[Chapter-delegates] The kinds of objections (was Re: Join our call to stop the sale of .org)

[John More]

Dave

Thanks for your engagement in these discussions and the clarity with which you have been handling them.  Even more appreciated is your ability to disagree without questioning the motives of those whose fiduciary duty it is to make difficult decisions.

Whatever occurs with the PIR sale, those who support the goals of ISOC need to work together to further improve the structure of ISOC — in particular more engagement of the membership (not just the Chapters).

Yours,

John More

> On Nov 29, 2019, at 8:18 AM, Dave Burstein via Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Andrew's answer is responsive, and makes clear ISOC will be multistakeholder. Thank you. There are reasonable disagreements about what multistakeholder means, which we do not need to answer now.  His comment at the board meeting could be read differently, so I am glad he has cleared things up.
> However, Gonzalo, the Board Chair, said we are not multistakeholder. "We might consider that in the future."
> 
> I hope someone makes clear to Gonzalo that multistakeholder is right.
> 
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 7:37 AM Andrew Sullivan via Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org <mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 06:40:33AM -0500, Dave Burstein wrote:
> 
> > *The most important thing to discuss Friday is whether it was right for you
> > and the Board Chairman to claim ISOC is not and should not be a
> > multistakeholder organization.*
> 
> I wish to be crystal clear about this: I never said, and I do not
> believe, that is the case.
> 
> What I said is that ISOC is not a membership organization as that is
> usually meant in US corporate law.  Our members have a direct
> (organizational) or indirect (via chapters) say in who becomes a
> Trustee.  But the fiduciary responsibility then lies with the Trustees
> and not the members.  That's the way we are organized.  Membership
> organizations don't work that way.  Instead, in those kinds of
> organizations, certain decisions of the corporation must be directly
> ratified by votes of the members.  There are various practical
> consequences of such an organization design, one of which is that it's
> quite often extremely hard to get quorum at meetings, and so lots of
> decisions can't be taken.  Even in our own organization, as many here
> know, that can be a consistent problem in constituent bodies.
> 
> I said this in response to a bunch of questions about why the
> membership need not be consulted directly on some things that need to
> be decided.  Contract negotiations are actually such a case.  Some
> have moved from that point to argue that it was ok not to consult on
> the details of the agreement (and some have granted that the agreement
> could even be secret), but have argued that the members needed to have
> been consulted on the very idea of such a sale in the first place.
> 
> My view is that our governance model today expresses its
> multistakeholder properties in different ways, and one of those ways
> is the way the Board of Trustees is selected.  The idea there is that
> different kinds of stakeholders will pick people with views that tend
> to reflect the stakeholder view, so that even in cases where the Board
> needs to proceed without consultation or transparency the point of
> view is carried into those discussions.  It is clear to me that some
> people think this is an inadequate mode of operation, but it is the
> way our governance works today.  It seems like there may be a
> discussion to be had on that matter.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> A
> 
> -- 
> Andrew Sullivan
> President & CEO, Internet Society
> sullivan at isoc.org <mailto:sullivan at isoc.org>
> +1 416 731 1261
> _______________________________________________
> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society Chapter Portal (AMS):
> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login <https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login>
> View the Internet Society Code of Conduct: https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/code-of-conduct/ <https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/code-of-conduct/>
> 
> 
> -- 
> Editor, https://Fastnet.news <http://fastnet.news/> https://wirelessone.news <http://wirelessone.news/> 
> Reply "sub" for a free subscription to Fast Net News and Wireless One
> 
> _______________________________________________
> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society Chapter Portal (AMS):
> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
> View the Internet Society Code of Conduct: https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/code-of-conduct/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20191129/cc796423/attachment.htm>