I THINK it's too costly for this process but no harm in laying down the marker, as you say Jonathan Zuck Executive Director Innovators Network Foundation www.InnovatorsNetwork.org<http://www.InnovatorsNetwork.org> ________________________________ From: NA-Discuss <na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org> on behalf of Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> Sent: Friday, December 11, 2020 1:09:45 PM To: Judith Hellerstein <judith@jhellerstein.com> Cc: NA Discuss <na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] Additional Budget Request Jonathan, would this be a path to getting funding for the kind of independent end-user research we've been talking about previously? Or would the cost of such research (credibly done) be too high for this process? Perhaps we can pitch the idea first and then see how hard we'd have to fight for it. Just imagine how much money ICANN has saved by avoiding in-person meetings this year. Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56 On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 at 00:47, Judith Hellerstein <judith@jhellerstein.com<mailto:judith@jhellerstein.com>> wrote: HI Naraloers, Hope all are well and safe. I just wanted to remind all Naralo Members that it is now time to think of a special program or special request that you would like to conduct in the next fiscal year. Each year ICANN has an fund where they grant budget to certain program. This is how we had funded the Indigenous Fellowship Program, the Real Time Captioning Project and some other training. Now is that time of year. If you have some program that you would like to do, please suggest it and also fill out the template.. The timelines are listed here, https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+FY22+Budget+Development... <https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+FY22+Budget+Development...> Although the ICANN wide date for submission is January 29, At Large has its own process and according to this timeline we need to have all requests in by January 8, 2021. These requests will then be vetted by the Finance and Budget sub Committee and then if approved will go on to staff to submit the form on our behalf. On the Wiki pages linked to there is a copy of the application. Please try and fill it out as completely as possible. I would suggest you refer to the ICANN Strategic plan and also the goals and objectives since the ICANN Board will have to approve it. If you can show how your proposal meets some of the main goals and objectives your proposal will have a better chance of success. Let me know if you have any questions on this process or have other info you would like cleared up. If you look at last years proposals, you can get some kind of idea of how to put together a proposal. Granted many were not successful but it gives you an idea Happy to help out with any questions Best, Judith Hellerstein NARALO Secretary -- _________________________________________________________________________ Judith Hellerstein, Founder & CEO Hellerstein & Associates 3001 Veazey Terrace NW, Washington DC 20008 Phone: (202) 362-5139 Skype ID: judithhellerstein Mobile/Whats app: +1202-333-6517 E-mail: Judith@jhellerstein.com<mailto:Judith@jhellerstein.com> Website: www.jhellerstein.com<http://www.jhellerstein.com> Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/jhellerstein/<http://www.linkedin.com/in/jhellerstein/> Opening Telecom & Technology Opportunities Worldwide ------ NA-Discuss mailing list NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org<mailto:NA-Discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss Visit the NARALO online at http://www.naralo.org ------ _______________________________________________ By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

Hi Eduardo. This is an informal outcome of my original comments about domaining, and last month's NARALO talk that stemmed from them. I had inferred that it's been easy for other constituencies to demean At-Large's viewpoint, a "who the hell are you?" attitude which asserts that the 15 people on ALAC -- and even by extension, the entire RALO/ALS infrastructure -- does not properly (or adequately) speak for "the billions" who are impacted by ICANN's decisions. If they don't like our views, they counter-argue lack of standing and relevance. If they agree with us, they stay silent. Since leaving my main volunteer roles in At-Large some years ago, I have advocated that At-Large really has only two functions at which it can be effective -- public education and research. Education to make sure that end-users are aware of what is happening that affects them, and research that enables ALAC's policy work to accurately reflect global end-user needs and attitudes rather than just guess. So far, AFAIR there has been only one decent global survey by ICANN of this kind, done for the Consumer Choice and Competition Review Team (which Jonathan chaired). The survey's questions were mainly written by contracted parties, biased to justify the TLD expansion rather than address end-user needs. At some point in the discussion thread started by my recent plea for end-user-centric research, Jonathan agreed that such a project would be a good idea. (and by "end-user-centric" I mean independent surveys for which ALAC creates the questions and has staff support in analysing the resulting data), It's still a good idea. I'm suggesting that NARALO float the desire to do such research during the current budget solicitations, and I'm gratified that Jonathan and you agree. Great point about ISOC co-sponsoring. I'm fully aware that a survey of trustworthy quality would be expensive -- surely beyond the allocation for all RALO budget requests combined -- but we have to start somewhere. At least to me, ALAC's credibility as a reliable channel for the global end-user is at stake. I would be happy to put my time where my mouth is and get re-involved, should such an idea be entertained by ICANN. Cheers, Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56 On Sat, 12 Dec 2020 at 05:38, Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera@gmail.com> wrote:

Can one of you explain some of the details of the research? I would definitively support such a project. We can propose it and see where it takes us. Also, we can explore getting matching funds from ISOC.

-ed

On Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 6:36 PM Jonathan Zuck <JZuck@innovatorsnetwork.org> wrote:

...

I THINK it's too costly for this process but no harm in laying down the marker, as you say

Jonathan Zuck Executive Director Innovators Network Foundation www.InnovatorsNetwork.org

------------------------------ *From:* NA-Discuss <na-discuss-bounces@atlarge-lists.icann.org> on behalf of Evan Leibovitch <evan@telly.org> *Sent:* Friday, December 11, 2020 1:09:45 PM *To:* Judith Hellerstein <judith@jhellerstein.com> *Cc:* NA Discuss <na-discuss@atlarge-lists.icann.org> *Subject:* Re: [NA-Discuss] Additional Budget Request

Jonathan, would this be a path to getting funding for the kind of independent end-user research we've been talking about previously?

Or would the cost of such research (credibly done) be too high for this process?

Perhaps we can pitch the idea first and then see how hard we'd have to fight for it. Just imagine how much money ICANN has saved by avoiding in-person meetings this year.

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

On Fri, 11 Dec 2020 at 00:47, Judith Hellerstein <judith@jhellerstein.com> wrote:

HI Naraloers,

Hope all are well and safe. I just wanted to remind all Naralo Members that it is now time to think of a special program or special request that you would like to conduct in the next fiscal year. Each year ICANN has an fund where they grant budget to certain program. This is how we had funded the Indigenous Fellowship Program, the Real Time Captioning Project and some other training. Now is that time of year. If you have some program that you would like to do, please suggest it and also fill out the template.. The timelines are listed here,

https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+FY22+Budget+Development... < https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+FY22+Budget+Development...

...

Although the ICANN wide date for submission is January 29, At Large has its own process and according to this timeline we need to have all requests in by January 8, 2021. These requests will then be vetted by the Finance and Budget sub Committee and then if approved will go on to staff to submit the form on our behalf.

On the Wiki pages linked to there is a copy of the application. Please try and fill it out as completely as possible. I would suggest you refer to the ICANN Strategic plan and also the goals and objectives since the ICANN Board will have to approve it. If you can show how your proposal meets some of the main goals and objectives your proposal will have a better chance of success.

Let me know if you have any questions on this process or have other info you would like cleared up.

If you look at last years proposals, you can get some kind of idea of how to put together a proposal. Granted many were not successful but it gives you an idea

Happy to help out with any questions

Best,

Judith Hellerstein

NARALO Secretary

-- _________________________________________________________________________ Judith Hellerstein, Founder & CEO Hellerstein & Associates 3001 Veazey Terrace NW, Washington DC 20008 Phone: (202) 362-5139 Skype ID: judithhellerstein Mobile/Whats app: +1202-333-6517 E-mail: Judith@jhellerstein.com Website: www.jhellerstein.com Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/jhellerstein/ Opening Telecom & Technology Opportunities Worldwide

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Hi Bill, This is a bit off topic.

Actually, it isn't, indeed it's directly to the issue. But it seems to me that, if someone is demean At-Large's viewpoint, they

should be told that they only have 3 options:

1) they can accept that At Large does, indeed, represent the users' point of view.

A matter of convenience. They support (or usually ignore) us when we agree with them, ridicule when not. 2) they can propose, *and fund*, an alternative method for identifying the

users' point of view. On an on-going basis.

Oh heavens no. Most contracted parties believe that even what ICANN spends on At-Large now is totally wasted. Because they're the channels for ICANN per-domain fees and create demand for way more purchased domains that are really needed, they sometimes assert that we're waiting *their* money. 3) they can simply announce, publicly, that ICANN *does not care *about

end users or their point of view. Period.

They have no reason to announce publicly, they just let ICANN's actions speak for themselves. IMO there is a widely-held view within many constituencies, and I have sometimes subtly come across it in senior ICANN staff, that ALAC exists as a necessary vestige of ICANN's discarding direct public elections for its Board -- that it exists to give ICANN the outward appearance of listening to domain end-users. I've heard argued that ICANN's own end-users are registrants -- the bottom of its revenue chain -- and nothing below that matters. I challenge to find, in the course of its multi-decade history, in which the ICANN Board says publicly that its decisions were significantly influenced by ALAC input. Heck, it wasn't so long ago that the Board didn't even acknowledge ALAC advice when it was sent. (In my own mind, it doesn't help that ALAC has been broadly complicit in its own irrelevance. On the whole it is sadly satisfied with a status quo that focuses on process and appearance and ceremony rather than substance. But the most diverse ALAC humanly possible is still just 15 middle-class self-identified experts pretending that they know what the world wants from ICANN, and we're not fooling anyone. Look at how ALAC disgraced itself by waffling as it did on the .ORG sale issue when the world's eyes were on us and global public opinion was fully in sync in opposition. No better proof exists of how we pretend to know better than those who we are charged to represent, and in the process render ourselves impotent. It was shameful.) There really aren't any other options. So ask that they pick one, for the

record.

Through most of the ICANN community it's clearly option 3 and has always been that way -- we're a harmless, wastefully-expensive, occasionally-noisy, but bylaw-necessary PR exercise. And we do precious little to prove them wrong. My plea to focus on education and research -- at the expense of nearly all else -- is a radical departure that is (IMO of course) ALAC's only real path to relevance and effectiveness. The only metric that utimately matters is; "How many ICANN actions and decisions are influenced towards the public interest because ALAC exists?" Our track record here is not good. Sorry if that seems harsh.

Same here. - Evan