I’m running for the CIRA Board of Directors again this year. CIRA has drastically changed its bylaws to prevent the sort of irregularities that cost me the nomination last year. I’m really hoping that I can get re-elected so that I can pick up the work that I left mid-stream when I was defeated last year.

I would really appreciate your support if you are a CIRA member. You can cast your vote at the CIRA election web site. Please let me know if you have any questions about the process.

My platform is very straightforward – I’m looking to reform the membership structure to ensure that CIRA’s members (dotCA name-holders) have a direct say in the creation of CIRA’s policies. Right now, CIRA’s membership really only gets to provide input after a series of policy drafts have been created by CIRA’s staff or consultants. Involvement comes at a fairly late stage and I’m really hoping to change this for the better by having CIRA’s members involved up front.

I’m a pro-privacy candidate, which is evidenced by my support for the Whois policy reform that is finally coming to fruition. There are no strong reasons for registrant data to be displayed publicly – I’m really happy that CIRA is implementing such a strong set of privacy oriented policies.

I’m also very interested in making sure that the Board focuses on its primary responsibility of managing CIRA’s overall strategy. In my experience, the Board has had a tendency of getting too involved in the mechanics and tactics of the organisation and I would like to change this.

I am also hoping to take a different approach to pricing in the dotCA namespace. Every year the Board has a discussion of what the price ought to be, and most years the price for a registration decreases. And then, at the end of the year, CIRA ends up putting a whole bunch of money in the bank. I think that its time to start pricing dotCA registrations based on what CIRAs budget is. This might mean that the price will float from year to year, but it would also mean that Canadians are paying a fair and realistic price for dotCA registrations, instead of paying based on what the Board’s best guess is.

The good folks over at OneDegree did a quick interview with me earlier this week about my candidacy – you can view it here. Also, you can view my candidates statement here.

Thanks in advance for your support!