Hi Evan I appreciate the +ve direction this is taking. Will think on your suggestions and revert ASAP Jacqueline Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device available from bmobile. -----Original Message----- From: Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:03:02 To: At-Large Worldwide<at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [At-Large] (not really about) Travel Funding Joe Baptista wrote:
I got your point. And agree with it. But your insights will not alter the cultural differences discussed here. North Americans and Europeans are not going to change their ways because of a few cultural insights or complaints.
Much simpler for those cultures to develop a thick skinned approach to debate.
ICANN is not, on its own, going to solve the global cultural gaps between global cultures. Requiring people to get used to rudeness and personal attack simply in order to usefully participate here is, to me, the status quo... and it is unacceptable. It simply results in people staying away. One fundamental principle of At-Large -- which, I personally find differentiates it from NCUC -- is that ICANN needs the ALSs more than the ALSs need ICANN. At-Large is not designed to be filled with Internet experts and advocates, that does not accurately represent the public at large. The public, generally, knows little that ICANN exists and even less how it works. So for At-Large to really reach its potential, it needs to convince members of the public to care enough to get involved. And, globally, you don't convince people to participate in what you're doing by forcing them to totally change their ways of communications to suit you. Folks like Karl and Danny and Joe and Milton will forever hover around ICANN, regardless of what methods it uses to relate to the public. Whether or not there are direct public Board elections, or At-Large as we know it, or an Office of Public Participation, or something else, they'll be here. ICANN need do *nothing* to solicit their advice, it'll come anyway. The challenge for ICANN, and the reason I think that the design of At-Large is ingenious, is that ICANN knows that hearing from the unsolicited "experts" is not nearly enough; it must attract the voice of those who are otherwise disinterested. Danny frequently complains that At-Large does this by bribing people with travel -- the original reason for this thread. To me, the act of transporting At-Large people to each ICANN meeting is the bare minimum that ICANN must do to understand the needs and problems of the Internet-using public who are not already Internet governance groupies. That these people get -- maybe -- a half-day of tourism (out of nine days of airport queues and hotel conference rooms) is hardly compensation for the huge amount of work involved and the benefit ICANN derives. And, as many have put forward, funding travel but starving research and outreach is not a recipe for success. But that's enough amateur anthropology. I need to take my own advice, that conversations here need to be forward thinking and positive. Is there anything here that we in At-Large can do to address this? Every option I can think of has drawbacks, but at least offers some improvement over the status quo. One possible option is having dual At-Large mailing lists, along with a small group of "ambassadors" who copy ideas and opinions between them in a style appropriate for the target audience. One list would have an extremely low tolerance for aggressive speech and personal attack, and another would have no limits at all (except slander laws). Those who want unfettered free speech would have it, along with an audience that is comfortable with it. And those who want a gentler, friendlier area would also have it, with small committee of admins rejecting inappropriate posts and a published set of rejection criteria. I suspect that some (myself included) may be comfortable with both lists, but most would gravitate to one or the other. If Joe is right, and some North American and European speakers cannot control their aggression, they will still have their outlet -- but not all who wish to participate in ICANN will be required to be exposed to it. Perhaps there are other solutions people may want to offer to address some of the other cultural challenges. Perhaps, to address the shyness of people in talking to strangers, we should encourage more individual participants to post introductions to themselves at the ICANN website. The ICANNWiki site personal profiles seems to look more like professional resumes; I am thinking of something on a more personal level -- an introduction that may make people more confortable in starting a conversation with you. I will be the first to admit that these proposals have flaws, but I cannot myself think of a different solution that will preserve free speech while offering a sheltered area to those who are uncomfortable with the, shall we say,"freeist" speech. If others have ideas I would really like to hear them. The small but important goal here is to encourage the maximum possible people and groups to engage within ICANN in a way they find comfortable. Even the Internet governance groupies. :-) - Evan _______________________________________________ At-Large mailing list At-Large@atlarge-lists.icann.org http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann... At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org