[CCWG-Accountability] the term "community"

[Bruce Tonkin]

Hello Kavouss,

>>  I have one question which continued to bother me as everyone refers to "community"

>>	What is that magic term "community» covers?

>>	Does it includes or embrace the entire multistakeholders?

>> 	As it was discussed at several occasion, there is a defacto agreement that ,generally speaking multistakeholder composed 	of Civil Society, Private Sector, Technical Community including academics, Governments 


I think that is a good question, and probably worth this group considering some definitions around that topic.

For me personally, I tend to think of the terms in the following way:

"ICANN Community" - this is the group of people that participate in the various ICANN working groups via email, phone, or websites,  and attend ICANN meetings.     This group is made up of individuals from GNSO constituencies and stakeholder groups, GAC, SSAC, ALAC, RSSAC, ccTLD representatives, RIR representatives etc.    In my personal view, it is multi-stakeholder in that it includes people from Civil Society, Private Sector, Technical Community including academics, Governments.     

In addition to that there is a wider community of people that are members of the various organizations that are in turn members of the various groups that comprise the ICANN community.   As an example, I am a member of the Internet Society of Australia (ISOC) which is part of the Asia, Australasia and the Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organisation (APRALO) which is part of At-large.   ISOC in Australia may send a representative to ICANN meetings.       A business might be a member of a chamber of commerce or business association, which in turn could be a member of the ICANN business constituency,  and that chamber of commerce or business association may send a representative to an ICANN meeting as a member of the ICANN community.   I don't have any specific name for this wider group of people and organizations.

Then there is term "public" which is used within the term "global public interest".   In general, I personally think of the public in this context as Internet users.   However you could also consider public  in this context to be all the people of the world.   Even people that don't directly use the Internet as a communication mechanism are probably affected by it in some way.

The fundamental responsibility of  the Board of ICANN  is to exercise their judgment to act in what they reasonably believe to be the best interests of the global public interest, taking account of the interests of the Internet community as a whole rather than any individual group or interest.    Its primary feedback mechanism for determining the global public interest is the "ICANN community" described above.


Regards,
Bruce Tonkin