[CPWG] Ready, Fire, Aim

Wed Aug 30 13:05:20 UTC 2023

Rather than 
We act on behalf of users who do not wish to be involved in or are oblivious to the arcane minutiae of DNS administration and rules that is ICANN but who want the benefits of a safe and stable Internet. [Emphasis added]
it might be more accurate to say that we (attempt to) act on behalf of users who do not even realize that ICANN, or the DNS even exists.  They aren't so much oblivious to the "arcane minutiae" as unaware that they exist.  It's not so much that they do not wish to be involved as that they are not aware that there is anything to be involved with. 
A subtle distinction, perhaps, but I would suggest that it is an important one. 
Bill Jouris     On Tuesday, August 29, 2023 at 06:30:57 AM PDT, John Laprise via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org> wrote:  

 Hi Everyone, 

Longtime listener, sometime contributor. 

While I am not as critical as Evan, he makes a solid point and it prompts me to intervene. ALAC strives to be a kind of public guardian for Internet users in general. For those of you unfamiliar, public guardians are legal persons who act on behalf of and in the interests of people who are unable to, often minor children and adults unable to make decisions such as those suffering from dementia. In our case, the line is not quite so extreme. We act on behalf of users who do not wish to be involved in or are oblivious to the arcane minutiae of DNS administration and rules that is ICANN but who want the benefits of a safe and stable Internet. When I was a NARALO ALAC member, that thought/mission was always foremost in my mind and it's what differentiates from every other constituency and council. It's not easy.

Evan said:"End-users don't know and don't care about the domain supply chain." That might be true. Then again, people don't care about most supply chains until the chain breaks down and then they are quite irate. Our presence is required because we want to ensure the chain does not break.
Now, other constituencies and councils regularly dispute our right to do this, after all it's not like we are truly an accessible democratic institution despite our elections. Just familiarizing oneself enough to meaningfully contribute might constitute a "poll tax." Nonetheless, our mandate and legitimacy come from ICANN itself and it is incumbent upon at large participants to strive to "put on the shoes of end users" everyday before they head out to the next meeting. 
Best regards,
John Laprise, Ph.D.

On Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 12:21 AM Evan Leibovitch via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org> wrote:

A high-level tangent inspired by the current discussion:
A casual reader might look at this thread and come to an observation that there are two separate issues being discussed, that may not have much to do with each other. The conversation that Mike, Steinar, Olivier and others are having concern details -- contract language, specifics about volumes and dollar amounts and assignment of responsibilities. Meanwhile, I have barged in -- surely unwelcome by some -- to challenge the very premises upon which ALAC's participation is being conducted.

I have done this because, in my observation, ALAC lacks -- and has always lacked -- an overarching set of objectives upon which to base strategy and ultimately tactics. We engage in the minutiae of contract language (etc) without clarity of what ALAC -- and what the constituency it is mandated to speak for -- wants from the end result of such engagement.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat -- Sun Tzu

While I was involved deeply in At-Large I would note that any internal attempt to create a coherent statement of purpose would be invariably torpedoed by people insisting that we engage in a never-ending attempt to define the "public interest". As a result, all attempts inevitably sank in the bureaucratic mud. Two separate third-party ICANN reviews of At-Large seemed to wholly overlook the lack of overarching purpose and mandate service while themselves dwelling on the minutiae. It's probably best that we don't depend on outside consultants to define our purpose, but why can't we do it ourselves?

WIthout a clear mission, ALAC has weighed in on many issues in which non-registrant end users have no stake at all. Take vertical integration. End-users don't know and don't care about the domain supply chain. Even domain consumers -- technically outside our remit but closest to end-users in the ICANN food chain -- could hardly care less if they bought their domain from a registrar or directly from a registry. And yet there we were at the virtual table, as if our constituency has a crucial stake in that topic's outcome. Think of how many parts of the current ALAC agenda fit the same description. Meanwhile, on high-profile issues that WOULD affect end-users, such as the delegation of .XXX and the attempted private takeover of .ORG, we were silent. Such choices of action and inaction clearly telegraph -- throughout ICANN and the world around us -- a lack of both purpose and focus.

This glaring deficiency continues to retard ALAC's agency within the rest of the ICANN community. Over the years I have received many private emails insisting that ALAC has more respect now than it did in the past and that it is invited to the policy table more often. To me this is tokenism. I'll be more persuaded that At-Large has the respect of ICANN when we get that second Board seat that was recommended and promised so long ago. Until then, or until a policy we want that is opposed by the domain industry is implemented, I will maintain that ALAC is being pandered to. We are tolerated in working groups so long as we make little line-item corrections and don't challenge their very premises or the ability of contracted parties to maximize revenue. We have the authority to talk directly to the Board, yet we chase after Public Comment solicitations just like anyone in the world can. We respond to the actions of others, we never initiate or try to set the agenda. One of the last such initiatives by At-Large, a white paper of which I was a co-author, was received with a smile and summarily binned; not a single response was returned from staff or the community. Maybe the cosmetics have changed in the last 15 years but the underlying politics certainly have not.

While the status quo is obviously sustainable -- so long as ALAC members get funded to pretend they're the UNSC at a cavernous U-shaped table three times a year and learn how to play the insider games -- it doesn't do anything to serve At-Large's bylaw mandate. The inmates will continue to run the asylum, because the only entity really capable of making them accountable to the world-at-large is just fine with being tolerated.
- Evan

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