[registrars] Focussing on the real issues

Fri Sep 24 16:02:17 UTC 2004

Bhavin Turakhia wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> As of last count over 45 emails

(That's w/o Ross Rader posting...)

> have been exchanged on the registrars list
> about how the ballot should have been differently held and how the election
> was not 100% proper.
> 
> Has the ballot been improperly conducted? Maybe
> Does it justify SO MUCH discussion - NO WAYS

I'm not really in a position to comment on whether
it deserved so much discussion (since I didn't take
the time to study each post) but I certainly didn't
find it important enough to follow and I tend to agree with
you on this.

> 
> I have spoken to several Registrars during my budget negotiations with
> ICANN. We ran a successful alliance of 76 Registrars and managed to obtain
> several concessions as all of you are aware. During this time a common
> thread of thought amongst every participant was exasperation at how the
> Registrars Constituency simply delves on issues that are totally useless and
> gets lost in political jargon and buereaucracy, and eventually every issue
> that has affected us Registrars since the last several years has not seen
> much progress or modification.

One issue that I think is important is the 
issue that Paul posted about the "false whois penalty"

-- The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would
-- increase jail time for identity thieves and other fraudulent Web users who
-- register sites under false identities

I don't remember seeing anyone post any reply to that.

The question I have is why the registrar's constituency was not
involved in working with government on any of this. 

Another issue is the mass accreditation of registrars
just to get registry threads. I don't think that it
was right that several opportunistic registrars were
allowed to grab up multiple accreditations after ICANN apparently
lifted the written or unwritten ban on registrars having
more than one accreditation. Obviously something happened with
this since if it was allowed previously it would
have happened before it happened (got that?).

>
> To the extent that some Registrars I speak to
> openly call "the Registrars constituency as nothing but a vehicle to justify
> and approve ICANN and Verisign's injustice upon Registrars". Please don't
> get me wrong here. I am not criticising ICANN or Verisign. Life is difficult
> for everyone when trying to achieve consensus. But as of now clearly almost
> all Registrars have lost faith in the constituency simply because the
> constituency just sits idle when it comes to issues that potentially affect
> Registrars, while many have a lot to say about total non-issues

I agree with this. I have always felt that there
was to much focus on procedure. 

> 
> Here we have two issues that can threaten the existence of several
> Registrars and substantially change the market (the Verisign mail and the
> NSI issue) and I can count the number of mails sent about these issues on
> the fingers of my ONE hand. Does the Registrars constituency have any
> official position on these issues? NO. Has the Registrars constituency tried
> to accumulate opinion or contact Registrars and ask them what they think
> about this? NO. Yet 47 long mails have been exchanged to and fro about a
> tiny oversight in the ballot which does not really matter.
> 
> Even during the ICANN Budget, the constituency supposedly tried some
> outreach, held two phone calls (one of which was hardly attended) and was
> supposed to come up with a proposed official position document which never
> happened. I tried to steer the budget issue both from within the
> constituency and from outside and realized that I was actually facing
> resistance when trying to work on it from within.
> 
> During the ICANN budget alliance process that I was steering

I have to say that one of the most impressive things
that Bhavin did with this was place multiple phone calls
to try and get support for this. 

> - we probably
> did not do everything in the perfect way. We did not hold the perfect
> ballots, we did not have large task forces, we did not organize conference
> calls, we did not have resources to spend, we did not have an expensive
> boardrooms.org software. Yet things worked. Things worked because we were a
> bunch of Registrars, focussing on a common issue, and not getting involved
> in tiny road blocks along the way.

>From my perspective things worked because
Bhavin did all the work and basically made it
easy for everyone to sign off on things and push things
through. 

> 
> Given that the constituency does not have the same luxury of using
> half-baked processes. Given that the constituency has by-laws that must be
> followed. But lets cut some slack here. So the ballot did not start with an
> open result. However at this point in time it is open since the last 24
> hours (or greater) and people have the ability to change their votes across
> the next 3 days. How does it make ANY difference as to whether the ballot
> was not open from Monday onwards. It is precisely this kind of bureaucracy
> that WE as Registrars try to fight with ICANN and with other organizations -
> and we ourselves end up falling prey to it in our own backyard? It is
> precisely this sort of a discussion and time wastage that convinces most
> Registrars that the constituency is a waste of time.

My personal opinion was that I didn't care. But
I can definitely see it being an issue in other
cases in the future. My suggestion would be for
the constituency to have a person outside the consituency
play a role in helping with things like this so
that we don't have to go back and forth determining
who makes a better point of interpreting rules and procedures.

Larry Erlich

> 
> Lets just get on with our lives and get this over with, for whoever gets
> elected - Bhavin, Jordynn or Eric, we have BUSY weeks ahead of us.
> 
> This is my FIRST and LAST mail about the ballot issue - my next mail, either
> in official capacity, or in an unofficial one, will be with regards to
> rallying support and consensus and opinion and discussion on the REAL ISSUES
> WE HAVE AT HAND.
> 
> PS: Sorry Bob, for saying anything about my name being spelt incorrectly in
> the ballot - I should have lived with that, it makes no damn difference to
> the registrar community whether my name is correctly spelt or not .....
> 
> Best Regards
> Bhavin Turakhia
> Founder, CEO and Chairman
> DirectI
> --------------------------------------
> http://www.directi.com
> Direct Line: +91 (22) 5679 7600
> Direct Fax: +91 (22) 5679 7510
> Board Line (USA): +1 (415) 240 4172
> Board Line (India): +91 (22) 5679 7500
> --------------------------------------

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Larry Erlich - DomainRegistry.com, Inc.
215-244-6700 - FAX:215-244-6605 - Reply: erlich at DomainRegistry.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------