Good enough, If there is ANYBODY in the NARALO that DOESN'T want Jeff Williams moderated, please speak up. If you don't, he absolutely will be moderated due to his personal attacks, cross posting and other un-professional behaviour. For more information on this non-person, see my ALAC posting on him or post to me directly for more information. Darlene ________________________________ From: na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org on behalf of Jeffrey A. Williams Sent: Thu 4/17/2008 5:35 PM To: Evan Leibovitch; Jeanette Hofmann; steve@shinkuro.com; ssac@icann.org; info@us-cert.gov Cc: hdierker2204@yahoo.com; alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org; aheineman@ntia.doc.gov; board-review-tor@icann.org; dominik.filipp@dsoft.sk; twomey@icann.org; jeffrey@icann.org; na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Individual users and ALAC Evan, Jeanette and all, Jeanette, I an our members largely share you concerns. And of late the NARALO, EURALO, and this global ALAC list have seemingly sought to thwart public participation which is one of several reasons the silent majority to which Evan speaks to, fears to participate actively. I myself have been "Moderated" largely due to a decided lack of interest by others whom control these ALSes public input mechanisms, yet as spokesman for a fair number of users all of whom are also registrants, but yet share significantly the concerns of interests in issues that effect them directly or indirectly. Such is an example of perhaps why individual users are so reluctant, be they silent not due to choice, but due to fear of repudiation, ridicule, or other much more hazardous reprocutions that may be personally damaging and long lasting. As such, other non-ICANN NNW's have formed starting in 2001, such as http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/ecm292/2008/02/26/nnwkaa-30/ that are decidedly taking things into their own hands with the supprot of other government agencies such as DHS so that some of these concerns can be heard, addressed, and hopefully resolutions effected rather than endlessly discussed amongst a "Chosen" few, decided by that same "Chosen few", and rarely a effective resolution effected, such as Whois privacy, access, and accuracy, phishing, spam, and proliferation of child poronography. Many of these problems have their roots in DNS itself, others are more complicated and complex in nature but almost always revolve around security aspects, or lack there of, imposed or not yet effected by both government and private sector actors, yet with known methods or correction, by such as Google, Wikipedia, registries and registrats, ISP's, IAP's, and other Internet service providers/ecommerce companies of various sorts. Some good examples of the danger that some of these "Chosen few" have already exposed you to are evident in their DNS configurations such as ICANN.ORG, telly.org, which is Evans domain, IETF.ORG, franceatlarge.org, and recently, alvestrand.no whom is taking submittions for their online forum WG if IDN's. http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=telly.org&token=2510766954... http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=ietf.org&token=06706b9b195... http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=franceatlarge.org&token=07... http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=alvestrand.no&token=07e032... And these are just a few or the tip or the huge iceburg, so to speak... -----Original Message-----
From: Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> Sent: Apr 17, 2008 11:35 AM To: Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette@wzb.eu> Cc: alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org Subject: [At-Large] Individual users and ALAC
Hello, Jeanette.
What still amazes me though is that the At Large Membership doesn't provide "a home" for individual Internet users. No doubt, they are affected by ICANN's policies but they have no direct means to articulate their interests and concerns, unless they join an ALS, of course. Now doubt also, individual users form a large group out there on the net. Do you all regard this as a blind spot of ICANN structures and processes? Do you think things will stay like this or do you expect them to change some time in the future? Speaking personally and not in my capacity as NARALO Chair:
I agree fully and passionately with the ICANN _intent_ behind At-Large, which is to try to extract the view of the general public on its issues. So far it has heard from vested interests (the business, IP, registry and registrar communities) as well as those who are paid full time to think about policy (GAC, NCUC). At-Large is none of that; while I believe that the "public interest" is the single most important constituency within ICANN, determining what is the public interest is a HUGE challenge that At-Large has tried to do. Small steps have been taken but far more lies ahead.
So far, all the individuals who I have seen become involved in At-Large are dedicated to knowing the issues, good at analysis, passionate about policy, and vocal with their opinions.
In other words, they have nothing in common with the general public At Large.
You only see them as a "large group" because they are the ones already in front of you, shouting. The silent disinterested ones, the challenges that we must reach, outnumber the current loud independents by hundreds of thousands to one.
The "independent users" are critical in policy building and opinion-shaping, but they do not themselves resemble the great disinterested masses that ICANN is trying to reach. These people _should_ be in leadership or advocacy efforts within larger groups in order to help achieve ICANN's mandate and affect / survey the greatest number of public opinions. Having them sit as independents is IMO a substantial waste of their talent. For this reason, I appreciate measures that discourage independent participation and encourage individuals to join (or create!) ALSs that can share their skill and passion with a wider audience. (NOTE: I said discourage, not disallow).
There are certainly many existing organizations that SHOULD be ALSs but have neither the awareness or passion to be involved. The right person within those orgs could easily change that situation and our individual members are perfect candidates. Economies of scale -- in terms of volunteer person-hours even more than money -- suggest that we need more ALSs reaching the disinterested far more than we need to encourage the growth of "audiences of one".
I can say more, but I need to go out. I hope you're not sorry that you asked. ;-)
- Evan
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