APRALO Rules of Procedures Review - Individual Membership

Posted by staff on behalf of

Satish Babu

1. I would advise a formal, reasonably rigorous due-diligence process if we are admitting individuals. Besides hygiene factors (no affiliation with existing RALOs, acceptance of APRALO operating principles, age limit etc), I would recommend some evidence of working on end-user Internet issues in the person's geographic area(s). 2. Another aspect that is not explicitly mentioned in the RoP is if there should be a term of admission (a RALO, once admitted, is a member in perpetuity unless membership is revoked). One fallout of not having a term is that we may end up with deadwood (inactive members). However, if we had an automatic term (for instance, two years) after which they had to reapply to get back in, we would eliminate deadwood 3. The normal metrics of participation may not apply to individual members: we may have to devise new metrics 4. I'm also unclear on the specifics of how all individual members will function collectively as a single RALO, with the Voting Representative as the head of the group. I guess we could keep an open mind on this, and see how it works out. I would generally advise caution in admitting completely unknown individual members. However, this mechanism may be useful in cases where someone wants to set up an organization that eventually would join as an ALS, and wants to know how to do this by association as an individual member.  

 Ali Almeshal   - On which bases we would chose one and not the others , whatever reasons and justification we put in place there will be an opposite justification against it.   - Also the points raise by Satish   - Then if this individual is not part of any legal entity within his/her area , how would he/she be able to reach out to his/her community and spread out what we do and what we work on (Engagement) .   - It is our role to reach out to these areas that have No ALS's yet and encourage them to get in and have those active individuals to be under their umbrella.    

Holly Raiche

Hi, Siranush

I like your suggestions, and absolutely agree.  One thing to note - from memory, it was one of the recommendations from our ALAC review that we admit individual members.  And I think NARALO admits individual members, so maybe ask them as well for their rules and we can see if we agree.

I like your suggestions as well. 

- First, I think we have to ask for their reasons for wanting to join. - Next, what has been their past involvement with ICANN and/or internet organisations (are they, for example, a member of an ISOC chapter, are they an academic who teaches internet issues, ore they a techie/geek involved in internet issues, etc - I do like the idea of terms - but we'd have to check on what was said at the last ALAC Review.  And maybe we question more generally why an organisation is an ALAC member in perpetuity - I think they should be judged on their participation every 5 years - something for the upcoming ALAC review - metrics - yes will have to be different, but should include participation in meetings, contribution to policy development, involvement in working groups, etc

UNAFFILIATED INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS

INTRODUCTION:

Recommendation 10 of the At-Large Improvements Implementation Project acknowledges the role of individual users:

At-Large Advisory Committee The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) is the primary organizational home within ICANN for individual Internet users. The role of the ALAC shall be to consider and provide advice on the activities of ICANN, insofar as they relate to the interests of individual Internet users. This includes policies created throughICANN’s Supporting Organizations, as well as the many other issues for which community input andadvice is appropriate. The ALAC, which plays an important role in ICANN’s accountability mechanisms, also coordinates some of ICANN’s outreach to individual Internet users.....

• Individual membership of Regional At Large Organisations  (RALOs) was a requirement that arose out of an earlier ALAC review (above)

• A section on "Unaffiliated Individual Members" is included in the updated APRALO Rules of Procedure

• The expectations of the membership of unaffiliated members are listed as:

  • being subscribed to the AP Discuss List

  • being a permanent resident of one of the countries/territories in the APRALO region, as defined by ICANN

  • not be a member of a certified ALS

  • By way of "certification" of having met this criteria, and therefore be able to contribute fully to APRALO as an Unaffiliated Individual Member, must submit an affirmation of these criteria to At Large Staff indicating how they meet the criteria and also note that:

    • Upon ceasing to meet any of the criteria, unaffiliated membership is terminated

    • All unaffiliated individuals (treated as a group) will be responsible for selecting their representative (when required to from time to time and to contribute to the Regional General Assembly)

    • this representative must not be employed or contracted by, or have substantive financial interest in, an ICANN contracted registry or accredited registrar.

DISCUSSION POINTS RAISED SO FAR:

• Introduce a formal, reasonably rigorous due diligence process for admitting individuals - as expected of ALS groups

• What are their reasons for wanting to join? What evidence can they provide that demonstrates that they are actually working on end-user internet issues in their geographic region? what do they know about ICANN?

• What evidence can they provide that demonstrates that the prospective individual members legitimately comply with the non-affiliation requirements and that they are working on end-user activities completely independent of an already registered ALS or an organisation associated with ICANN?

• our current Rules of Procedure do not set any timeframes for membership as an ALS or as an individual member. This would help to automatically weed out those who have not participated as expected - two years was suggested as an automatic term after which an ALS or individual member could reapply. 

• Metrics for ALSes should also apply to individual members - although they may need to be adjusted somewhat

• If we package individuals into something similar to an ALS - what is the optimum number before we create another ALS of individual members?

• What is the actual process by which individual members within their own ALS, will appoint their voting representative?

• Individual membership could/should  be viewed as a mechanism for facilitating the creation of an ALS - someone who wants to join but hasn't yet met, joined or created an ALS to which they want to be associated

COMMENTS THAT AROSE OUT OF THE ALAC MEETING 18 Oct

1. Propose a model to cope with the potential hundreds of individual members who could capture a RALO organisation

2. Classification of individual members for future summit meetings - an ALS gets to send a representative -  how do we give parity for unaffiliated individual members to attend

3. How do we counter issues such as quasi-voting, weightings and capture.

4. Vanda - some people are known to be creating an ALS just to get a voice in ICANN.

5. Alan - up until now individual members have been left up to RALOs but it has been decided that we need to look at some uniformity and usability of membership - perhaps some commonality

6. Wolf - Euralo didn't have individuals in the beginning - but after a few years a potential was noticed - highly experienced and long-standing members of ICANN but who didn't want to join an ALS even though they are active in their home countries

7. Alan - is an unaffiliated member

8. Fatima - wants to keep this policy for those RALOs that are mature enough

9. Tijani - strong pushback against individual membership but they accept the principle

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

Before we move on to a formal set of criteria if would be good to get a sense of others' views on the points that have been raised already.. particularly about the evidence that they should be required to produce to:

• show that they are not affiliated with any ICANN or ALS related organisations

• that they are actually working on end-user activities and are aware of what ICANN is and does

• should we impose timeframed membership for all ALSes as well as individual members - it would make it easier to get rid of the deadwood as Satish suggests?

• should we impose a similar set of metrics on individual members as we do for ALSes?

• What is an optimum sized package for an individual members ALS?

• what process should we expect for them to vote for their voting representative within their ALS-type organisation?

• should we be encouraging individual membership or encouraging ALSes?

• Should we make it harder to be an individual member so that we can encourage more ALSes (and enabling outreach from a common governance or technical starting point?)

I would really appreciate your comments

Current policies by other RALOs

EURALO

Options to Include Individual Members in the EURALO Structure as discussed on the EURALO Teleconference of 18-Jan-2011.  
The preferred approach, as discussed on the EURALO Teleconference of 18-Jan-2011 and approved by EURALO¹s Online voting and GA in May 2011, is the following: 

OPTION B: Create a new ALS within the current structure that serves as the home to unaffiliated members.  

In this model, a new European ALS would be formed to "collect" unaffiliated individuals from the region. This ALS would be part of the existing EURALO structure and would need to fulfill the minimum ALS requirements according to the ALS formation framewor and alsoICANN Bylaws. Once it is an integral part of the EURALO structure, this ALS would have the same rights and responsibilities as any other regional ALS.In particular: 
     *The ALS needs to submit to the  EURALO Board their primary point of contact which shall also be responsible for casting the votes 
     *Each ALS has one vote at the GA 

The current Bylaws would not prevent the EURALO Board and the At-Large Staff from assisting the "individual-member-ALS" with voting procedures and the like if this is desired. However, the internal decision-making process would ultimately be independent from EURALO under the current Bylaws. To ensure that the representative of the individual members accurately reflect the view held among the ALS membership, it is important that the instruments and mechanisms of this individual-member-ALS are well designed and solid enough to prevent capture. If the ALS is endowed with a robust bottom-up decision-making process, the EURALO Bylaws would not need a special status for this ALS. 

If additional safeguards are deemed necessary, EURALO could either: 
     *Add a rule to the EURALO Bylaws to the effect that all At-Large Structures (or “members”) need to adopt a verifiable process to ensure that votes cast via their elected representatives reflect the views held among their membership. 
     *Explore whether it is possible under the current MoU with ICANN to create a special status for the individual-member-ALS in the EURALO bylaws. According to this status, the internal processes of that ALS would need to follow certain          procedures set by EURALO/At-Large 

NARALO

NARALO Memorandum of Understanding  
The NARALO shall be comprised of all At-Large Structures and Unaffiliated Individuals within the North American Region. All interested citizens or residents within the North American Region are welcomed to join as unaffiliated individuals, to join an ALS, to encourage their organization to apply for ALS certification or to form a new organization and apply for ALS certification.  

Operating Principles
17. The members of the unaffiliated individuals, including the representative to the NARALO General Assembly must submit a Statement of Interest indicating that they meet the following criteria:    

     *be subscribed to the NA-Discuss list, 
     *be a permanent resident of one of the countries/territories in the North American region as defined by ICANN, 
     *not be a member of a certified ALS.    

The unaffiliated individuals will be responsible for selecting their representative to the General Assembly. Such representative must not be employed or contracted by, or have substantive financial interest in, an ICANN contracted registry or accredited registrar. Selection of a new representative of the unaffiliated individuals will occur whenever a new ALAC member is selected by the General Assembly.     

The unaffiliated individuals will adopt a verifiable process to ensure that votes cast via their elected representative reflect the views held among their membership. It shall also be possible to adopt an automated electronic voting process whereby the votes cast by all unaffiliated individuals combined are weighted to be equal to that of one ALS. This shall be promoted particularly in the event of electronic voting.