Needless to say I'm glad to hear there is a lot of activity going on one-on-one or the like, however as most of you activists are well- aware, if your perspective isn't made public as part of public comment periods etc., then your views cannot be accomodated because they aren't visible. The RALO Secretariats are concentrating as one of their main areas of work in LA on the question of how to get more of the individual Internet user perspective injected into ICANN's consultation processes and FWIW this is I think something that will be very valuable. It is one thing for me to advocate for more information of one kind or another, interpretation of meetings and translation of documents, and quite another for the community to work together, and with the staff, to reinforce these points and raise entirely new ones and to work concertedly to design consultation mechanisms which make input for more concerned users easier. On 24 Sep 2007, at 18:21, Wendy Seltzer wrote:
Thanks Darlene,
This is very frustrating. I'm sorry Nick hasn't seen the activity, but I've seen plenty of discussion in places like individual emails and skype chats. Is there a
As I understand it, in-person meetings are proposed to educate people who haven't yet realized why they should be involved with ICANN at-large, but whose interests are very much those ICANN is supposed to help safeguard; and to help consolidate viewpoints and open questions among groups that may have very different primary interests.
Despite great thanks to the work Kieren has done to help make ICANN's website more navigable and its online presence more transparent, there's still no substitute for seeing the interoperation of constituencies and talking with other members of the ICANN community in person.
I hope ICANN hasn't been misleading the organizations who have joined as ALSs and spent time trying to make the ALAC model work. And I seriously hope that some from the NA region will be able to continue their work in LA. --Wendy
Thompson, Darlene wrote:
Hi all,
This message is especially directed to those of you who attended San Juan but, I'm sure, may be of interest to others. While in San Juan, we came up with a list of "Next Steps", including some work that some wanted done at the LA Meeting for outreach and education. You can find it at:
https://st.icann.org/naralo/index.cgi?planning_next_steps_for_na_ralo
We had to come up with this in a VERY rushed manner as we were told that staff needed to start planning a budget for this year and if we wanted to have any say in it, we needed to have something in prior to the end of the San Juan meeting. So, we all squished into a business centre and came up with this. What we didn't know, is that to push this forward we needed to also do up a formal proposal to ICANN using their forms. So, that didn't get done. So, that means that nothing that we came up with has been brought forward within ICANN.
So, first of all: I'm very sorry that I didn't know the processes that were in place within ICANN in order to push this stuff forward. As Secretariat, I should have, but this is all news to me. These were processes that were in place before I came onto the scene and I was completely unaware of them. This problem will not be repeated.
Secondly: For ICANN to actually approve stuff like this, they need to see action on the list or on telephone conferences. It doesn't cut it to say, "Well, lets get together in LA and discuss this stuff." They want to see the discussion happening virtually, and then would likely be willing to pay for travel if it means putting the final bits all together. What they seem to REALLY balk at is all of the inactivity in discussing things on-list or on telephone-conferences and then sudden expectations of travel with very little to show for it. Hey, if it was your money, you might feel the same way.
Thirdly: Nick and I have had INNUMERABLE discussions off list, on the phone, on a telephone conference that I had to pay for, etc. etc. I am still battling the lack of transparency thing with ICANN, the lack of timely telling us what we need to do to make things happen, etc. etc. That has gone on off list as I'm sure nobody needs more crap lining their in-boxes.
So, basically, that is what is happening on my end and I hope that this provides an explanation to any/all who were wondering about the LA meeting.
Take care,
D
Darlene A. Thompson
Community Access Program Administrator
Nunavut Department of Education/N-CAP
c/o P.O. Box 1000, Station 910
Iqaluit, NU X0A 0H0
Phone: (867) 975-6531
Fax: (867) 979-8870
dthompson@gov.nu.ca
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-- Wendy Seltzer -- wendy@seltzer.org phone: +1.914.374.0613 // office: 617.373.7331 Visiting Professor, Northeastern University School of Law Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/seltzer.html http://www.chillingeffects.org/ http://www.torproject.org/
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