Re: [ga] Draft of Bylaws Recommendation concerning the General Assembly

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Michael and all remaining assembly members,

  This is an excellent suggestion!  Well done Michael!  I second this
motion/idea....

Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:

> I have a very simple suggestion that is fair to everyone.  Please note in
> reading what follows that I am serious about this.
>
> I think everyone, including the people physically present, should have to
> submit comments via the 'remote' system and be subject to the same
> filtering.  This will remove the otherwise highly unfair advantage that
> wealth and physical proximity bring to attendees.  If the system of
> handling remove comments is fair enough for remote participants, it should
> be fair enough for physical participants.  If it is not, this system will
> ensure that it quickly reaches that standard.
>
> Anything less is second-class status.
>
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, Ben Edelman wrote:
>
> > (Note that I have received Kendall's 2/13 comments.  Am thinking about them,
> > and about possible adjustments that might respond to his suggestions.  Hope
> > to provide a response within the next few days.)
> >
> > In Joanna's last message, she made, to my eye, four major suggestions:
> >
> > 1) Displaying the chat room on screen.
> >
> > 2) Increased fairness and even-handedness in selecting remote comments.
> >
> > 3) Accepting remote comments in advance of the start of the meeting.
> >
> > 4) Increased reliance on multimedia participation, perhaps via 6-10 folks
> > selected to participate in some special way for the occasion.
> >
> >
> >
> > I'd like to respond to each suggestion in turn.
> >
> >
> >
> > 1) Re displaying the chat room on screen:
> >
> > First, I hadn't previously understood that you were proposing to show the
> > chat room, rather than the remotely-submitted text comments (which, as you
> > may recall, are in a separate system -- web form submissions of longer
> > length and easier editing than is usually characteristic of a chat client).
> > Accordingly, you'll notice that my last message speaks only to the question
> > of displaying submitted text on screen, not the chat room specifically.
> >
> > Now that I better understand your suggestion, some further responses:
> >
> > * My "distraction" comment from the prior message stands, and I stand by it
> > even more forcefully than I did in the prior instance, even as I understand
> > that you are not convinced by this reasoning.  Again, based on prior
> > experience, when I did this in multiple prior meetings, I believe this is
> > distracting to at least some attendees.  There's just something different
> > about an in-person meeting (where the usual norm is to concentrate on the
> > one person talking) versus a webcast via computer (where the medium seems to
> > call out for multiple means of participation).
> >
> > * The chat room really isn't intended to be a place of substantive,
> > on-the-record deliberation.  The introduction text viewed upon entrance to
> > the chat room says so pretty clearly.  And much of the discussion in the
> > chat rooms, in my experience (and as the logs reflect), is quite
> > nonsubstasntive.  I'm not anxious to project chat room comments re audio
> > problems, login problems, and the other various glitches that some folks
> > experience at various points in the meeting; it just doesn't seem helpful to
> > the work at hand.
> >
> > * I'm concerned that the stream-of-consciousness tone of the chat room isn't
> > appropriate in the setting of the in-person public meeting.  Furthermore,
> > general and enduring display of such messages might cause the in-person
> > participants not to take remote participants seriously.  Instead, I think
> > remote participation might be better received if remote participants
> > contributed occasional well-thought-out comments, rather than continuing
> > marginally-on-topic banter, for lack of a better word, which truly has been
> > my experience in prior meetings.  (That is, in my experience, the chat room
> > comments often stray from the discussion in the in-person meeting, and I'm
> > not sure that's helpful on balance.)  Ultimately, the chat room just doesn't
> > seem consistent to me with the tone of a public meeting, with the tone of
> > the speakers at the microphone, and with the expectations of those attending
> > the meetings in person.
> >
> > * On some occasions, we've had some pretty serious violations of chat room
> > policy -- personal attacks, flames, obscene comments, etc.  I've never had
> > to ask anyone to leave the chat room, nor to remove anyone using the
> > technical means at my disposal, but I've come close (issuing "this is your
> > second and final warning" messages).  Again, this sort of thing isn't
> > appropriate for display to the general audience, and neither would it be
> > helpful in that context.  It's all fully & publicly archived if anyone is
> > interested, but projecting it just doesn't make sense to me.
> >
> >
> >
> > 2) Re increased fairness and even-handedness in selecting remote comments.
> >
> > Your comments here, as well as Kendall's, raise a serious set of questions,
> > to which I hope to reply at some length, pending further discussion among my
> > team, as well as other personal obligations (other work to be done!) and
> > some further investigation re our technical capabilities.  That said, here's
> > what immediately comes to mind.
> >
> > You wrote:
> >
> > > The principle is that remote participation should not be manipulated
> > > unnecessarily as this gives false feedback to those in the public
> > auditorium
> > > about the nature and extent of online commentary.
> >
> > Certainly I don't think of the current selection process as "manipulation,"
> > so I think some commentary is in order here.
> >
> > When in November 1998 I first wrote the code that is the basis of the remote
> > participation system still in place today, my goal was simple: to take
> > public comments, in real-time, in a way that hadn't been possible at the
> > IFWP meetings that preceded ICANN's formation.  It seemed immediately clear
> > to me that we'd get more online comments than we'd have time to read, and
> > indeed this proved true in every ICANN meeting.  But simply reading the
> > first few comments was clearly an unacceptable methodology; after all, that
> > would encourage a race to submit comments as early as possible, clearly (I
> > thought) an undesirable outcome.
> >
> > In response to concern about how to select questions to answer, two
> > significant systems were put in place: First, a "meeting section" selection
> > box -- in which users would self-classify their comments to map to agenda
> > items on a drop-down list.  The "ask a question" screen clearly reports
> > which section is currently in progress, and the Remote Participation Liaison
> > chooses comments for a particular section's Audience Q&A session exclusively
> > from the comments marked for that section.  Second, a Remote Participation
> > Liaison was carefully selected and trained -- in the first instance by
> > Jonathan Zittrain, the Berkman Center faculty member working on the Center's
> > initial remote participation efforts -- to select comments solely for their
> > clarity and relevance to current discussion, but not for a particular
> > substantive position, one way or the other.  That's not to say that our
> > efforts on that front have been successful in every instance -- I imagine
> > there are plenty of allegations that they have not! -- but it was certainly
> > our goal, I hope pretty clearly articulated in the documentation &
> > instructions for the remote participation system.
> >
> > Kendall suggested an interesting alternative way to select comments -- some
> > variation of a vote by online participants.  I'm still investigating the
> > feasibility & practicality of doing so, as well as other concerns like fraud
> > control, perceived fairness, etc.  Again, a response on all this is
> > forthcoming.
> >
> >
> >
> > 3) Accepting remote comments in advance of the start of the meeting.
> >
> > You wrote:
> >
> > > ... I would think about requesting some questions and comments through
> > > the GA list, submitted in advance.
> >
> > We have considered this in the past, but have ultimately concluded that it's
> > not the best way to proceed.  ICANN and the DNSO maintain numerous methods
> > of receiving comments from online participants in non-real-time contexts --
> > public mailing lists (including this one), the ICANN public comment boards,
> > messages sent directly to staff, Board Members, NC members, constituency
> > representatives, etc.  It's certainly not the intention of the webcast
> > efforts to replace or compete with any of these systems, and we don't seek
> > to do so.  Accordingly, our rule, since the November 1998 meetings, has been
> > to accept only real-time (not presubmitted) comments.  In practice we'll
> > accept any comment meeting the length requirement (less than 1000
> > characters -- roughly the amount we can display on a single projection
> > screen in a large font) and have no way of knowing when a remote participant
> > actually drafted the comment.  But the responsibility is on the remote
> > participant to submit a comment during the meeting if it is to be treated as
> > a comment submitted to the meeting itself, as distinguished from the
> > non-realtime comment-receiving systems.
> >
> > For whatever it's worth, this is (as best I can remember) the first time
> > I've received this comment, i.e. the suggestion that presubmitted comments
> > should be accepted along with "live remote participant" comments.  My sense
> > previously was that everyone thought it was a good idea to require that
> > comments be submitted during the meetings; no one has ever said otherwise.
> >
> > > If not, you have the task of selecting
> > > questions on the fly, while trying to ensure a fair and even handed input,
> > > without knowing what's going to hit the screen next, or when you're going
> > to
> > > get a decent comment to read out.  This is not a trivial matter.
> >
> > I'm a little confused about what you mean here.  I think you may be
> > confusing the live chat room (an "IRC chat," like an AOL chat room or some
> > such) with the remote comment submission system (web forms that submit text
> > to a database).  Our remote participation liaison can readily review all
> > messages in the database, can mark messages for (one-button) display on the
> > projection screen, can classify messages according to a variety of criteria
> > (whether or not read yet, meeting section if not so classified by the
> > submitter, etc.), and can generally keep pretty good track of what's going
> > on.  I'd like to think that we do know quite well what's going to hit the
> > screen next!  (Indeed, each comment is displayed on-screen while it's
> > read -- as the scribe's notes generally reflect, i.e. "remote comment #1234
> > from Tom Smith read in its entirety and displayed on screen" might be
> > entered into scribe's notes when that is the case).
> >
> > In terms of fairness and evenhandedness, I understand the concern here, and
> > agree that it's a serious one.  But please understand the other issues we
> > also face here: For example, I hope you appropriately consider the concern I
> > expressed in my last message about reading & presenting off-topic messages
> > (perhaps "stale" -- read too late, i.e. after the topic in question was
> > discussed by the meeting -- or perhaps inherently off-topic).  Doing so
> > causes the audience to literally cringe, in my experience, as if to say "Why
> > are those Berkman Center people so dumb as to read us a question about
> > *that*, when we just finished discussing it, and were all quite tired of the
> > topic after such a prolonged discussion of the subject?"  For this reason,
> > and for others too (ad hominem attacks, questions not appropriately
> > addressed to the current meeting or group, messages submitted from what
> > immediately seem to be false identities, etc.), we've come to think that any
> > automated way of selecting comments is likely to be undesirable for other
> > reasons, notwithstanding the underlying desirability of an automated way of
> > choosing messages to be read aloud.  Again, I look forward to responding to
> > Kendall's suggestion on this subject, and so I'd propose to bracket this
> > discussion for the moment.
> >
> >
> > > We could aim for consensus in the GA as to the topics that need
> > highlighting
> > > in this way. Questions could be supplemented or even substituted by live
> > > comments on the day if desirable, but it would give the online
> > participation
> > > some much needed structure and ensure quality questions are heard on a
> > wide
> > > range of topics at agreed points in the schedule, interwoven with those
> > from
> > > the audience (some of which I'm sure are prepared in advance).  I'd be
> > very
> > > surprised if a call for questions did not receive a very positive response
> > > from the GA list over say a 2 week period.
> >
> > Certainly any effort to increase GA participation both in the GA's physical
> > meeting and in other ICANN sessions seems to me highly desirable, and I
> > applaud such attempts.
> >
> > If these attempts are successful and lead to insightful and clearly-stated
> > questions closely related to the topics under discussion on the various
> > meeting agendas, I'm confident that the remote participation liaison will
> > properly present these messages to the assembled group.
> >
> > My sense in prior meetings has been that, in general, the liaison is usually
> > successful in presenting a reasonable range of messages, giving appropriate
> > recognition to major topic areas of the submitted questions and reading a
> > substantial portion of the messages received.  I know that there have been
> > instances when this has not been the case -- when public comment (both
> > in-person and via remote participation) has been cut short due to shortness
> > of time, or when the meeting chair has used his or her prerogative to
> > recognize disproportionately many in-person commenters.  (Incidentally, I do
> > continue to believe remains a significant factor to keep in mind -- the
> > assembled group, and the queue at the microphone, can prove quite a force to
> > be reckoned with, given their physical presence, travel expenses incurred,
> > and general immediacy, especially as against a seemingly invisible and
> > distant online audience.  I continue to suggest to the chair of each meeting
> > that a remote comment be recognized after every two microphone comments, and
> > at times we've gotten into an excellent rhythm this way.  But the underlying
> > issue surely remains.)
> >
> >
> >
> > 4) Increased reliance on multimedia participation, perhaps via 6-10 folks
> > selected to participate in some special way for the occasion.
> >
> > You wrote:
> >
> > > ... Also, two
> > > contributors are not sufficient in number to establish this format as part
> > > of the process, hence it is easily reduced to an irritant in the
> > > proceedings. My suggestion would be to have 6-10 contributors, as the
> > > schedule allows, either interwoven at regular intervals or introduced as a
> > > block, but all using the same screen, speaking individually in rotation.
> >
> > Can you propose a specific technical means (hardware and software) for doing
> > so?  At the moment I'm a bit unclear on what specifically you're talking
> > about -- videoconferencing, or something else.
> >
> > How would we choose the 6-10 contributors?  No one gets a similarly-favored
> > position in the physical meeting, so I'd be concerned that this approach
> > might not receive the support of physical meeting attendees.
> >
> >
> >
> > Again, I thank everyone on this list for their suggestions.  I remain
> > interested in further comments -- everything from improving the wording of
> > web pages announcement emails to more far-reaching comments like the ideas
> > submitted so far.  I certainly can't promise that the Berkman Center will do
> > everything that's suggested here -- but we're listening, and, we think,
> > thinking seriously about these issues.
> >
> >
> >
> > Ben Edelman
> > Berkman Center
> >
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> >
> >
>
> --
>                 Please visit http://www.icannwatch.org
> A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin@law.tm
> U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
> +1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
>                        -->It's cool here.<--
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
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