Jacque and all, I disagree with your paradigm. ALL registrants are also users. Not all users are registrants. So I believe it is you whom is confused and confusing others with that paradigm. Registrants ARE members of the PUBLIC! It is true that NEW users need to spend some time getting up to speed on how the internet works and what makes it work. The more detail they have in this regard, the better informed they will become. Most users now are long time users, at least this is so in the US and most of europe. Yet new information, issues, problems arise nearly every day. This is true in the security and privacy area of issues alone. As such keeping abreast of these events and subsequent issues/problems is an important area that it seems to me the ALS's should be addressing aggressively and in doing so be assisting in providing accurate, up to date, and relevant information that is available or becoming available from professionals such as myself and others... -----Original Message-----

From: "Jacqueline A. Morris" <jam@jacquelinemorris.com> Sent: Apr 14, 2008 8:28 AM To: Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com>, "Thompson, Darlene" <DThompson@GOV.NU.CA>, Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org>, Nick Ashton-Hart <Nick.Ashton-Hart@icann.org> Cc: NA Discuss <na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] ALAC Draft Accountability Framework andConflicts of Interest Policy

Danny Again and again, you are confusing the audience! At Large isn't the Registrants constituency. It's the PUBLIC.

And gTLD Registrants aren't the whole of AtLarge general public. They are a part of the billions who form the Internet using public.

Registrants spend time getting up to speed, reacting and posting and sending emails because it affects them directly, in the pocket, in most cases, and hence they have something pushing them to go to the website, read up etc. Unfortunately the general public doesn't have those drivers. So the ALS members are trying to help bring the issues to them.

They are also not Internet professionals. They are volunteers trying to help. They are trying to get up to speed in a reasonably short time, with way too much information almost only in English on a very confusing website.

BUT they don't have the time to go through a full education on ICANN, in English, or spend funds they don't have developing materials and translating them to help the users understand what the ALSes are asked by ICANN to explain to them. So I think that if ICANN wants the PUBLIC involved, as opposed to REGISTRANTS (who are, like Registrars, registries etc, internet professionals or semi-professionals), asking for some technical assistance in reaching out to the public, in creating backgrounders, brochures, etc isn't too much of a stretch. If ICANN tried to educate/reach out to the general public in other ways, that would probably be would be way way more resource-hungry, and they'd almost certainly have to create the same documents.

Jacqueline

-------------------------------------------------- From: "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 10:31 AM To: "Thompson, Darlene" <DThompson@GOV.NU.CA>; "Jacqueline A. Morris" <jam@jacquelinemorris.com>; "Evan Leibovitch" <evan@telly.org>; "Nick Ashton-Hart" <Nick.Ashton-Hart@icann.org> Cc: "NA Discuss" <na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] ALAC Draft Accountability Framework andConflicts of Interest Policy

...

Re: "How can we punish or even expect anything at all out of ALSs that haven't been educated?"

When these organizations signed up they agreed to (1) distribute information on ICANN activities and issues, (2) enable discussions among their members on the issues; and (3) involve their members in relevant ICANN policy development, discussions and decisions.

The ICANN website currently contains information on: a. accountability and transparency b. idn fast-track discussions c. mid-term review considerations d. the 2007 Annual report e. root-server agreements f. new gtlds g. independent reviews h. compliance initiatives i. whois issues j. the registrar accreditation agreement k. nominating committee activities l. iPV6

There are also links to the GNSO Improvements discussion, the ICANN travel policy considerations, the translation program, and to a host of other subjects.

So I guess what you're saying is we first need to teach ALSs how to read. Apparently, they are only capable of reading an ALS application form, but nothing else.

Funny, how registrants that encounter a problem manage to read everything under the sun about an issue and know where to send their complaints and concerns, yet ALSs remain clueless.

Odd that registrants in droves managed to find their way to the ICANN blog and to the public participation sites when the Registerfly mess unfolded, yet ALSs were absolutely silent.

The problem isn't that ALSs aren't being properly educated; the problem is that ALSs are not the at-large. The real At-Large cares, reacts and responds; they don't.

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