Re: [ga] remote participation

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

Jonathan and all remaining assembly members,

Jonathan Weinberg wrote:

> At 04:51 PM 2/20/01 -0500, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
> >On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
> >> This said, maybe a way to go could be to experiment once a completely
> online
> >> meeting. In other words, of the 4 meetings per year, why can't we organize
> >> one fully online?
> >>
> >I think this is a brilliant idea!
>
>         I'm hesitant, at least for now, about doing this *instead of* a f2f
> meeting.  On several occasions so far, it seems to me, the ICANN staff and
> Board have gone into a meeting with a policy plan in place (and have put
> the word out that the plan was locked in, so that no sensible person would
> bother opposing it), and then made an eleventh-hour swerve at the meeting,
> once they found themselves locked in a hotel with a lot of people many of
> whom were telling them that the plan was a Really Bad Thing.

  This is to a great extent because the ICANN board members by in large
do not participate on many of the ML venues that are available to them or
ignore comments that are sent directly to them, depending on whom sends
them.  Hence, as Michael suggests, requiring online participation be on
a level playing field with f2f meetings is and excellent idea...

>  This is no
> way to run a railroad, to be sure, but it's preferable to a system in which
> the Board actually goes ahead and enacts previously-announced,
> ill-considered, devoid-of-public-support plans.  My concern about fully
> online meetings is that the critical online comments wouldn't get much
> attention from the Board members, and so the meeting would have the same
> effect on the Board as no meeting at all.

  Your conclusion here may very well end up being true.  However it would than
show clearly that the ICANN BoD is not attending to their responsibilities.
As such, the implication would be more obvious than it is currently.  Again,
I find that to be a much more useful and refreshing situation....

>
>
>         It's surely correct that the physical meetings privilege the people who
> can attend, who are predominantly those on corporate expense accounts or
> representing deep-pocketed clients.  Public-interest representatives have
> had some small opportunity to attend as well, though, and that's one way
> they've had of getting their voices heard.  I worry that a system of online
> meetings, in which Board members are freed from the burden of listening to
> the f2f objections of actual people, will end up privileging corporate
> representatives (who, after all, have other points of entry to the ICANN
> decisionmaking process) even more than the existing system, and that it may
> lead to a greater number of Board decisions based on the mistaken belief
> that proposed actions enjoy widespread public support.

  I don't see you concern here being valid when more stakeholders have
access to online abilities that the ability to attend f2f.

>
>
> Jon
>
> Jonathan Weinberg
> weinberg@msen.com
>
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Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
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E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
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