[CCWG-ACCT] Personal thoughts on membership

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello Phil,


>>  (If the current community is adjudged to be insufficiently representative overall then the Board whose members are selected from it would be the same).

Yes that is true.  It is mitigated using the nominating committee process that attempts to get fresh perspectives, and ensure cultural and geographic diversity on the Board.   While the membership of the nominating committee is drawn from the existing ICANN community - it does need to reach consensus to appoint 8 Board members.   There have been some very good board members that have been appointed from that process.


>>  
On the other hand, you have set the bar so high for moving to the more "direct democracy" membership model -- that it should not be contemplated until " each of the parts of the Internet community has a statistically relevant participation in ICANN" -- that it may never be reached.


I think there is far more that we could do to broaden participation.    We have been funding more and more people to attend ICANN face-to-face meetings - which has helped grow the ALAC  structure and also helped get more participation at the GAC - but that is not really very scalable.   I think we need to engage far more regionally and have some resources available in those regions to help local people articulate their concerns into the ICANN policy processes.   We also need to be using online collaboration tools far more. 

Even the current CCWG process needs people able to devote close to 40 hours a week to fully engage, and the ability to attend face-to-face meetings (whether funded by ICANN or under their own funding)     Only a narrow set of even the current ICANN community can devote that amount of time.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin