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ICANN At-Large Results
troyboy writes: "The ICANN election results are up. Go here for the complete results. The North American election went down to two candidates before there was a majority winner: Karl Auerbach." Only for the North American election was the instant run-off system needed; for all other regions there was an immediate majority. Viewing the election results in practice is fascinating and I can't help but wonder how much the U.S. elections would improve if we used a similar system.
A quote from Auerbach's candidate webpage:
"My candidacy is one that is founded on the belief that the Internet should not be controlled and dominated by those who aspire to nothing higher than mass marketing. It is my position that individual people ought to have a major voice in the governance of this revolution we call the Internet."
See also Auerbach's platform.
This is the guy who will be the At-Large rep for North America!
HIS PHOTO
and yes.. Al Gore is 50% in love with Karl Auerbach!
It is great to see that ICANN, despite all its attempts to stack the elections, has still opted for the instant runoff method. This is AFAIK the only method that doesn't force voters to vote 'strategically', basically, to express a preference they don't have just to avoid having their preference ignored altogether. It does not produce cyclical majorities and other oddities that make it easier for incumbents to steal elections legally.
The slow ascent of this election system is good news for democracy, and I really hope that American voters will take notice and start pushing for this system in local, state, and one day even federal elections. Imagine, you will have 10 candidates running for president and all with a real chance to win.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
No, this is not proportional representation. Proportional representation is where various groups (parties) receive a number of seats proportional to their share of the vote. In proportional representation, voters vote for parties rather than individuals. This "instant runoff" system is a way of letting people go with their second (...) choice when their first choice bites the dust.
You know, if it had been a plurality vote, people would have voted differently than they did, and the result could possibly have been an other. In that system, you pretty much have to vote for one of the 2-3 people perceived to have a chance of winning, and we don't know how that would have played out.
As a minor party candidate in a three way race, I have to say that this is not true. A majority of races for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House this year are contested by minor party candidates. And there are well over a thousand minor party candidates in state and local races. We're constantly faced with the "wasted vote" issue.
There are four minor parties running at least a hundred candidates this year: Libertarian (1,420), Green (244), Natural Law (165), and Reform (151). Hardly a two party system.
Jeff Wolfe
After a double-homicide in the quiet suburb of Oak Park, Illinois both residents of the Harry S. Adams House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, were found dead. Police are now suspecting both ICANN candidates Emerson Tiller and Barbara Simons as the murderers. Motive has not been established yet, but these ICANN candidates are still at large and presumably heading towards a trade-show in Indianapolis.
Masanobu Katoh - Stooge of Asian IP. Sony 0w3s her.
Nii Quaynor - I'm desparate. (Sorry, Nii, but it shows)
Andy Mueller-Maguhn - OK, that's really interesting. Maybe Europe isn't as sad as it seems.
Ivan Moura Campos - Shit, she seems a bit cool. And good at what she does.
See? some of it matters. A bit.
I forget what 8 was for.
You *will* make sounder decisions about DNS-related issues when you have gone through the growing pains of setting up, running and securing entire networks like Karl has.
What you and a lot of people do not seem to understand is that ICANN elected members are taking on the role of ARCHITECTS of the internet, not political leaders. They are responsible for building one of the highest levels of Internet Infrastructure. Without the support of leaders possessing strong technical knowledge and vision of DNS, foundations of the internet are bound to CRUMBLE. Then again technical knowledge is not everything, but Karl also has a very strong legal background which makes him an exceptionally well-rounded individual and the most fit for the task.
I voted Karl #1 and am really happy he won.
I also voted for Barbara in second place because I like her thoughts and visions about trademarks and domain names.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
What is interesting about Europe is that we elected a radical democratic with many many more votes before the first commercial representative (from German Telekom, nearly 6000 vs. 990). Andy Müller-Maghun may indeed have a chance to influence ICANNs work in a positive, read: non-restrictive, for free flow of information, way. Let's see if "they" (read: commercial intrests) give him a chance and if he has the power to meet theese high expectations.
You haven't reat at all about ICANN elections, have you? It is pretty hard to write a bot that will register with a realistic name and adress, then fetch snailmail from there to get the PIN code needed for the voting.
I may disagree with your opinion, but I will defend to death your right to speak it.
Since I know Karl, I feel comfortable in saying that HE IS AN AMERICAN!!!
Hoorah for the ICANN election results however there's a patent announcement just posted on the web that looks like it might prevent ICANN from issueing any more TLD's - the organisation has announced that organisations can get eTLD's (as opposed to gTLD's and ccTLD's) from it instead. The crucial news is that it says that under the technology any new TLD that ICANN might try to issue will not work. It's all at www.e2p.com, and as patents have a 20 year monopoly it looks like we'll end up with a million or more new TLD's where we can create our own little piece of technical heaven.
I did get a snail mail letter from them telling me about it, and saying I would hear more from them about registering to vote and how to do that, but that letter never came. I was mildly frustrated at this when they had the vote confirmation period a couple of months ago, and I couldn't confirm my registration. So I ended up not being able to vote in these elections though possibly I was counted in the overall numbers. I'll try and go through the process again for next time. I'd be curious to know how common this kind of situation might have been, and how much it might have contributed to voter turnout, and especially with regards to the folks who registered en masse after seeing the slashdot piece, and I think there might have been a few of us.
My main concern with ICANN is a personal one kind of, which is what they can do about the problem of domain squatting by nonusing registrants, a practice which really limits the domains usable by the public, and annoys me no end in one particular obnoxious case impacting me. (If they were to just put up some nothing pages using Frontpage, or one with a metareferral to another site, I wouldn't mind it quite so much, but when they just hang on to them and you can't even ping it, it makes me a bit mad. And no, I won't say what domain it is, as I am biding my time either for swift action with new TLDs or for their failure to pay up to NSI.)
Ed
I was really pulling for Lawrence Lessig. I didn't know much about the others, but I agree with much of what I've heard from Lessig. I definately feel he's on "our" side.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
To repeat:
* The majority of the public prefers Hsub to Notnilc (55% to 45%), in BOTH cases.
* Whether or not Torep runs has no effect on the actual desires of the voters with regard to the question of whether Hsub is preferable to Notnilc. They ALWAYS prefer Hsub to Notnilc.
* As stated, in BOTH cases Hsub is preferred to Notnilc; however, in only ONE case does Hsub win.
Let's think of it another way. Let's pretend 1% of the US are Nazis, and 99% are Jeffersonians. Let's say someone gets ahold of Thomas Jefferson's DNA, and someone else gets ahold of Hitler's DNA. Jefferson is cloned 5000 times, Hitler is cloned only once. In the next election, all 5000 Jeffersons run against Hitler. Who wins? Let's say that right after Hitler wins, he is challenged to a 1-on-1 election by Jefferson #536. Who wins that?
__
Your point about the dealing in the open vs dealing in the back room is valid. However there is a better way - preferential voting - here the 'deals' are done on your ballot paper as shown by your preferences. Think of preferential voting as voting in reverse. Give you number one to the person you dislike the least and your last number to the person you dislike the most.
I've met Karl at Las Vegas Interop Show. Really knowledgeable, smart, and very low-key type of guy. Nice and friendly too. He was at Multimedia/Multicast interoperability booth. Works for Cisco, but knows different platforms quite well.
Is removing the labels ok? It feels wrong, because we remember the ideologies in the first example, and want to somehow account for the two liberal candidates wearing the same political label. But from an outside viewpoint, it doesn't matter what the particulars of their policies are. The point of the election is to generate consensus whereever possible, minority rights wherever threatened, and majority rule whenever it is needed. If the two 30% candidates can't agree to a common viewpoints, then it doesn't matter what their label is-- they are different political groups. A minor difference is only minor in the eyes of the beholder.
Except for one thing: the fact that two of the candidates share the same ideology means that they are likely to agree on common viewpoints, at least far more so than they would agree with the third candidate.
Despite the trolls, Instant Runoff Voting (IRV, aka Preferential Voting) is generally considered far superior to plurality winner-take-all. In the US, there is no constitutional problem with IRV (in fact, it has been endorsed in a consenting opinion by the Supreme Court, and by figures as diverse as Ralph Nader and Rush Limbaugh).
Due to a recent supreme court decision which invalidated blanket primary systems, the state of WA is revamping its primary system. Instant runoffs, due to their ability to collapse multiple virtual runoffs into a single round, are a cheaper replacement for primaries. It is very possible that the many groups interested in better democracy in WA (the Grange, the League of Women Voters, and the minor parties) will use the citizen interest in this issue to run IRV as a state initiative. If you're interested in this issue, contact me via email (it's not even obscured; leave the cookie in, please, even though I can handle it with or without).
ObOnTopic:
Anyone interested in voting systems should know about Arrow's Theorem, which states that there are no "perfect" ; voting systems. The only way to have a group of people preferentially rank a group of options so
1) new options will fit neatly into the ranking without mixing things up;
2) if everybody agrees on a ranking that ranking is chosen;
and 3) new voters who prefer A to B never cause B to win over A
is to have a dictatorship (ignore all voters except one). My personal choice of "ideal" system is to elect executives via borda selection among the condorcet-winning group. And then a house selected by proportional representation and a senate by approval voting. Hey, a boy can dream.
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
Thanks, I am going to re-educate myself on the subject.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I was pleasantly surprised that the results basically mirrored the candidate ordering from the 'Slashdot slate' that appeared on Thursday. I wonder what percentage of the at-large members are slashdot readers. A fairly good amount from the looks of it. The total number of votes cast was also surprisingly low - anyone know how many at-large members there are?
Why does everybody think we need MORE people voting? In general, I don't like people. I'm glad they aren't voting. Not only is my vote stronger, but the people who are participating feel strongly about it and have probably invested some time making informed decisions.
Someone called "Drooling Dog" said that, with the voting system known as Instant Runoff (aka Preferential Voting, the Alternative Vote, MPV, Hare, etc.), the winner is at least someone acceptable to a majority. Not so. Consider this: 40: ABC 25: B 35: CBA B gets eliminated and A wins, even though a majority have indicated preference for B over A. There's only one sense in which IRV (Instant Runoff) complies with majority rule: After IRV has eliminated everyone except for the last two candidates, then whichever of those is preferred to the other by a majority wins. That, my friend, is a very poor excuse for majority rule. Someone replied: "But I feel it's the voters, not the method, that eliminated B". Yeah? Did that B>A majority want to eliminate B and elect someone whom they consider worse than B? Drooling Dog also said that with IRV you never have to insincerely uprank someone in order to defeat someone worse. Sure you do. Those CBA voters could save themselves from an A victory only by insincerely voting B in 1st place. I've told in other postings why that will be a common, ordinary need. In other words, IRV doesn't get rid of the lesser-of-2-evils problem. In another posting, I also told why Approval does much better in that regard. Approval is the method in which every voter can mark any 1 or more candidates on the ballot, giving each one marked one whole vote. With Approval no one ever has incentive to vote anyone else over their favorite. That can't be said for any other method. I also defined a weaker lesser-of-2-evils criterion called WDSC, and explained that Approval complies with it and IRV fails it. Condorcet, defined at the websites that I've referred to in other postings, meets WDSC and some similar & stronger criteria. The only single winner reform proposal that's widely promoted is IRV. But there are other ones. Some of them are incomparably better than IRV. Approval & Condorcet are the best. Mike Ossipoff
"[D]riving responsibly, parking sensibly, spitting carefully" are not civic duties; they are basic respect for the rights of others. Civic duties are things like compulsory jury duty, compulsory military service, and compulsory voting.
Three theories of the legitimate grounds for the power of the State were propounded in 18th Century England. The first was Hobbes, who held that the State was inherently good and had a right to inflict whatever it wished on its people. The second was Blackstone, who argued that the State should act as an agent of God in forcing people to act as they should, while respecting certain rights granted to them by God. The third was Locke, who claimed that the state had merely the right to prevent people from violating the natural rights of others.
There are two distinguishing features of American law and politics from those of Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand is that the United States. First, while Blackstonian thought became a purely agnostic "society-based" variety in the Commonwealth, religious Blackstonians are still prominent in the United States (in the Republican Party). Second, while Lockean thought was never more than a passing fancy in the Commonwealth, it became rooted in the United States, undergirded our founding documents, and still has political currency.
Frankly, I wish the Big Two Parties would try to impose compulsory voting in the U.S.; the Libertarians would have 30% of the vote and capture 100 Congressional seats in the next election.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
Actually Barbara Simons quoted Karl when she was discussing the issue of TLDs and agreed with him. She was my second choice. Lessig was third.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
For those who think that the US elections should change to this method, it doesn't really matter very much because we operate under a two party system for the most part (with some notable exceptions) and different voting methods only take effect with more than two candidates
It would matter quite a bit because people wouldn't fear throwing their vote away on a third party candidate. That would actually give us a shot at electing a non-republicrat for a change rather than voting for a third-party candidate, thus helping to ensure that the candidate that you want the least gets into office. Democrats fear this effect and many third-party supporters vote democrat rather than green or reform or libertarian, etc, just to try to make sure a republican doesn't get in because the democratic votes got siphoned off by the third party.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
In order of greatest eligible, to least:
Asia/Australia/Pacifica: 38,246 eligible, 17,745 voted, or 46%
Europe: 23,442 eligible, 11,309 voted, 48.2%
North America: 10,632 eligible, 3,449 voted, 32.4%
Latin America/Carribean: 3,548 eligible, 1,402 voted, 39.5%
Africa: 315 eligible, 130 voted, 41%
So, in no case could any of this be said to be representative of a majority.
And, once again, the Seat of Democracy® can't even get a third of eligible voters to vote. Are we bored with democracy, or what?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Although instant runoff may be better than the plurality scheme we have today, it has a number of flaws which can encourage people to "strategize," i.e. vote differently from their actual preferences. (In the U.S. election scheme, voting for a candidate you think has a chance of winning instead of the candidate you like best is a well-known form of strategizing.) Also, instant runoff can eliminate "compromise candidates" who would beat every other candidate in a two-way election despite not having received very many first place votes.
See this page for more information on voting schemes (particularly Condorcet's method) than you probably ever wanted to know.
(If there are a thousand or so election theorists living in exile on an island, and they need to elect a leader, and there are several strong candidates, and each theorist has a preference ranking of the candidates, and each theorist also has a preference ranking of the various possible voting schemes, what's the best way to choose the leader?)
Well now.
The US has a reasonably well-deregulated telecommunications and internet business. However, the second-biggest Internet market, in Europe, is still dominated by former state monopolies, lack of local flat rate phone fees, badly-developed net infrastructures, and general exploitation of customers.
And into this environment, Andy Mueller-Maguhn was elected 'Region 2 Director for Europe'. Yes, Andy Mueller-Maguhn. The former head of the German Chaos Computer Club, a team regularly posting information about cracking phone cards, cable TV decoders, and computer security information. They're the German '2600' equivalent, reviled and detested by state institutions, telecomms companies, etc. They're the rebels of the underground.
And now their former head is the Director of the European division of ICANN. Imagine Eric Corley (Emmanuel Goldstein) being the head of the US ICANN. Now imagine what important aspect this brings to ICANN in Europe.
Or, to quote Homer Simpson: Woohooo!
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I'm not sure what that's an example of. At the page linked, they have a situation where a slight plurality prefers milk, and a majority prefers one of two alcoholic beverages, with their vote split between the two. Under the instant run-off, one of the alcoholic beverages wins rather than the milk. So? That's a not a paradox, that's the system working properly!
A clearer example: let's say that there are two liberal candidates and one conservative candidate in an election. And let's say that the population is 60% liberal and 40% conservative. The "correct" result with a 60/40 population is that they should elect a liberal candidate to represent them, right? Well, with the U.S.'s current system, they might get a conservative: vote ends up 30%/30%/40%, and the conservative wins. Under the instant run-off, they'll get one of the liberal candidates, the "correct" choice - in other words they aren't penalized for having more than one candidate, and they can express a preference between the two without fear.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
First you need someone worth voting for. Here's to the end of choosing the lesser of two evils.
Nate Baxley
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Quoth Michael:
Yeah, good thinking there, Michael! The U.S. elections would be much better if they were conducted like ICANN elections. I'd love it if the majority of members of Congress were chosen by an unrepresentative group rather than by public election, and the only voice we got was one token member from each region of the country. It'd be even better if there were completely unreasonable barriers to participation in the process, and election "rules" that change at a moment's notice based on whether or not said unrepresentative group feels that an election might go its way or not. That sounds GREAT!
In all seriousness, it's good to see that at least some people at ICANN will have a clue now. I just hope that they move towards greater transparency and participation so that we don't see a repeat of this year's election fiasco ever again.
Read my blog.
I wonder if Michael actually participated in this election. I have a hard time thinking that anyone would want to make more elections work like the ICANN ones. Do you really want to present a pin number from a snail letter, two pieces of email, and the entrails of a chicken just to vote? (OK, I made up the part about the chicken).
I actually went through all the hoops to become an at large member of ICANN and it seems to me like they consciously made it as difficult to vote as possible. I think Auerbach even alluded to this in his platform. It would have been easier to win a government contract than vote in this thing!
The worst part of all is that, after having jumped through all the hoops, I had a project due and didn't make the time to vote.
So far, all ICANN has deomonstrated that it can quickly attract a bureaucracy and grind on interminably. Jon Postel, one man IANA, we miss you more than ever.
I think that by grouping the two alcoholic beverages together you are missing the point of the example. There doesn't have to be any connection between the two lowest ranked candidates.
The basic problem is that in an election with 3 candidates (A, B, and C), A can be the winner under strict plurality, B can be the winner under plurality with elimination, but C will beat either A or B in a head-to-head election.
In other words, the voting procedure can have as big an influence on the winner as the voters' preferences! There is a large body of work in voting theory that studies why different procedures give different results.
On a slightly related note, the reason why we only have two "real" choices for president in the US is that our method of voting reinforces the two party system. If we could specify our second (and third and fourth) preferences and these preferences had some impact on the election, then people wouldn't feel like they were throwing their vote away and we could avoid the "a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" syndrome.
Perhaps more significant than the fact that Karl won is that Harris Miller got the lowest votes in the North American at-large contest--Miller was the only one of those candidates who supported strong intellectual property, commercial, interests in ICANN. The other candidates, including Karl, all expressed more or less the same ideas--that ICANN should restrict itself to technical rules, not policy that is intended to enforce legal matters such as trademarks in domain names.
But all of the candidates did remark that commercial interests still dominate the entire ICANN board. So we are now counting on Karl to to mobilize us users against those commercial interests when they seek to use ICANN wrongly. (Karl does note he works for Cisco, so we ought to hold him to his effort to be independent of even his boss.)
For that reason Slashdot ought to allow Karl some space here to solicit feedback from users and let us know what is happening in ICANN. Good idea, Wellspring!
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the run-off is that it didn't matter. Contestants were eliminated in the same order as the votes in the first round. It could have been a plurality vote and it wouldn't have mattered.
If Anonymous Coward was removed from the options for posting a reply?
Anyway. A similar system of elections is used in the States. They're called Primaries. One of the few ideas from our neighbours to the South (Yes, I'm Canadian, and No, I don't live in an Igloo) that I respect.
What I would like to see is an Australian-type system of politics: Have a primary election in which all but two candidates are eliminated, and then a secondary election. Would eliminate most of the BS that passes for government around here.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
at-b on the CCC:
They're the German '2600' equivalent, reviled and detested by state institutions, telecomms companies, etc. They're the rebels of the underground.
I'd suggest you have a look at Andy's schedule which is online. There, you'll find information about events at banks, political parties (and their associated foundations), federal ministries, and the like.
In short: This isn't the 80s any more. The myth may still be alive, but ...
Actually internet elections has allready found place. One american state (was is Florida?) has allready made it possible to vote in their state elections by using the net. :)
Improvement? Well it remains to see doesnt it
For real elections you need much better security than the internet can provide, its easy enough to stuff ballot boxes as it is. Just imagine if it could be done with bots.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
I like how North America Got A Cryptic Chart
chart
while everyone else got gimpy ones.
I feel sorry for the Popov guy, sorry he didn't get that many votes cause i sure love his cheap vodka.
There is some excellent background info about Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation systems of voting at http://www.fairvote.org/.
I still don't know what was the "Arrow" criterion that Homunculus said that Approval fails.
In my previous posting, I asked Homunc for the name of the criterion to which he refers, and a precise definition of it.
That isn't really a lot to ask. Without an answer on that, Homunc's claim about a criterion failure for Approval means nothing.
How convenient, to make a claim that you can't support, and say that you won't read the thread again. That way you try to avoid responsibility to explain or justify your claim. No, I'm sorry, but an unjustified claim remains unjustified when the person who made the claim runs to evade questions about his claim.
Humunc, when referring to that "criterion" said something about a voting system getting the right answer when everyone agrees. There's one Arrow criterion about everyone agreeing: The Pareto Criterion.
Pareto says that a voting system should never choose an alternative if another altenative is voted over it by everyone.
That's the neares that any actual Arrow criterion comes to what Homunc said.
Approval complies with the Pareto Criterion.
Homunc was being incomprehensibly vague when he alluded to some unspecified criterion that Approval fails. He didn't say anything.
Homunc said that Approval will cause people to go with the flow, and vote for the more publicized candidate (like Gore instead of Nader), where IRV wouldn't.
First, in Approval, you never have to vote for anyone instead of anyone. If you vote for Gore, you can vote for Nader too.
Homunc thinks that, with IRV, you can safely rank sincerely. I thought I'd clarified that a long time ago. If in IRV you vote Nader in 1st place, and Gore in 2nd place, Nader might get enough votes to eliminate Gore. Nader might then lose to Bush. No that isn't contrived or far-fetched. In my previous posting I described two common, ordinary situations where that can happen and where the voter has incentive to vote a lesser-evil over his favorite.
Homunc: I tried to write to you by individual e-mail, but your e-mail address didn' work. I feel it was reasonable to reply to your posted claims via a posting.
Mike Ossipoff
WTF? There are great candidates on Argentina and Chile too. Go spam somewhere else.
Be happy. The country that invented the internet could also ruin it. Be glad you did not get some kind of MicroSoft stooge that would fragment the largest part of the net.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The easy way to do that is to do what we do in Australia: compulsory voting for all elegible voters. At least that way the results are somewhat valid... though you still get the problem that we currrently have insasmuch as the party with the most votes at the last election did not win a lower house majority so we're still stuck wit that little monkey John Howard for a prime minister...
Where's my shotgun?
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
US voting system could certainly need an inprovement but saying it would improve so considerably by changing it is another issue. First you need to get people to vote, more than 50% of the eligable voters at least. -r
I'm pleased with Auerbach's ideology too, and I think it's good that he won, but it's been pointed out to me that he is so radical, calling for such drastic changes in the makeup et c. of ICANN ("so-and-so MUST GO!" [see his platform]), that he may not be able to get any of it done.
As a lower post with some election statistics showed, in Asia/Pacific, Africa, and South America, ICANN-nominated members got most of the votes. Will Karl be able to work effectively with the rest of ICANN, or will he be too idealistic?
-------------------- the list is long. dirac angestung gesept
But for the rest of us, here's the other winners and their profile pages:
Masanobu Katoh - Asia/Australia/Pacific
Nii Quaynor - Africa
Andy Mueller-Maguhn - Europe
Ivan Moura Campos - Latin America and Caribbean
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
What the hell, I did look it in a book called, "Archi med es' Revenge" written by Paul Hoffman in 1988
In that book he devotes a chapter to the mathematics of voting. He constructed an example to show that if one candidate actually increases his popularity in the polls, it would cause him to lose an election using the "Plurality with Elimination" scheme.
This shows an example of the paradox in action.
--R
Shit, she seems a bit cool. And good at what she does
Ivan was/is one of the most influent government officials in Brazil, specially in Computer/Internet/Telecom related issues. He was also a important player in defining the structure of the Internet in Brazil. He is indeed good at what he does, and was by a large margin the best canditate for the Latin America zone.
Be sure to read Curtis Ganz' testimony before you make up your mind that direct elections are more desirable. If you feel that minority opinions are too easily ignored now, or that the "tyranny of the majority" is something genuinely worth worrying about (as did the Founders when they wrote the Bill of Rights), direct winner-take-all elections aren't the way to go. They sound good, because simple, but in this case they are (to quote Mencken), the solution that's "simple, neat, and wrong."
I'm glad Andy Mueller-Maguhn won the European election - nothing quite like a CCC member to kick some greedy corporate asses :)
I say, boycott AOL in all its forms, hack AIM and ICQ, and cut up your aol50 discs/coasters!
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
ok.. so let's put blue text on a blue background. It's even better than the infamous black text on dark blue background.
fscking morons.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
What surprised and amused me is the strength of Europe (and in there Germany) during the elections. The two candidates of Europe with the most votes both come from Germany. And the Germans made up most of the eligible European voters.
Europe proved to be much more involved in the process than North America. This is although the US defines itself as the place where the internet happens (and loves to think of itself as the worlds best democracy).
I'd like to see the per capita figure of voters for each country in order to find out which country has the most active online community. My guess would be that Europe has been underestimated in the past.
The reason ICANN elections are not PR is not that they use preferential voting but that they only have one seat per electorate.
See article bottom of page, America Ready for Third Ketchup Brand . How about that?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
and presumably abulafia is a troll.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
hardly smacks of seriousness.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Americans should remember that they don't live in a democracy.
On the other hand, maybe the electorate could include "Cyberspace" as a state. No wait, Cyberspace doesn't pay taxes...
I think this ought to be interesting. Auerbach has been very critical of the ICANN since it's inception. He has some good ideas about how to make the domain system more democratic (like having one or more TLD where trademark holders do not get first pick). It will be good to have someone on the board who represents something besides the corporate interest.
Not only that, but Karl was one of only three member-nominated candidates on the North American ballot. The other four candidates were nominated by the existing memebers of the ICANN board. I'm glad that people decided to thumb their noses at the board's attempt to stack the election with people friendly to their agendas. It ought to send them at least a small message (not that they will care).
Speaking of the U.S. elections (which the article mentioned, please don't mod me down for being off-topic), here is a recent article at policy.com that discusses getting rid of the Electoral College and replacing it with a direct popular vote. It discusses historical reasons for the creation of the current system, and provides some interesting links at the bottom.
Free Hans!
Well, I for one wasn't able to vote, even after going through the hoops to get access to voting.. seems their system for determining voter location was flawed, I was only able to vote on african elections?!!! even though I clearly reg'd as an american - even received my pin in the mail..but several crys for help via email fell on deaf ears.. wonder how many others were locked out of their rightful votes?
Region's Total votes 130
% of World Total 00.4%
Votes for ICANN Nominated Candidates 100 ( 88%)
Latin America
Region's Total votes: 1,402
% of World Total: 04.1%
Votes for ICANN Nominated Candidates 1,166 (83%)
North America*
Region's Total votes: 3,449
% of World Total: 10.1%
Votes for ICANN Nominated Candidates 1,114 (32%)
* - N.A. counts 1st choice votes only. Note also that if one counts the three candidates who expressed the most doubts about ICANN (Lessig, Simons, Auerbach), they got about 75% of first round choices.
Europe
Region's Total votes: 11,309
% of World Total 33.2%
Votes for ICANN Nominated Candidates 3,066 (27%)
Asia
Region's Total votes: 17,745
% of World Total 52.1%
Votes for ICANN Nominated Candidates 16,996 (95%)
Comments:
Participation rates did not correlate well with what I'd guess numbers of hosts or estimated numbers of users are, except arguably at the low end.
Five regions fell into three groups:
I have a blog.
As one might say, that happened, but you can't prove it happens every time nor whether it will happen again. There is therefore no justification for the equivalence.
:)
What you should observe, however, is that in every stage but the 3rd, Barbara Simons attracted more 2nd, 3rd, etc place votes than Karl Auerbach. He still won on the strength of his no.1 ballot. One could draw the conjecture that Simons had broader but weaker support than Auerbach.
This is obviously not a true run-off system in that a recast with the additional information (who won, and by what margin). Consider political conventions in most nations (no, not the US). It's truly rare for a candidate to win on the first ballot, and significant horse-trading does take place between ballots. This horse-trading and positioning is a valuable feature of the run-off election in politics. I'm not sure what difference it would make for the ICANN Member-at-large, though.
--
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There is no premature anti-fascism. -Ernest Hemingway
>The winner will either be Al Gore or George Bush, >period. Nader has zero chance. Buchanan has
> zero chance.
by voting only for people who have a chance of winning, you insure that people you would like to see winning will never have a chance. Bore and Gush are a product of this logic. New parties come up and change the status quo only because people are ready to fight losing battles.
Look around the world: It was the second general uprising, not the first, that ousted Milosovic in Belgrade. The Palestinians are now in the midst of their second intifada. They are losing, but as long as they are ready to keep losing, they will win eventually.
If you think Nader's a good platform, please overcome your desire to save calories and vote for him. It's a cause worth losing, and one day you will be proud of yourself.
-- look, cheese ahoy!
I am very happy that Karl won. One thing we need to remember, though, is that he is only one voice in the board. We all need to be ready to help him if he is going to get stuff done on the board.
Rob, Jeff: what are the odds of getting an interview with him? He was basically /.'s pick!
>No, shithead, they really have no chance.
First, let me thank your for your excessive politeness. I am humbled, you must be a really nice person.
On the other hand, learning to read might, perhaps, help you. 0.Where did I say they had a chance?
-- look, cheese ahoy!
He is in the EFF. He has been instrumental leading the fight for rational rules and the rights that most slashdotters care about so much. I think this was a real opportunity for slashdotters to have made an impact on the future of technology policy, and thank you to those of you who did participate, and those of you who didn't have nobody but yourselves to blame if we continue to slide into a Big Brother dystopia.
The result is that the winner is at least the most tolerable to the majority of voters. You never have to vote for someone you don't like to prevent someone you like even less from winning. E.g., you can vote for Nader without hurting Gore, or for Buchanan without hurting Bush, etc...
I read through Karl's policy statement on his website and a couple things made me wonder if he understands the full set of tradeoffs involved.
He did a fine job of explaining why the technical stability of the name system is not a significant problem that should inhibit change, but I kept wondering if by "stability", the ICANN traditionalists were concerned with non-technical stability issues that were at stake, such as stability of brand name and trademark recognition online. Isn't that the heart of the issue? Is anyone really arguing about name system uptime?
I think the ability of big companies to squash any use of any particular brandname or trademark they come up with should be limited, but I don't think that companies and their trademarks, whether "McDonalds" or "Slashdot," should be without protection from looter/moocher types who attempt to register recognized names under other global TLDs, whether ICANN adds 20 more or 20,000 more. I know that aspects of this problem are dealt with in current ICANN policies, albeit not fully satisfactorily, but in my limited examination of Karl's writings, I haven't seen Karl articulate that he either recognizes this issue or has a balanced solution in mind. Corrections or pointers welcome.
--LP
(This is not an attack on Karl. This is an attempt to point out an issue of concern and ask for informational pointers or responses.)
Hear, hear, Throw Away Account. An excellent lesson and prediction. :-)
Try out Phorecast, open-source email, calendar,
An anonymous coward referring to himself as Shithead said that Nader really does have no chance. If that's true, it's only because of all the people preferring Nader to Gore won't vote for Nader because they believe that Nader has no chance. Do you see the magnificant irony there? (Not you, annonymous coward; I don't suppose you would). I have yet to find one person who is voting for Gore instead of Nader because he/she likes Gore better than Nader. They always say they like Nader better, but are voting for Gore because Nader can't win. Wrong. If everyone who preferred Nader to Bush voted honestly, Nader just might win. In general, we hear everyone express disgust and dismay about the lousy two choices that we have. Hey--doesn't it occur to anyone that if none of us like those "two choices", then maybe they aren't really the only two choices?? Mike
I agree. This is definitely the best thing that has happened to the politics of the Internet for quite awhile. I also voted Karl #1, and am quite happy now.
How did the other candidates even think they could handle the job properly without even understanding DNS completely. Do you think that if General Motors was hiring a new CEO they would pick someone that didn't understand how thier product works? I doubt it.
It seems quite amazing to me that some of these people even applied. good to see a geek made it =)
People see the world as they are, not as it is.
Not only does he have a good grasp of the technical issues, but he is also a lawyer, and very knowledgable about intellectual property, too. So, when he starts talking about curbing corporate interests and cutting back on trademark holder rights, the other board members won't be able to just dismiss him as a crank who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Free Hans!