I fully agree. Let's make progress but use lessong learned from the past. Randy Glass A@L On 4/11/07, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> wrote:
The newcomers to the process are seemingly unaware of the rights that have been taken away from our community and are willing to go along with anything that has been put together by ICANN Staff and ICANN insiders. It's not their fault; they simply don't know the history, and being good-spirited they want to help out in any way that they can.
As one of the newcomers, I can say one thing for certain; it's all so very headache-inducing.
On one hand: I'm tired of repeated commentaries on the evil ICANN staff conspiracy to disenfranchise everyone outside of three people named George.
On the other hand: ICANN itself, through a combination of action and inaction, has given plenty of credibilty to the accusations. And the end result is a lot of zero.
IMO this isn't about being good spirited, it's about being patient in the hope that sooner or later there'll actually be a policy to be debated. The vast majority of the discussion on these lists so far has been about meetings to determine _structure_. Even these meetings don't appear to have on their plate anything actually policy-related.
When Jacob 'recruited' our group last year, attendees at the meeting were asked about issues that were important. Things such as domain kiting and the triple-x TLD were at the top of the list. And yet... while the rejection of XXX has been all over the news, the issue never came up on these lists. I'd told my group's constitutents last year that we were part of the advisory process, yet I can't even say that we were informed of the decision before the media was, on an issue of widespread public interest.
MEANWHILE... we haven't made the EXISTING structure work -- yet people are talking about creating additional, non-geographic RALOs? Does anyone else here understand how absolutely insane this appears to those without the historical baggage?
Part of our job is to educate them about their second-class status within ICANN, about their lack of voting rights, about their lack of control over a budget, about their lack of representation, about the degree to which their input has been ignored over and over again.
If that's the case, what the heck are you doing here? What am I doing here? Don't we have better things to do than bang heads into brick walls? If I want to be told what I don't have, I only need to ask my wife.
I have two pleas to the folks involved in this process:
ICANN staff: Live up to the promises Jacob made to us last year, that we would be genuinely engaged and consulted on ICANN issues. Frankly I couldn't care less about the structure -- geographic, linguistic, or based on tarot cards -- but come up with something that prioritizes efficient knowledge transfer. The best way to address the complaints is with utter clarity and openness; let people know exactly what this process offers and what it doesn't. All the structure, recognition, and airline pretzels are pointless if the POV of ALSs is not meaningfully expressed -- and addressed -- on ALL relevant issues. If this isn't possible or desired then please stop wasting my time. And don't assume silence means consent, sometimes it just means the situation is too confused for an informed response.
Angry old-timers: If you're indeed correct about ICANN being opaque and impervious to comment, stop encouraging that behaviour by spending so much time on complaining and wheel-spinning -- because in the meantime real policy discussion CAN'T take place, and the targets of your ire aren't listening. Clarity in the objections is also sorely lacking -- concentrate on the gaps between what exists and what was formally committed. Help us know factually what ICANN won't tell us directly while working within the procss that exists, and let us make our own minds up rather than being indignant on our behalf. If the current process is pointless, let's change it with concrete alternatives whose development doesn't get mixed in with ICANN policy debate. Otherwise, our mandate is better served by getting out and going public.
Obviously there are many with deep investments -- of time, effort and emotions -- in this process. I certainly don't mean to insult anyone individually, but I make no apologies for my exhaustion from a mix of bureaucratic bafflegab and petty scoldings.
- Evan
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