Terminology

Let me start by mentioning my email from the 21. October:

Hi all
In the latest teleconference - but also earlier - some discussion came up about terminology.
We are referring to people that are joining RALOs not as members of ALSes but in their individual capacity. Some have used the term “Unaffiliated Individuals”, meaning that they are not “affiliated” via a certified ALS, others have used the term “Individual Users”, not making assumptions about any “affiliation”.
The problem that I personally have with the mention “Unaffiliated Individuals” is that if we have an acceptance procedure for individuals, at successful completion of which the individuals will be part of a RALO in their individual capacity, the result is some sort of recognition - or “affiliation”. However, I can fully acknowledge the fact that not being a native English speaker might lead me to conclusions that are not linguistically correct. I would however call the attention of everybody that non-native-English speakers are, if not even a majority, at least a substantial part of the internet users.
This said, now we have an additional problem, i.e. that we might accept individual users in their own capacity even if they are also members of an ALS, and that would make the term “unaffiliated” meaningless - or at least hard to comprehend.
My personal opinion is therefore that “Unaffiliated Individual” is an incorrect - or at least conducive to mistakes - expression. However, since the name of the WP has been now established, and that I have no intention to go through the bureaucracy to change this name, can we agree that we will for the time being continue to use the “UI” form, even understanding that this might be incorrect?
Otherwise, do I have any other proposal?
Thanks,
Roberto

Let me try to summarise the answers so far.

Eduardo Diaz: Define UI as Upcoming Individuals instead of Unaffiliated Individuals.

Seun Ojedeji: I suggest we call member membership that is not ALS  "individual members" we can then introduce a field on their SOI that then indicates if they are "ALS individual member" or an "unaffiliated individual member".

Nadira Alaraji suggests to connect the terminology with the voting rights

So, if I understand correctly, we have 4 alternatives so far, that are:

1. keep Unaffiliated Individuals
2. use Individual Users
3. use Upcoming Individuals
4. use Individual Members

Are there other options?

Once we have all options I will ask staff to launch a straw poll to check what is most popular. At the same time, we must check whether any of the above names are in conflict with Bylaws - and if so identify what must be changed and if this change is not creating further problems.

Cheers,

Roberto

I would agree with Seun and others on using the term" Individual members", also the idea of having a field in the SOI which indicates the status of affiliation is a good suggestion as statements of interests can always be updated as matters change." As  Raberto mentions, if the individual member is also affiliated with an ALS the term "unaffiliated" becomes not reflecting the true representation of the member.     

Agree- Individual Member is the best term to use.

This is a summary of the discussion by email so far, please add or correct if needed.

Unaffiliated Individuals

This will work only if we exclude the possibility of having members of an ALS be also members of a RALO in their own capacity, which does not seem to be the opinion of the majority

Individual Users

This is considered a bylaw conflict - misleading because the people that we are talking about are only the ones that are working with ICANN At-Large in some capacity, and not the global Individual Users population

Upcoming Individuals

This is misleading because the individual users might well be old-timers

Individual Members

This option seems to have some support and no objections, but might be superseded by the Individual RALO Members below - see under “Further proposals"

Further proposals:

• non-ALS members - that seems to me to be equivalent to Unaffiliated Individuals - where being affiliated means being a member of an ALS
• Individual RALO Members - this option seems to have also some support 

My assessment is that we are back to the question about allowing members of an ALS be also members of a RALO in their own capacity: if this is allowed, Individual RALO Members seems to be the best option, otherwise Unaffiliated Individuals would make more sense.

During the latest teleconference, i.e. the one of Monday 30 November, there has been no challenge to the summary made in my previous comment, that I paste here for convenience:

My assessment is that we are back to the question about allowing members of an ALS be also members of a RALO in their own capacity: if this is allowed, Individual RALO Members seems to be the best option, otherwise Unaffiliated Individuals would make more sense.

Since we have already assessed that our recommendation will be to allow members of an ALS to be also members of a RALO in their own capacity, I will from now on refer to the formerly indicated as "Unaffiliated Individuals" as "RALO Individual Members"

I hope that this will avoid terminology confusion and potential misunderstanding.

This closes this thread for the time being, there might be other terminology issues in the future though.

I am sorry for turning up on this page after the thread is marked "Resolved" as on 7 December 2020.

As an Internet User, I seek a global governance. No Individual is an island. The Individual brings in the perspectives from within his context of active experiences and connectedness.

"Region" is more a "top - down" handle in governance.

Also, RALO is on an MoU with ICANN and as observed earlier is not really ICANN.

Gopal T V

As you have seen in the draft report I have submitted a few days ago, I would like to have in the report a glossary where we define all the terms that we will use in the report, so that there is no misunderstanding.Let me remind you that we have already agreed about the term RALO Individual Member.

I am therefore asking whether there are any objections to use the following terms:

• Applicant is an individual who submits an application to become RALO Individual Member;
• ALS Member is a member of a certified At-Large Structure - please note that since an ALS does not have any obligation to provide us with an updated list of their members, generally we do not know whether an individual is a member of one or more ALSes, except for the officially designated ALS Representatives;
• an application can be accepted - and the Applicant will become a RALO Individual Member - or rejected;
• the membership of a RALO Individual Member is terminated if the individual loses his/her membership status for whatever reason;
• the withdrawal of the membership is the process by which an accepted RALO Individual Member initiates the process to terminate her/his membership status.