Hi Dharma Re Ralo as conduit for participation, I ws having exactly that conversation this morning with the head of the TTCS ( my ALS here) re our participation in the Summit - he was thinking to arrange for those of us in Trinidad to get updates, video, skype etc from the rep in Mexico. I will suggest to him that he participate woth you guys inthe summit planning group. Jacqueline Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device available from bmobile. -----Original Message----- From: Dharma Dailey <dharma@ethoswireless.com> Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:08:38 To: Evan Leibovitch<evan@telly.org> Cc: <admin@isoc.sd>; <kieren.mccarthy@icann.org>; At-Large Worldwide<at-large@atlarge-lists.icann.org>; <na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Letter to the Board So, it sounds like all willing to speak up on this issue are in agreement that face to face meetings could be tweaked to be more friendly for local internet user participation as well as participation by those who would like to do so remotely. Cheryl, Evan, Robert, Nick have all made good and specific suggestions for improvements towards these ends. In the recommendations I made for logistics of the Summit, I was also trying to think through what would make participation among those already engaged more effective, and how we might be able to interact with users within the host city, and so forth. Re: Cheryl. I think that participation at ICANN is best looked at as a spectral phenomenon. There are those involved in ICANN who are deeply schooled in internet governance. Those people will always be more willing and able to participate in ICANN meettings as you’ve defined participation. But, what about people who aren’t schooled in ICANN and internet governance? How can the ICANN community engage with them? Most likely far more people would come to a local meeting in their area to check it out and very few of those people are likely to make a continued commitment to participate in ICANN. Ideally, At- Large would have not only multiple channels of participation, but also multiple activities for participation that are tailored to people’s desire and ability to participate. Re: Evan. It’s just a reality that because ICANN meets every 6 months, and because it is a nexus of some power over the internet, people are going to show up foaming at the mouth. It doesn’t surprise me that ICANN and IGF would be fused in users minds. According to Pew Internet Research, a plurality of participants at the IGF meeting (at least those who took the Pew survey) in Brazil believed the United States-- or the West - or the Global North - controls the internet. Those are even broader strokes than ICANN and the IGF. And those are people surveyed one assumes are already deeply engaged in internet governance. Consider what a local net user might be thinking. This is why I believe that it is as important for At-Large to be doing educational outreach as it is to be directly participating in current ICANN policy. Education, but not in a way that says, “Sorry about your concerns, that’s not ICANN’s issue.” If we dismiss people’s world view off-hand, then we will likely be dismissing them too. We have to find the third rail that strides between where users are at and where ICANN is at. Re: Nick. It shouldn’t fall entirely on staff to ensure remote participation. In theory, since we all represent internet users, each ALS shows up with a constituency of internet users whom we are connected with, and presumably we all have channels which we could use to connect with those users during a meeting. Thinking of the Summit, perhaps we could recruit some ALSs to take leadership on creating some alternate channels of communication. Then they’ll be the official channels for participation (hopefully working well!) and also some back up methods. I like the idea of having the RALOS involved in helping out with the remote participation because that helps them to be more connected to those they represent. At the last ARIN meeting, pre-designated ARIN member volunteers monitored an IRC channel during the meetings. It was simple and worked well. The person monitoring brought up questions and comments from remote participants on their behalf. For ICANN, you would want volunteers from multiple languages, but that may be easier to come by than getting complicated technologies to work well. I believe that they used an ordinary webcast for the pushing the meeting content out. -dharma dailey On Nov 17, 2008, at 10:25 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
Robert Guerra wrote:
Let me make it cleat that iaftereveral months of calls, conference calls, and or planning I was - well quite disappointed by the lack of attendance of the local cao bloggers. Yes a video w made, bit it is not the interacte learning experience that I had hoped their presence throuhout the meeting would have achieved.
That's being kind. By the end of the week I was feeling as if we were exploited by those merely looking to use us as a soapbox for grievances that were incapable of being addressed by ICANN.
I was disgusted by the fact that NOT one of the "local community" bothered to attend the actual conference. Perhaps they would have understood, having done so, that ICANN is not IGF. There was little we could have done for their cause short of embarassing the hosts, and the benefits of that would have been far outweighed by the negatives.
There are grave issues facing internet users in egypt and it would have been ideal to hear it first hand from a variety of them during the meeting. Thing could have been done better - for sure. Things also could have worked out far better if one or more persons would have been keen eniugh to follow up to and respond to my messages over the last few months on enhancing local user participation at physical meetings.
Robert, you were the one who claimed to have contacts in the local community. While I am completely sympathetic in the message conveyed by those we met, I suspect that most local Internet users were left unawares. How widely spread were your contacts; were they limited to the free-speech advocates to the exclusion of others? Do Egyptian Internet users not have the same concerns about phishing, name abuse and IDNs (etc) as others? Where were they? I have no idea whether those you attracted to the event represent a mainstream view or just a very small but active minority.
IMO this is a challenge for At-Large and a test of ICANN's commitment to it. Starving At-Large for outreach resources -- even because of the Summit -- prevents At-Large from doing its critical job of finding the point of view of non-activists. Every ICANN conference at which we do not attract a few potential local ALSs represents a missed opportunity.
- Evan
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