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On Mon, 22 Apr 2002 22:31:22 -0700, you wrote:
The MOST important thing is that where one does start must be
on the right foot. That has not happened with ICANNATLARGE.COM.
Jeff,
I have been one of the active members on icannatlarge.com since the
beginning, and I can tell you that it has been so damn hard even to
*get* to these elections. It cost me and other people (ie Thomas
Roessler and Alexander Svensson) days and days of work preparing and
discussing things, pushing for them to actually be done, finding
resources (for example, a third party voting system), and keeping
together Joop and a temporary panel of very busy and traveling people,
though quite active.
For example, Joop has been doing a great amount of work both with us
and on his own, and nevertheless he's not the easiest person to work
with, and there have been times when I didn't like at all what he was
doing, and we even got to flame about it. However, in the end we could
find an agreement that was acceptable to anyone, and though it didn't
completely satisfy any of us, it allowed us to proceed - and th
is
because we shared the goal to build an open effort that would allow to
all interested individual users of the net to self-organize, and even
if we didn't agree on every detail of the meaning of the words "open"
and "self-organize", each one accepted to sacrifice something of his
personal views to get to a working compromise.
It would have been much easier for any of us to put up his own site,
register a few friends, and claim to be the King of the At Large. It
would have been even easier to flood mailing lists with complaints or
suspicions or pure white noise. So I know that there are many things
we did on which you, or others, might not agree. But if you want to
build something suitable for thousands of people from hundreds of
countries, you cannot think that it has to be like you alone conceive
it.
The same applies to these elections. Yes, I am worried about the lack
of a proper debate among candidates (by the way, I
am here, please ask
whatever you want); yes, I fear that voters will again choose people
by country or by sky-high slogans, rather than by their practicality,
enthusiasm and skills; yes, I fear that not all candidates might have
succeeded in presenting themselves at their best (some didn't even
send a statement...) so that voters won't be able to make an informed
choice. But then, you have to try if you want to succeed. You cannot
build a house only by talking, or by criticizing the colour of the
walls. If you had other views about how things should be done, you
should have run as a candidate, or posted alternative proposals.
Otherwise, please let us work.