Not being aan ICANN historian, I can't say what happened in 2000, 2001, 2002 or 2003. What I can say is that in my part of the world (the Caribbean) - the Internet is a recent phenomenon. We're still working on access and education. We finally have a small core of people interested and willing to participate. A lot of the new ALSes are groups of individuals who are now getting into this previously "closed" club. It's unfair to blame them for years of non-comments when many of them have been ALSes for only 2 or 3 months. They also cannot be expected to comment on policies that we haven't educated them about.

What IMO would be more useful from the "old-timers" is posts to the list that explain the policy issues that need input from the groups that are now getting involved.

For example, a post that explains the issues surrounding whois and that starts a discussion about how they might affect individual users will certainly get responses. There should be posts that start discussion around the issues and then out of those discussions, positions and comments will arise.

And I agree with Alan here - this is the model that ICANN is putting resources towards. If we work to get people involved and show that the RALOs are interested and able, we show that individual users are valuable. And then the at large can push for greater power within ICANN. I think that demanding Board seats without having done anything to "earn" them in many years is putting the cart before the horse.

I disagree to some extent with Jeanette - I think it's more bottom-up to start from regional activity and move to global activity. (Not to mention much easier to do outreach and education)

So the challenge is - how to educate those who are interested but may not know about the policy processes and how do we get comments out of the regions and up to ICANN. After that - it's up to us again to make sure that ICANN takes the comments and inputs into consideration.

I'd love the conversation to stop looking backwards with anger and regret and look to the future that seems brighter (at least judging by the number of applications that have been coming in in the last year).

Please start being productive and helping the individual users get involved in the process that exists and that is being funded, instead of trying to change the entire process that a few dislike. According to the number of groups joining - not everyone hates it.

My 2 cents.

Jacqueline

Quoting Alan Levin <alan@futureperfect.co.za>:

> Hi,
>
> On 07 Feb 2007, at 11:05 PM, Patrick Vande Walle wrote:
>> Danny Younger said the following on 07/02/07 21:23:
>>> We have been pursuing this experiment for four long years during
>>> which time the DNS policy-related contributions offered by the ALS
>>> organizations has been almost nil.
>
>> There seems to be a willingess from ICANN to go forward with the
>> ALAC and RALOs. ICANN has assigned a budget for this. There are new
>> mailing lists, wikis and most importantly staff dedicated to bring
>> this all together. I still believe something useful can come of out
>> this.
>
> I'm very encouraged by all the new efforts of ICANN. There is no
> doubt that by having more ALS's we have a greater potential. Whilst
> we have yet to see the outcomes - and we know that some ALS's will be
> more active than others - the momentum has picked up. We have lists
> (and many websites), we have a RALO and others close to
> establishment. I am the first to admit that I was not in favor of
> this model, but it is OUR opportunity to show that AL is a force. And
> we now need to work with what we have, if ICANN is pumping resources
> into this, we need to show them results. It's up to us to make sure
> that there are comments and inputs into the policy discussions. Not
> an easy job (I mean it's easy for us to comment, it's not so easy for
> us to ensure the ALS constituencies do).
>
> May the force be with you!
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Alan
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> Alan Levin
> Tel: +27 21 409-7997
>
>
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>
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--
Jacqueline A. Morris
www.jacquelinemorris.com