on basic use of confluence for accessing chats and recordings and posting comments ?
/* I am sorry for this long mail */
At the outset, I wish to reiterate that only time is the constraint for the active participation in
many professional activities that have always been happening. Therefore, within the set of constraints
of available time, how does one maximize the contribution [voluntary] to the activity ?
This is the primary motivation for groups / teams. ALS is a structured and reasonably regulated team formation.
It is not the problem we are attempting to fix. . It is a policy we are working on to enable us to specify a wider canvas of furthering the progress of
"an Individual" irrespective of the affiliation if any.
Individuals for UIM are one who is keen on pooling back wider perspectives into the context of work. With a focus on "Individual", I see three major types.
***Individual from the community***. [Absolutely No Affiliation Whatsoever]
There are a significant number of them who are doing things for doing sake. These Individuals are almost completely defined by the groups
they come from. The language, religion, all kinds of values and other customs define an Individual based on the community they come from.
These things play a much bigger part than we normally think in defining who an individual is. They are influencers of a local context.
***Individuals from an ALS *** [Outside of those named in the Application to ICANN]
The distinction is to assure "Separation of Concerns" only. ALS is more regulated and structured and has
more bandwidth for furthering certain types of activities of ICANN. To my mind most ALSs have their own
Agendas and they also do some programmes - typically awareness programs. It is like a non-formal education
model where ICANN authorizes the ALSs on these programmes. Individuals as segregated do contribute
further and pool in their experiences.
***Individuals Working in a Different Organization in a Country / Region ***
I think that this type of individuals need to be mobilized ASAP in greater numbers. This category is a direct
interface to the organization and many things are easily understood as "Tailorability" of ICANN Governance
procedures and practices for the organization. The framework of operation is more robust and has very high
longevity than ALS or the community.
An Indian Author Minoo Masani wrote a collection of essays titled "“Our Growing Human Family”. One of the
essays is titled "No Man is an Island". Likewise, No machine is an Island. It helps to have one individual
ICANN representative form an organization.
In general, the goal is "separation of concerns". Conflict is a rarity.
UIM can facilitate a wider degree of possibilities both within an organization and / or ALS and can enable the individual to reason it out
and pool it all into ALS and / or Organization. UIM builds Individuals who contribute to the Organization and / or ALS where they belong.
It is usually the individual who thinks, reason and acts. Individual knows how to satisfy the wants. Any group of individuals always have
the potential both for order and chaos. Structuring helps in getting focus on the goals. IMHO, UIM is a structure that brings in broader
perspectives from across the globe that can benefit an ALS or an Organization.
I am not mooting changes in the existing rules and regulations. I am attempting a vision and mission for UIM.
Your thoughts...
Sincerely,
Alperen Eken
Sarah:
agree with Justine. In the case of AFRALO (and I think this is the case with most RALOs), individual members can participate in all activities, apart from voting. There is indeed no barrier to participation.
I also don't know if I am misunderstanding the options mentioned by Alan. I get the feeling that both options are trying to suggest individualmembership, unless one is a formal ALS representative. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Regards,
Alperen Eken
JZ:
I too am inclined to agree with Justine although I’m not sure I see the harm in being a member SIX ways, given the infrequency of voting. I apologize for being crass but I continue to believe that this is really a question of travel support (ie money) and that dancing around that fact is getting us nowhere. By designing this byzantine structure, of which we currently make insufficient use, in my opinion, we have invited THREE layers of politics into the system, including one over which we have no control: the ALS. We’ve structured travel support for meetings and for ATLAS around ALSs. So if an individual is not in favor within their ALS, they are not likely to the be the ALS representative to their RALO and ICANN. No amount of work would necessarily change that so someone is incented to have their own membership within the RALO. As a result, we have a situation where the “official” rep of an ALS is chosen by favor potentially, not merit, and an individual is left adrift in our support system. It seems to me the solution is to allow membership in both in an ALS and a RALO and, when it comes time to vote, you only count that person’s vote once. Done.
Alperen Eken
Natalia:
I support Justine
Jonathan,
maybe the question is only in the possible number (unlimited) of representatives of ALS and rotation of the name of chief representative?
Alperen Eken
Maureen:
Why does an ALS have to have a chief representative? We have found that when that is the case, when someone has been appointed to represent their ALS, that person rarely does anything. It is usually those others who come into At-Large of their own free will, who join in and actually do the work. As Alan said, the purpose of the ALS mobilisation was to encourage ALSes to enable anyone who wanted to participate to just join in. We don't need their whole membership to join us, just those who are prepared to find out about how we work and become active. And that At-Large welcomes them as individuals (ALS or unaffiliated to any ALS), in their own capacity, bringing the voice of the ordinary Internet user from all the five regions to the table.
Alperen Eken
Alan:
Jonathan, there was a time when being the official ALS rep got you a travel slot to some meetings, but based on recent experience, that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Alperen Eken
Eduardo:
I have one example why we should allow affiliate members to become Individual members. Javier Rúa had to quit his membership in our ALS - ISOC Puerto Rico - in order to be able to be selected to ALAC by the NomCom.
Alperen Eken
Judith:
To Eduardo:
Naralo rules require that a person cannot be an unaffiliated individual and also a member of an ALS.
Alperen Eken
Maureen:
But what does a regional ruling have to do with a NomCom appointment to the ALAC. The criteria for an appointee to the ALAC that the ALAC sends to the NomCom do not include that anyone appointed to the ALAC cannot already be a member of an ALS.
Alperen Eken
Maureen:
Does NARALO have a rule that says two people from the same ALS cannot be a member of NARALO? Is that not in conflict with our ALS mobilisation task which was to get as many ALS members (even from one ALS which may not happen often) participating in At-Large.
ISOC PR would have had two members who, as chance would have it, both had a leadership role within NARALO. What was wrong with that?
To have both been on the ALAC would have been a conflict.
Alperen Eken
Judith:
HI Maureen,
No NARALO does not have a rule that says two people from the same ALS cannot be a member. In fact Alfredo is in the same ALS and is active. It is the later that 2 people from the same ALS cannot be on ALAC.
I think the issue was that he was also an Individual member and an ALS member and that is against NARALO rules. You have to choose one or another. Our current definition unless it changes is that individual members are unaffiliated. If you are a member of an ALS you are affiliated. If this changes than that is allowed, but I think people should decide one or the other.
I think informally, people would have a problem with leadership positions being held by people within the same ALS, but not against any rules. It just looks bad to have everyone from the same ALS. Not illegal to have this
Alperen Eken
Alan:
This thread is all very interesting but completely unrelated to the message that Eduardo posted that started this.
He said: "I have one example why we should allow affiliate members to become Individual members. Javier Rúa had to quit his membership in our ALS - ISOC Puerto Rico - in order to be able to be selected to ALAC by the NomCom."
He did not say that Javier could not be a member of ISOC-PR. He said that Javier resigned from ISOC-PR so he could become an unaffiliated member.
I would really like to hear why that was the case.
To be clear:
- There is no rule that an ALAC Member must be an ALS member or that they must be an unaffiliated member or a RALO. Most NomCom appointees are neither.
- There is no rule that two ALAC Members cannot come from the same ALS. Some RALOs (but not NA) have a rule that two ALAC Members cannot come from the same country/territory.
- I was ALAC Chair when Javier came on board and have no recollection of the issue coming up.
- Javier only became an unaffiliated member AFTER he was on the ALAC. That was at my suggestion. If he was an ISOC-PR member prior to that, I was not even aware of it! In fact, he did ask whether it was better to become an unaffiliated member or to join and ALS, and I said it was his choice.
I suspect that this is all just a misunderstanding.
Alperen Eken
Judith:
HI All
Exactly, But if that was the case and Javier had been an a member of ISOC Puerto Rico and an Individual member of NARALO that is against NARALO Rules. He would have to choose which he wanted to be a member of.
While I can see if he choose ISOC PR and dropped his individual membership than the only thing that would come out was that one ALS appointed 2 people to the same ALS. It is not a proscribed rule but an un official rule. Perhaps that is why he dropped out of ISOC PR and instead chose to be an Individual Member
Best,
Alperen Eken
Seun:
Hello Eduardo,
By Affiliate members, I assume you meant members of an ALS. No offense intended and am happy that my friend Javier made it back to ALAC but I don't think that is a good example. I am of the opinion that nomcom has failed in her mandate on that front.
The essence of having 2 slots from RALOs and 1 from nomcom continue to be diminished by nomcom and this is not just for ALAC seat, it applies to most of the seats that nomcom fills.
Regards
Alperen Eken
Roberto:
I thought that Javier had been selected for the ccNSO, not ALAC.
See https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2020-10-02-en [icann.org]
Greg Shatan is the ALAC appointee for NA.
Alperen Eken
Nadira:
@Roberto
Javier was appointed by the NomCom 2018 to the ALAC
https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2018-08-02-en [icann.org]
I was among the NomCom 2018 members and according to the discussions of this email thread it seems it was Javier choice to apply as Unaffiliated individualmember because there is no rule that prohibits a community member in the organizational structure from applying to a leadership position.
Usually if it happens that the candidate is on the same organization and a NomCom member, the latter will recuse themselves from voting.
Alperen Eken
Seun:
Hi Roberto,
He was ALAC in the past but yes you are right, I should have said "back to ICANN community" and not back to ALAC (I guess my subconscious still felt he was still ALAC :-) )
Nevertheless the substance of the discussion is the most important. I can clearly understand the importance of having Unaffiliated individual member, but am yet to understand the motivation for for affiliated individual membership.
Regards
Alperen Eken
Roberto:
Dear Seun,
Indeed, this is the purpose of our WP.
I interpret our mandate as being tasked to provide an answer to many questions, some already asked and some still unspoken, that include, for instance:
There is a lot of ground that we need to cover - not necessarily all within the scope of this WP, but I am sure that there will be more questions and that new activities will be spawned from here.
Cheers,
Roberto Gaetano
Hi all.
I was thinking of reviewing the criteria for Unaffiliated Individual membership.
There is an open issue on this topic, but looking at the discussion so far there are many different points that have been discussed, and I would like to refocus on the plain criteria that we want to have for being accredited as individual members.
As we can see from the summary table provided by staff, available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kmOn-v1v-5vxMGbEhIDCGWawDv134U7HTSIV57uxQjQ/edit#gid=0, these criteria differ from a region to another. I would like to see if we have a common set of criteria, that will therefore be the same across the regions, leaving in any case the flexibility for additional rules to apply locally.
What I can see from the list mentioned above is that - besides the simultaneous participation as individual and ALS member, that is discussed in a separate topic - we have the following points that one or more RALOs consider:
May I also note that not all RALOs consider nationality, but only residency. According to my understanding of the ICANN principles in terms of qualification for belonging to a region - for instance for eligibility for leadership positions - people can choose either the region of residency or the region of citizenship. I would encourage staff to check with General Counsel whether this should be a general rule within the ICANN ecosystem, and therefore be applied also for individuals in At-Large.
We also have other differences, like:
I would like to check the opinion of this WP on the points above.
I have posted this text in the Wiki, under the "Criteria for Unaffiliated Individual membership” issue. Please post your opinions over there so that we have an easy way to have a sense of the room and not take the risk of missing some contributions.
Cheers,
Roberto
David Mackey
A followup thought from the call on December 7th ...
We have two goals:
1) Solicit engagement from non-ICANN communities to join as a RALO Individual Member
2) Mobilize existing RALO Individual Members to become more active
We don't want to create RALO Individual Membership criteria which creates a conflict between these two goals.
Suggestion -->
1) Criteria to judge minimal level of engagement as a RALO Individual Member vs. being a non-member:
a) Submit personal SOI
b) Reaffirm desire to be a RALO Individual Member every two years
2) Motivate RALO Individual Member by building a simple recognition/reputation system attached to an ICANN profile which acknowledges the following items:
a) "Membership since ..."
b) History of Working Party or Other At-Large Group participation
c) History of At-Large Leadership participation
d) History of ICANN (non-At-Large) participation
Roberto Gaetano
I believe that these are good ideas, but I wonder whether we do not go beyond the scope of this WP. My understanding is that we are developing recommendations for the establishment of basic rules and processes for RALO Individual Members, and we have tight deadlines for this.
A recognition and/or reputation system should probably be developed not only for RALO Individual Members but for all contributors to At-Large, in order not to provide recognition only to a part of the volunteers. We could, for instance, have it for all folks who have compiled an SoI.
Roberto Gaetano
Dear all,
As a follow-up of our call of yesterday - 7 December - and David Mackey’s post on the wiki, I would like to launch a poll to check which criteria are important for accepting an individual as RALO Individual Member.
Looking at the criteria used so far by different RALOs - see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kmOn-v1v-5vxMGbEhIDCGWawDv134U7HTSIV57uxQjQ/edit#gid=0 - and what has come up from the discussion I have identified the following points:
I would like to launch a poll to check which of these criteria are considered important.
As discussed during the call, I would like to check whether there are any other criteria that we might consider, so please indicate by Wednesday, 9 December, 23:59 UTC whether you believe that we should include any other item in the poll.
This email is being copied to the Wiki.
Best regards
Roberto
Roberto Gaetano
Dear Alan,
thanks for the comment.
One of the problems that I have found carrying on this last is the extreme variety that we have across regions. This is a great richness, no doubt, but it makes it extremely difficult to find one sentence that covers all the cases.
What I really mean is that the candidate RALO Individual Members have to declare acceptance of all the RALO rules - taking into account the fact that they might vary substantially.
Would this formulation solve the problem - although it will maintain uncertainty about what exact documents we are talking about.
Point taken about your other comment, about affirmation of interest.
Cheers,
Roberto
Roberto Gaetano
Dear all,
I see your point, and I fully agree that to have reliable “introducers” would greatly help the due diligence and generally the acceptance procedure.
However, I would be hesitant in imposing this as a requirement. Let me remind you that this was the question, what conditions *must* all the applicants fulfil in order to be accepted.
So, my personal opinion is to leave this as an optional item in the application form - but I would like to hear what the others say.
I will copy this email in the Wiki under “Criteria for Unaffiliated Individual membership”.
Best regards,
Roberto
Roberto Gaetano
Dear all,
I am following up from my previous message - see above.
I have received only agreement to my proposal of using as compulsory criteria for membership only the ones that were included in the poll.
This will be the second point of discussion at the next teleconference, I assume that it will be a short discussion.
Linked to this is the issue about the RALO Individual Member Application Process, where we have to incorporate these criteria in a draft procedure. I will send a separate message on this topic.
Cheers,
Roberto
Gopal Tadepalli
Usage of Accept or Agree:
When one wants to communicate that someone expresses their willingness to do something: agree is the best choice.
When one wants to communicate that someone recognizes that something is true, fair, or right: accept is the best choice.
I suggest "agree" that has a tacit concurrence that what is agreed is not all true, fair or right.
Gopal T V
Roberto Gaetano
I believe that we have reached consensus on this issue and we can consider it resolved.
However, this would not prevent you to add comments to the draft report about it.