On 12 Aug 2009, at 10:02, William Drake wrote:

> f what you mean is that unless the board approves them they cannot  
> rightly be considered constituencies in the normal ICANN sense (as  
> you note, we changed this pre-Mexico when we heard that it was a  
> sticking point in the Board's view)

this is exactly what i meant.  the basic part of my reasoning went  
something like this:

- the critical importance of constituencies was that people with a  
similar set of goals and affinities could work together to produce  
positions
- these positions have a formal role in the policy development process
- in order for the voice of all constituencies to have equal vote,  
they all had to meet similar conditions for being defined as  
constituencies.
- in order to insure this parity a common body needed to qualify the  
constituencies.
- for better or worse the Board is the only group in position to do  
this without risk (supposedly) of bias
- so the Board should approve all constituencies.

Now, the march of history has shown that perhaps the Board cannot be  
trusted to apply its rules with parity and that perhaps the Policy  
Staff will act in accordance to its own agenda as opposed as a support  
of the volunteers.  The Board has also shown that they no longer value  
constituencies as the basis for group formation, i.e. I believe that  
they have deviated from the BCG recommendations - something that is  
within their prerogative, allowing for disparity between the two  
houses on this, something I believe is wrong and destructive.

So, I have come to believe that it only makes sense to move toward a  
model that allows SG to makes its own decision about how  
constituencies, or interest groups or whatever they get called, are  
formed.  I.e. let parity rule, and what is good for the contracted SGs  
is also good to the non-contracted SGs.

a.

Note: i really really believe in parity and it is the deviation from  
parity that bothers me most in ICANN/Board policy determinations.  the  
rightness or wrongness of any position can be argued, and  
disagreements between people can be honored.  but treating people and  
groups differently is, in my mind, the real root of all evil.