Reasons for not allowing a member of an ALS to be also a member of a RALO in his/her own capacity

Dear all,

Let me remind you that an issue is open under the title "Reasons for not allowing a member of an ALS to be also a member of a RALO in his/her own capacity”.

This page is meant for people who have objections or concerns about the fact that a member of an ALS is also a RALO Individual Member. The items collected here will be used for the minority report.

I am copying this email to the issue page for the record.

Cheers,
Roberto

I am responding to Roberto's email:

On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 at 01:52, Roberto Gaetano wrote:

Dear all,

Let me summarise the state of the art for this topic, before I draft some text for the report.

We have rough consensus that a member of an ALS can also be a RALO Individual Member in his/her own capacity. The issue “Reasons for not allowing a member of an ALS to be also a member of a RALO in his/her own capacity”, currently void, contains the objections by the minority that should be included in the report. It is clear that, if no objection is logged, nothing will be reported.

This is a concern which I would ask to be included in the report. It doesn't come to an objection, just a concern, if it requires a categorical description of any kind.

After considering viewpoints from other members of the WP on this issue, I still fail to see a mutual exclusivity between ALS membership and Unaffiliated Individual membership as a problem requiring fixing at all. In other words, I do not think there is a need for allowing a member of an ALS to be also a member of a RALO in his/her own capacity.

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 there is no barrier to participation in RALOs save for what's in the ICANN Bylaws on geographic designation based on residency.

Everyone who participates in the At-Large are 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.

Therefore, I see no reason to eliminate the straight-forward demarcation and mutual exclusivity between ALS membership and Unaffiliated Individual membership. I am concerned that this elimination will unnecessarily complicate the membership structure that we have at present. I also have a remote concern that this elimination could lead to disturbances within ALS member (organizations) and/or a diminishing in importance of ALSes which could be interpreted as implicitly agreeing with the recommendation by the At-Large Review consultant to do away with ALSes when that was explicitly rejected by the ALAC through the At-Large Review Implementation Plan.

Justine

Any record of a dissenting position has to include the question of whether RALO individual members and ALSs are in locked into a zero-sum game forever, or whether there is an alternative opportunity which gives the possibility of creating a positive sum game within At-Large to enhance cooperation within the community to jointly work towards our mandate to represent end users.

Humans are complex. Each of us have multiple identities which should be leveraged by At-Large for mobilization rather than being boxed into simplified organizational structures for the sake of convenience of thought.  

I have the following vision of "why we have a reasons for not allowing a member of an ALS to be also a member of a RALO in his/her own capacity":

A member of ALS is already a member of RALO and At-Large and acts as individual, as ALS member, representative of the region and in the interests of end users.

Any member of any ALS can participate in the RALO/At-large work and be part of mailing list.

We shouldn`t encourage ALS to break the channel of information delivery to ALS members. If there are such problems, they should be solvable within each RALO.

An active member of the ALS are taking part in the RALO work and increases the role and position of ALS within RALO and At-Large. It helps to mobilize ALSes and doesn`t allow us to lose the relationship with the structure. (It would be great if each ALS may have at least 1 activist (this is not the case now).

And finally: each case when a member of the ALS is not able to reach out the RALO/work in RALO/At-Large, WGs etc is a signal of sharp problem of the implementation of the Bylaws or operational rules in RALO and requires the finding solution. 

Independence of judgment is very likely to be blurred if an individual notified to RALO with an office in an ALS seeks Individual Member Status also. In a policy we cannot possibly include potential for "Collective Bargaining" or "Groupism with obscure accountability".

Gopal T V