RE: [Membership] Re: [IFWP] COMMENTS ON M.A.C.RECOMMENDATIONS of MARCH 18

[Michael Gendron <mgendron@gcstech.com>]

Finally a voice of reason.  I have looked at this discussion for days and have kept silent.  This post, coupled with the legal (albeit sarcastic) review of the effects of currently proposed membership issues really gets to the heart of this debate.

****** The legal and sarcastic
Okay. No exclusionary definition of the At large membership, that is, all the world can join. Two: no membership dues, that is, no legal contract between the members and the organization. Three: no voting mechanism defined in the bylaws, nothing that says how candidates are chosen, how they are elected.
*****

So what is it going to be, an At Large membership with no dues, no legal contract between members and the organization, and no voting membership.  Sounds unreasonable to me.  How about a membership with dues and a mechanism to petition for a due waiver in extreme hardship cases????  I know this places and administrative burden on the organization, but if the requirements are strict enough few will apply,.  Further, I know some will say that this will create an exclusionary block to some members - there are greater issues having to do with propriety and appropriateness.  In this type of an organization there are good and bad ways to proceed. 

Dues will separate out those that are casual observers from those that have a real interest in the work of this organization.

Michael Gendron
Lecturer
State University of New York at Albany
Mgendron@gcstech.com

-----Original Message-----
From:	Michael Sondow [SMTP:msondow@iciiu.org]
Sent:	Sunday, April 11, 1999 9:20 PM
To:	Darrell Greenwood
Cc:	izumi@anr.org; ICANN MAC list
Subject:	Re: [Membership] Re: [IFWP] COMMENTS ON M.A.C.RECOMMENDATIONS of MARCH 18

Darrell Greenwood a écrit:

> >In some countries, the income for professional people, say in university or
> >government organizations, are making as much as, sometimes US$ 200 or
> >$300. That is the fact. And often these people run the Internet, in
> >country NICs or other administrative/operational activities.
> 
> This is a key point, easily overlooked by North Americans.

It would be very instructive, I'm sure, if the people making these
pleas for no dues, on the grounds that non-Americans can't afford
them, would reveal what their present jobs and incomes are. My
experience has been that people connected with the Internet outside
the U.S., and particularly in the third world, are invariably from
the upper-middle-class and can afford even substantial dues payments
much better than the average American Internet user, for the sole
reason that the Internet is open to all in the U.S. because it is
cheap and anyone can have a domain name, whereas in other countries
it is very expensive and domain names are restricted to businesses
or wealthy people.

It would be nice to imagine that the ICANN membership will be
composed of all people, including the working classes and
peasantries of underdeveloped countries. Perhaps some day it will
be. But for now, those who will join ICANN from outside the U.S. can
afford dues. As far as I'm concerned - and speaking as a person who
rents a small apartment in a lower-class suburb of an industrial
city, has no family, and must live by his wits - anyone who can't
pay US$20/year to join ICANN should have to show why they can't.