[ga-icann] GA-FULL

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

On 20:58 28/05/01, DNSO Secretariat said:

      Ph. Sheppard expressed some concern as to process leading to the newly
       created GA mailing lists, set up on GA Chair request. The lists were
       established before the NC had a chance to approve them. He felt NC
       approval was needed as there is a cost implication (set up represented
       20 hours of DNSO secretariat work and there is around 2 hours for daily
       maintenance). He proposed one practical cost saving would be
       closure on the under-used GA open list which duplicates the
       normal GA list. NC members agreed and P.Sheppard will talk with
       the GA chair on this.

This would appear to be either an imperial "let them eat cake" (but without the
cake), a neatly crafted way to silence people, or a fundamental misunderstanding
of the political and organizational dynamics of a group such as ICANN. The value
of' having the "GA open" list (GA-FULL) does not lie at all in how greatly it is used,
unless it is assumed (or at least hoped) that all these lists serve no purpose except
that of providing an outlet for endless, ineffectual babbling.  I say this as a veteran
of the IFWP wars, which indeed so functioned, and it ultimately died because of that.

Once the history of the founding of the GA-FULL was explained to me, I recognized
it as a stroke of genius -- the one critical factor that the IFWP lacked and which led
to its ultimate demise.  The problem, of course, relates to the inevitable group of
people who only go onto the lists to play games, to fight, to create hassles, to disrupt,
etc., etc.  IFWP had no way to deal with that, but the GA does in the GA-FULL
list.

The GA-FULL list exists to provide an outlet for vituperations and the like that can
destroy a functioning list.  If enforced (a lot more rigorously than they are now), the
rules against personal attacks, profanity, and the like, removes that sort of thing from
the working lists and puts it in a place where only those who thrive on that sort of thing
can "have at" each other.  By this model, the actual "working" lists can get on with their
work. The true value of the GA-FULL list lies simply in that it is there.

The ultimate value of the GA-FULL list, indeed, would be demonstrated by the fact
that it was not used at all.  Under a regime of rigorous enforcement of conduct on the
working lists, that would mean that everyone involved with those lists was in there plugging
away at the job, and nobody was off engaged in alley brawls. Whether or not the gross
miscalculation that led to the item quoted above was deliberate, a neat dodge, or arose from
sheer ignorance, it is fundamentally wrong and a disgrace to ICANN.  (And please don't
speak of nickles and dimes - I doubt anyone believes a particle of that.)

--
         Bill Lovell

http://cerebalaw.com/biog.htm