[ALSC-Forum] Staff Level Support

[Bret Fausett]

An additional way* of representing user voices in the ICANN process would be
through the appointment of a staff-level officer charged with representing
the user community in the implementation of ICANN's policies. (ICANN now has
staff-level liaisons to the registrars and the ccTLDs, why not to the user
community?) 

It's increasingly clear that significant work is done at the staff level,
and the day to day activities of ICANN's operations could benefit from
someone charged with representing the users. The salary and benefits would
be paid out of ICANN's operating funds as collected from the registries and
registrars. These are fees that are ultimately collected from the registrant
community in the form registration fees, so funding a user representative
out of them seems fair.

You could fit this person into ICANN's existing budget by converting the
position of "Policy Analyst" (which is now advertised on the ICANN site)
into the position of "User Community Liaison."

The employee would serve as a contact person for user input, feedback and
complaints. He or she would assist other ICANN staff in the implementation
of policy, focusing on the user's interests in those implementation details.
Like an ombudsperson for a newspaper, the staff member would be independent
and free to openly criticize the organization when he or she believed that
it was acting in a manner contrary to the interests of the user community.

     -- Bret

--
* I am strong believer in the concept of nine Board members elected from the
user community as a balance to the nine Board members elected from the At
Large. The suggestion above should not be read to suggest that a single
staff member replace the nine elected Board members.