On "... imploring ALAC to concentrate its comments on those issues with demonstrable effect on end users (abuse, confusion, stability, etc)"
1. I try to be mindful of that what applies to me may not, whether in part or in full, applies to other end-users and vice versa;
We're in agreement here. The difference is that IMO ALAC is not at all mindful of global end users because it really doesn't know what they want. It's making up positions based on guesses and faith and wishful thinking.
I want nothing more than for At-Large to survey the landscape of end users to determine what is important, rather than self-righteously guessing at it. The self-interested, self-selected, time-available people involved in ALAC mostly do not at all understand the needs of those who use the Internet yet will never register a domain and never want to. I fully agree that we need to be aware of what applies to other end-users; however ALAC and ICANN are grotesquely out of touch with what is outside the bubble. Inside we are intimately exposed to all the little politics of who-owns-what or who-deserves-what, issues that outside the bubble are completely irrelevant.
For myself, I have gone out of my way to talk to non-tech-savvy Internet users, including family members, refugees, the generation above me, about what is important for Internet use. Everyone in ALAC needs to do this, you may be surprised by the results.
Yes, ALAC is one of the most geographically diverse parts of ICANN and least conflicted, which is why I still have hope for it. But populated as it is with governance wonks and people experienced in the DNS, it is so massively out of touch with "the billions" as to be incapable of fulfilling its bylaw mandate.
Many people here have asserted that issues such as Applicant Support and geo names affect end users, but those assertions are based on faith, nearly a religion. They have yet to provide a single shred of evidence of end-user relevance beyond gut instinct. Old arguments that suggest that domains can protect necssary privacy, or bring together communities, have proven to be absolute nonsense through the realities of the last decade. Despite a dozen years passing and hundreds of new domains out there, not a single success story exists of how a culture was preserved or a whistleblower was protected because of new TLDs (or because of domains at all).
ALAC needs to be driven by evidence and facts rather than instinctive dogma. Challenge assumptions, most of them are wrong.
- Evan