[ALSC-Forum] Bottom-up process and group dynamics

[DannyYounger]

The Board Committee on Evolution and Reform has set a deadline for comments 
that is now only two weeks away.  As I peruse the comments that have been 
posted thus far, I note that only 1 out of the 759 members of 
icannatlarge.com has bothered to send in a personal recommendation on the 
best way forward for ICANN.  

What does this tell me?  

At the last Board meeting, Alejandro Pisanty spoke of election practices in 
certain South American countries where political organizers would round up 
the uninformed peasantry and cart them by truck to the polling stations.  It 
is certainly easy enough to rally people to go to a particular site... such 
at icannatlarge.com... but it is quite another matter entirely to get them to 
offer substantive recommendations (either personally or collectively) in a 
timely fashion.  

So, I have to ask myself, what exactly is the value of a large group that 
offers no substantive comments when compared to the initiative shown by those 
three dozen individual participants that were not members of some 
"collectivity" that actually did submit recommendations?  

I am confident that I will receive plenty of explanations as to the virtues 
of sizable democratic representative structures... but at issue is whether we 
can reasonably expect any group to organize their thoughts within the next 
two weeks so that a recommendation can be made to the Board?  Perhaps you 
believe that this is possible, I do not.

All I expect is to hear are the lame excuses that it was first necessary to 
organize, to structure, to establish discoursive mechanisms, to abide by 
best-practice procedures... and that there just wasn't enough time to submit 
comments.  This is folly.  I have heard such similar comments from the IDNO 
over the course of its existence, and have yet to see any meaningful 
contributions from that organization either.  Process continues to kill 
substance.

In my view, the current icannatlarge.com (while well-intentioned) is no more 
than a large group that will organize itself out of existence by not putting 
forward any plan other than the one now on the table (the Lynn Plan, which 
effectively kills the At-Large) because the organizers are too consumed by 
"process".  They will miss the deadline for comments because they will be too 
engrossed in electioneering to pay any attention to that which is really 
necessary, and the Board will make their final decision without the benefit 
of their input.

We cannot rely on the group dynamic to arrive at recommendations.  It is not 
happening within any other established DNSO constituency, and it will not 
happen within icannatlarge.com... 

If you have thoughts on how ICANN can be improved, now is the time to submit 
a personal individual comment to reform-comments@icann.org

I recommend that you don't wait for any organization to act on your behalf... 
it won't happen.