Dear Joop, ICANN has the difficult job of determining voter qualifications. Some people are qualified, others aren't. In my country 500,000 people lost their lives in a civil war over who can and who can't vote. I'm suggesting ICANN maintain a Certification process that accepts ICANN members~voters only from ISPs that provide a minimum quality of service. I'm suggesting that this include universal email accounts and access to a Community Service Tier. (This should be a near term standard with waivers based on economic hardship considered.) This might require that ICANN tell the dictator in the Land of Oz that, because of the exclusionary access practices of their proposed "Certified ISP", Oz will not be considered as a provider of bona fide voters for the election of ICANN's At Large Governors. Communities claiming bona fide voters without these minimums would be sent a note from ICANN saying: "Sorry, but our standards require universal access to email accounts and a Community Service Tier. Enclosed is a booklet entitled Becoming Part of the Enlightened World which details the steps a community must take to qualify their residents to vote for ICANN's Governors." Interspersed comments follow. JO>At 05:31 22/02/99 -0500, Tom Lowenhaupt wrote: TL>>I created the model because ICANN is looking for a mechanism to TL>>facilitate electing At-Large members to the Board of Governors. The TL >>model provides bona fide voters. TL >>An ICANN link with local governments that certify Internet users is one TL >>way to organize a global voting list. I suspect that a year 2000 TL >>election following the model I outlined would offer hundreds of thousand TL >>bona fide Internet users. TL >>It might not be the final solution but a good second step. JO>Hello Tom, JO>Good thing that you braced yourself. You have obviously given good thought JO>about your model for a cyber-neighbourhood, but the idea of local JO>governments certifying internet users or ICANN voters is probably an JO>afterthought. A bad one, IMHO. I don't see it as a cyber-neighborhood. We're still a bricks, mortar, air, and DNA based community. This cyber stuff is going to help and hurt our efforts to become a great place to live. My hope is more help than hurt. But that's dependent on how we integrate it into the workings of the neighborhood. Good governance mechanisms for the Internet might help. JO>With all due respect, Tom, have you experienced much of the world outside JO>NY City? Shucks no Joop. Rarely been off the block. But I've learned how to read and look at pictures. JO>Not everywhere you find the enlightened attitude that you and perhaps under your JO>guidance, your local community Board, display towards the Net. In many JO>places, on-line gatherings of locals are seen as a threat to the local powers-that-be. Joop, I've been spending too much of my time on these lists lately and have lost track of the pettiness and puffery that exist in the real world. Thanks for reminding me that they still exists "out there". JO>Local Governments in many places are the worst talent-pools of puffed-up JO>bureaucratic self-importance that you can find. Especially in countries JO>where Central Government leaves very little of importance for local JO>government to decide. Determining the appropriate level of government to select the Certified ISP is going to be a bitch. The closer to the people the better in my opinion. ICANN's Government Advisory Committee might have a role for itself here. JO>To give such people the power to certify or to withhold certification to JO>internet users will be abhorrent to all that are familiar with such local JO>councils or their employees. JO>Just think of a municipality somewhere in the Third world, where the son of JO>the mayor runs the only ISP/cybercafe... If the ISP/cybercafI didn't meet the minimums, ICANN would say - SORRY, read the booklet. JO>Why empower unnecessary layers of incompetent (or corrupt, at worst) JO>bureaucracy, when millions of internet users have already certified JO>themselves by registering a Domain Name? Other voter qualification methods might be established as well. Maybe owning a Domain Name is another category of bona fide voters; although property ownership is pretty much scorned in my country as a voter qualification test. JO>--Joop-- JO>http://www.democracy.org.nz/ Sincerely, Tom Lowenhaupt [EMAIL PROTECTED] to: IN:[EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: IN:[EMAIL PROTECTED] IN:[EMAIL PROTECTED]