Cheryl: > Do you presume that all members of the new constituencies must also join > another organization, the NCSG or something else? The proposal states: > "Individuals and representatives of organizations join NCSG directly." You join the NCSG first, directly, and form a constituency second. You cannot form a NCSG constituency without being a member of NCSG. That is clear I think from the proposal. > Who decides on elibility? The basic eligibility criteria for organizations are stated in the NCUC charter; the criteria for individuals are stated in the application form for individuals on the www.ncdnhc.org web site. Currently those criteria are applied by the Executive Committee (not by me individually, as you wrongly supposed). This has been a somewhat slow process even with only 5 EC members, and Kim Heitman's concerns about scalability as we add new constituencies become even more pertinent here. I would suggest that the Chair make a decision, communicate it to the EC and if X number of EC members objects it can go to a vote, or an appeal to the whole membership, whatever. > Milton has turned down an organization > application to NCUC because the .org domain name was purchased by a > corporation and, thus -- supposedly -- commercial, even though the Whoa. The Executive Committee turned it down, not me. To be more precise, this application received NOT ONE vote from among the 6 people involved. The reason is simple. Some guy who runs a business and funds religious right groups threw up a web site on some free blog area, called it a "foundation" and claimed that it was a noncommercial org. There was no evidence that anyone but him was involved, there was no evidence that this organization existed. We told him he could join as an individual, though, which he didn't bother to do. Rather obviously an attempt to stack the deck. That's why we need some kind of review of membership eligibility. > constituency itself, must be totally transparent, with clear stated > rules, and then full discussion/explanation about the basis of the > decision, and finally a method for appeal. The existing criteria is not > sufficient. All of these things exist now. In any rational review and appeal process, that application will fail. It was a fake, pure and simple. > Were you thinking that all membership voting would be NCSG-wide, like > the current NCUC is? Yes. > If so, then the existing NCUC control group would > still control as NCUC as a constituency would claim more membership and > more "large" organizations than new constituencies. NCUC dissolves as a constituency as this plan is implemented. There is no "control group." Here is the another way of stating what you seem to be complaining about: if you want to influence NCSG policy positions and elect officers, then you will have to be able to persuade more than 5 people. Yep. > Can you tell me the > criteria for "large" and "small" organizations? It is in the current NCUC charter. > I assume for a new > constituency to make any difference in the existing stakeholder > representation, it would need to out-vote the NCUC constituency > (whatever the new version is called). There will be no NCUC constituency once this plan is enacted. But if you mean, again, that a new constituency will have to persuade other constituencies/ NCSG members to win elections, then yes, absolutely. That is the way it should be. The mere act of forming a constituency does not guarantee 5 people absolute power over a group of 50-100 people, nor should it. > Thus, the way it reads to me, a constituency whose interest were > Internet safety, for instance, could have 5 very legitimate members, but > unless all 5 are large organizations by the criteria, they will be > out-voted every time -- in fact even if all 5 are large organizations > they will be outvoted. They will be outvoted only if they cannot convince other people to go along with their views. > So, with cumulative voting (if that what you mean), it would take > perhaps 8 new constituencies of 5 members each (with approximately the > same mix of large and small organizations and individuals as in the > existing NCUC group), to outvote the NCUC group. Again, there is no "NCUC group" in the new plan. Second, voting occurs only for NCSG officers and GNSO Council members. Whoever expects to be elected for those positions had better be supported by most of the NCSG people. Third, constituencies, no matter how small, can put people on Working Groups, which is where the policy "action" is in the new GNSO. And they can file their position papers along with all the others. > The proposal does say that each constituency does get a representative > on the EC. Are you presuming that the EC of the NCSG would function as > has the EC of the current NCUC, where they basically make all the > decisions without input from constituency membership by votes or review? The EC will have mostly administrative, not policy making powers. Whether it is administration or policy, however, it is not feasible to have every minor decision require a membership vote. We elect people to make these decisions, and if we don't like the decisions they make we throw them out of office next time. No one wants to be involved in every single act of the NCSG, and anyone insane enough to attempt it will discover that no one participates in those votes and that they will spend all of their time running such votes rather than doing the real work. > the votes of the EC would be balanced, one for each > constituency. Right? Right. > In which case, what is the point of the vote > differential for size of organization other than to elect the EC > representative within each constituency? The vote differential applies when we have NCSG-wide elections for Chair, and GNSO Council. > Why couldn't each constituency > decide how to allocate the votes within their own constituency, in terms > of individuals and organizations? They can do that, when it comes to picking their own representative to the EC