Dear Farzaneh,
This is actually good stuff, getting to concrete issues.
You make some very good points.
I'll pick on a few issues not yet covered by others:
On Sep 09 14:15, farzaneh badii ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
> Note that you can be an individual member when your organization is
> a member only if you have registered a domain name for noncommercial
> use. This is in accordance with our charter.
Yes (Raoul got this wrong). The rule is a bit problematic, it is
difficult to enforce, but I guess it's sufficient to have it as
grounds for the EC to expel someone if caught.
I don't see it as particularly important, however, given the last
sentence in 2.2.5: "Such membership is subject to Executive Committee
review" - that would be enough for all categories of individual
membership. Besides domains can be had for next to nothing or even for
free (dot.tk &c), so working around that is easy enough.
> I think that individuals that belong to an ncsg organization member
> ( either employee or members) should be able to be individual
> members (I am one of them, so conflict of interest alert) and
> additional members of their org and we can talk about limits later
> but I don't think they should officially represent their org if they
> want to keep their individual membership.
There are problems either way. It is not just about voting: someone
might represent NCSG in some working group, PDP or whatever, in their
individual capacity, not endorsed by or representing the position of
their organization. If we make such an exclusion rule that would not
be possible. I don't think that would be good for NCSG.
> According to our charter, individual members and official reps of
> organizations are entitled to vote. Revoking this right with an
> exception rule creates complications
Right you are. It does. But so does every alternative.
> And how about when those you reach out to don't respond to say their
> preference? You won't send them a ballot?
Technically that would be easy enough, if the rule is simply that
they always lose their individual vote upon becoming official
representative of an organization.
I'm not convinced it'd be a good solution, however.
Incidentally, I don't think we have a rule against a single individual
representing multiple organizations either. It would have similar
problems about voting in multiple roles and there'd be no such simple
way to choose which gets the ballot if only one is allowed. (This has
never happened in practice as far as I know.)
On Sep 10 07:15, farzaneh badii ([log in to unmask]) wrote:
> Joly was not an individual member in the first place. But of course
> since he was a member for so long and doesn't seem to have changed
> the noncommercial nature of his activities in DNS it can be an easy
> fix.
Yes. There have been a number of such cases over the years, former
representatives of organizations asking for their membership to be
converted into an individual one. They've been dealt with the same
way, asking them to apply for new individual membership. No big deal.
> And we have not yet agreed on the rule not to have dual membership of
> official reps as individual members too so really we don't remove those for
> now, also applicable to you as you are still an individual member and an
> official rep.
>
> if there is enough agreement to do that among the EC members and the NCSG
> in the future, we can do so and put the rule down hopefully before the next
> elections. since you are exactly in that situation I believe you have to
> recuse yourself and let others talk.
Surely no recusal rule would apply to this kind of discussion - indeed
a discussion where those affected were not allowed to argue their case
would be missing something important.
Actually I don't think a recusal would be warranted even in EC
decision making in this situation, although that is certainly
debatable (but then I'd definitely give the constituency in question
time to appoint another representative to NCSG EC).
But, back to our charter.
Member removal procedures have to be approved by the membership
(2.2.6). A rule that says an individual member would lose their
membership if they become representative of an organization would
clearly fall under that, so it after the EC creates the rule it'd have
to be subjected to membership approval (what that'd mean is not
specified, perhaps a special vote). Even then such a rule would in
effect mean removing members simply because we don't want them to vote
even when the charter says they could, and I think that'd be at least
stretching the spirit even if not against the letter of the charter.
On the other hand disenfranchising members is something the Charter
does not provide for at all, except for inactive members. So the
proposed rule to prevent individual members from voting if they are
official representatives at the same time would seem to require
charter change. It might be possible to work around that, however,
e.g., by approving representative appointment only on condition that
the individual membership is put on inactive list (enforced by threat
of removal). Not exactly pretty though.
All alternatives I can see are problematic one way or another.
It would really be better to deal with this with a charter change
(lots of other things there that should be changed, too). And I don't
think this is all that urgent, it's never been a big problem in
practice. Discussion is good, however, in any case.
--
Tapani Tarvainen
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