[chapter-delegates] Re: Report of the 2005 ISOC Nominations Committee

[Jacek Gajewski]

Dear Tommi,

Tommi Karttaavi wrote:

>  When the new BoT member selection system was being planned, I 
> remember there having been talk about mechanisms to ensure 
> geographical diversity among the reps. What we have here seems to be a 
> case of those mechanisms kicking into action.
>
I do agree that there should be a well defined mechanism, which ensures 
the diversity. One of the possible diversities is geographical, but 
there are also other ones: rich-poor countries, developed-underdeveloped 
countries, countries which differ in their level of Internet 
penetration, big-small ISOC chapters etc., etc. We probably should have 
a discussion, which of this diversities reflect best the wide spectrum 
of all ISOC chapters and is relevant to our area of activities and then 
decide the mechanisms which ensure that there is a fair representation 
and/or rotation. Although many organizations follow the geographical 
criterium, they usually have a strong reason for that (e.g. ICANN) 
related to the nature of their activities. In case of ISOC, some of the 
above mentioned diversity criteria seem to me to be more relevant that 
the geographical one.

The problem, with this year process of nominations was however that it 
was not officially said (neither a priori nor post factum) that:
-  the nominations will follow the geographical diversity (or any other) 
criterium;
-  that there will be only two candidates selected;

Since this was not written in the bylaws, it means it has been 
'invented' by the NC (before or after the famous consultations with yet 
unknown 'other' ISOC members). Fine, the NC was entrusted to do the 
nominations and if they have applied some criterium, which was not in 
the bylaws, they should (in my opinion) at least post factum say that 
they have applied criterium XYZ and there were only N candidates 
fullfilling this criterium.

With best regards,
Jacek Gajewski
ISOC-PL