My view has always been (since this "at large user" thing was conceived)
that the so-called "At-Large User Constituency" is a Frankenstein. The
real world moves and revolves around interest groups, not a linear, flat
concoction called "the user" -- and of course different interest groups
end up controlling ALAC's views and actions. It was a clever way to
generate an illusion of participation, this is all. So no surprise that
they move from one position to another quite easily -- in this sense,
they are quite "at large"...

frt rgds

--c.a.

William Drake wrote:
> I fired off a comment as well during last night's dreary council
> meeting.  Awakening this morning to see the net effects, it's clear that
> the responses submitted were overwhelmingly favorable to our position. 
> Not that this necessarily will mean anything to the SIC/staff. 
> Unfortunately, most comments dwelt more on the procedural aspect of
> SIC/staff discarding our work without comment or dialogue rather than on
> precisely why their alternative will not work.  We've made those points
> before but they've never responded, so it might have been good if more
> of us had reiterated them and demanded specific explanations.  The
> official NCUC response
> http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-stakeholder-charters/msg00061.html goes
> some way in this direction, but whether this one intervention will yield
> reasoned replies in the staff synthesis or beyond---I wouldn't put money
> on it.  The board will make its decision soon and I suspect that they'll
> stick with the SIC approach rather than doing a 180 turn just because
> the little people who will have to live with their charter don't like it.
> 
> One thing that I found particularly depressing in the comments was the
> ALAC leadership's decision to endorse the SIC/staff version, and to
> dismiss NCUC's model as some sort of capture strategy on the part of an
> apparently evil cabal (that's us, I guess).  The former is despite the
> fact that ALAC earlier disavowed the CP80 proposal, which the SIC/staff
> version actually mirrors in important respects.  Go ahead and figure
> that one out.  It is notable too that this is despite the fact that ALAC
> leadership has not sought any sort of dialogue with NCUC to arrive at a
> shared understanding of the alternative models, and despite the lack of
> any real dialogue within ALAC on the relative merits of the two models
> geared to eliciting a broadly supported verdict.  I have feet in both
> worlds as an NCUC councilor and a member of Euralo's board, and I at
> least did not see any effort from the top to seriously canvass ALAC
> members opinions before arriving at a stance in our names.  All I have
> seen on the ALAC lists and other lists like that of the Media Democracy
> Coalition has been messages to the effect that civil society people
> should work in the first instance through ALAC, not NCUC or NCSG.  And
> yet the board has said it thinks at large structures should be active in
> the future NCSG, and we get criticized for somehow failing to include
> more ALS folks in our work, when of course from our side they're
> perfectly welcome and just don't choose to engage.
> 
> Maybe I'm still a bit green (although after almost a year here this
> excuse is getting lame) but I simply fail to understand why people can't
> see that ALAC and NCUC/NCSG have different and non-competing functions
> and should be cross-pollinating and cooperating closely. Whatever stuff
> went on in the past between whomever just doesn't cut it as an excuse
> for continuing dysfunctionality today.  Indeed, when we have tried to
> collaborate of late, as with the IRT, it has been clear that there's
> often quite a bit of overlap/harmony of view on substantive matters.  So
> it's hard not to conclude that this is all about turf, personal empires,
> and interpersonal relations, which is just adolescent and nuts.
> 
> In any event, once the board has given us the charter and we've decided
> how to respond, undertaking a serious NCUC/ALAC dialogue should be high
> on the list of priorities, in my view.  It just doesn't work to have one
> group actively undermining the other when both could be working toward
> common objectives.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
> ***********************************************************
> William J. Drake
> Senior Associate
> Centre for International Governance
> Graduate Institute of International and
>   Development Studies
> Geneva, Switzerland
> [log in to unmask]
> www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
> ***********************************************************
> 
>