[ga] A suggestion

[Patrick Greenwell <patrick@stealthgeeks.net>]

I continue to have serious and grave doubts about the viability and/or
benefits of ICANN in its current form. Specifically, I find the concept of
the NC choosing the chair of the GA both repulsive and in violation of the
concept of self-organizing constituencies. As such I feel that the
much-amended ICANN bylaws are in violation of the spirit and letter of the White
Paper, as well as a violation of the ability of those participants who are
not currently represented in the byzantine, wholely business-dominated
ICANN structure(no individuals allowed in the NCDHC so please, let's not
go there) to be represented. 

With that said, I am none-the-less delurking for a moment to offer a
couple of hopefully constructive suggestion regarding the nomination of potential 
chairs to the GA, and the GA in general. 

My first suggestion would be that since there is a complete and utter lack
of defined process, agreement on who constitutes the GA, agreed upon
behaviour guidelines, or any ability to verify and act on the fact that
one or more schizophrenic persons are inflicting their multiple
personalities on this(and other) list(s), that individuals simply make
their own recommendation(s) for potential chairs of the GA. As recent
discussion has evidenced, that is the only effective way in which to
accomplish the nomination process in the light of a lack of
defined/agreed-upon nomination process.

Second, I believe that a firm basis for elimination of much of the
current chaos could be established for the price of some postage stamps,
and that is *extremely* urgent that something be done in this regard if
the GA isn't to be simply another window-dressing component of ICANN.

The fundamental problem with the concept of a "virtual" General Assembly
is that by in large people don't know one another, and have no idea if
"John Doe" is a single person, or simply an additional alias that someone
is using to gain voting power, sway opinion, play out their fantasies, 
etc. This leaves people completely unable to even begin seriously
discussing formulating or adopting a process, set of processes, or
nominations for a GA chair with any confidence in the GA itself. 

Verifying that "John Doe" is "John Doe", while perhaps most desireable for
some at first glance, is likely to be near-impossible to do on a global
basis if it all, and some individuals will insist on a continued right to
a level of anonymity. If it were even possible and/or desireable by the majority, 
to do so with a reasonable amount of confidence in the veracity of the
identification will necessitate huge expenses of staff time and budget,for
which there is currently insufficient staff(if any), and little or no
money. If you examine the issue further, I hope that you might agree that
this level of authentication isn't necessary, nor is it most important in
offering an acceptable minimum level of confidence among participants
when weighed against costs. What *is* important is finding the
least-expensive, most-fraud resistant method which examined
from a cost/benefit perspective offers the highest degree of assurance
that there is only one person associated with a given account. 

The answer to this dilemma already exists, and it is the use of regular
postal mail as part of the validation process. It is my understanding that
ISOC employs postal mail in some similar fashion(corrections welcome.)
Those wishing to join would be mailed, via postal mail, a password with
which to access the list. As an even more cost-effective alternative,
those wishing to join could send a self-address stamped envelope in which
to send the account information. Immediate read-only, or read-write but
non-voting membership access to the list could be offered until the
full access information was received.

By definition this method is not 100% fraud-proof. Mailing verfication
notices isn't meant to be. You have to allow for multiple individuals
residing/working at the same location, the use of P.O. boxes, etc. There
will doubtlessly be one or more unscrupulous individuals that chose to
engage in such fraud. However, it does create a barrier to those that
would engage in such activity, a currently effortless task, helping to
minimize the number of individuals doing so. It also allows those who wish
to maintain anonymity, yet have a say in these issues to do so. 
Further, I believe it is the least expensive, and most widely available
option to potential members, yielding the greatest potential benefit. 

Another relatively cheap means(if potentially inconvienent) method of
determining if a person believed to be posting as multiple individuals 
is to ask for both of the "individuals" to call you at the same specified
time, and ask them to answer one or more questions simultaneously. Again
this doesn't guarantee that an individual is who they say they are,
however it does offer an indication as to whether or not an individual is
employing multiple accounts. At a minimum, these unethical creeps would
have to employ the aid of an accomplice if they wished to be successful in
their ruse. The increased difficulty should create a further barrier
to engaging in this type of activity. 

If the above seems in the least bit draconian to any of the participants
who aren't the type of people I am talking about, it is because I 
personally tire of seeing the multiple personalities of Jeff Williams and
a few like him appearing on every potentially interesting and/or useful
place of discussion for domain-related issues, greatly decreasing the
value of those lists by a barrage of abberent, insulting, often
nonsensical postings, which renders individuals who would participate
constructively unwilling to participate, sews doubt as to who is whom or
if they are what they say they are, and further increases the strength of
the argument that participants in these email forums are either frauds,
fringe elements, or loons. 

There are those of us that are who we say we are, are mostly if not
completely sane, and are participating in these discussions and
proceedings in good faith. While I am sure that lacking any sort of life,
Jeff is receiving great pleasure from the attention I am giving him by a
direct mention, I do so only because many participants in these
discussions have witnessed first-hand his actions, those of people like
him and the disruptive effect that one or more individuals acting in this
fashion can have on a list or lists. While he and others like him have
every right to have their opinions represented in these discussions, they
*do not* and *should not* be afforded the opportunity to be so disruptive 
in their statements/actions as to make "normal" people completely
unwilling to participate in these forums. 

I can personally filter these individuals, which I do happily. However, no
number of such filters will affect the impression that a new-comer to
these dicussions will receive when seeing the volume and nature of the
trash spewed by these select few, the opinion they form as to the
potential credibility of other list members and their viewpoints based on
this, and their corresponding view of the value of participation on
the list as a whole. I've seen a great number of intelligent, thoughtful
individuals with a great deal to contribute leave the IFWP list, citing
such antics as a total or partial cause for their exit. Little is
different here, except that a number of new people, previously unfamiliar
and/or uninvolved in email discussion lists of this nature are being
exposed and subjected to the disruptive effects one or two individuals
are having on hundreds. 

I cannot stress enough how important I believe making an effort to
validate GA membership, and once that is done, establishing an objective, 
voted-upon, published, minimal set of rules of conduct for participation
in the GA mailing list, as well as sanctions for violators is to any hope
of viability and/or autonomy of the GA. 

Doing this will help ensure that those list members that haven't already
left or are present yet unwilling to participate due to the extremely
bizarre, nasty, and disruptive personalities/statements/actions of a
couple of bad actors would feel reasonably comfortable using the GA list
as a place to express their opinions, where decision-making could occur,
and where they could reasonably expect not to suffer a constant barrage of
unrelated personal insults and attacks. 


Please understand, that without some definition of membership, and a
reasonable attempt at validating that membership, and an agreement to a
minimum standards of acceptable conduct(such as posting from a single
account, not forging email, avoiding personal attacks/insults)
the GA will continue to be the ruderless ship that it is. As shown, those
within the GA can't reasonably conduct the process of chair nominations as
it lacks an agreed-upon process, or any agreement on who is even 
conducting it! This makes no sense and is an exercise in futility.

I've seen some attempts at a standard parlimentary procedure
method(Roberts Rules of Order), however, in looking at the nature and
content of the resulting discussions, their are a sufficient number of
people that either don't understand these rules, don't wish to use them,
or while(the good intentions of those attempting to employ this type of
procedure nonwithstanding) they might wish to attempt to, lacking a clear
consensus-based mapping of the relationship between their use in a
realtime meeting and use in the non-realtime, multi-threaded enviroment of
email renders it impossible to employ such a ruleset with any real
potential of success. 

Most reasonable people(with the possible exception of the ICANN board
and its appointees which have a peculiar propensity for arriving at
pre-conceived "solutions" without established, adhered-to process in
place) are going to be comfortable discussing, establishing, and employing
the process and the potentially important business of the GA without some
minimum level of assurance that:

    1) Posing as multiple individuals will not be allowed.

    2) Fraud related to 1) is minimized to the fullest extent possible
       within reason
 
    3) Forging email to the list is prohibited.

    4) Excessive and profane personal attacks upon an individual
       especially those unrelated to the subject matter are frowned-upon
       and such mail is taken seriously by the participants in these
       discussions as being disruptive, having no place in these
       discussions and potentially actionable(for sanction purposes not
       necessarily in the legal sense.) 

       I understand this is subject to interpretation necessitating a good
       deal of discussion on parameters, but I believe few would argue
       (which they will likely do after they see this just to be
       argumentative) that there is little question Baptista's stunt several days ago 
       could be reasonably considered anything but an unwarranted personal
       attack on the Secretariat, which included the forging of mail,
       forcing me to be subjected to the profane trash.

    5) That whatever rules of conduct put into place will be backed up
       by objective, clearly-defined and published sanctions to prevent further 
       disruptions such as the ones that have already occured. 

Item 5 is very important as previously mentioned in the process of
sullying these lists with their trash, these persons scare off those
"reasonable" people, who may be completely unfamilar and/or unaccustomed
to either conducting discussion/decision-making processes via email, or
the sometimes heated nature of such discussions but are willing to give it
an honest effort. 

I saw postings from some of these individuals who I had not seen post
previously expressing their level of discomfort regarding what was
occuring, and the negative effect it had on the value which they afforded
list participation. Offering free reign to disruptive individuals, or by
taking any action(s) against them which are not vetted in some fashion by
the membership and clearly spelled out casts even more doubt on the
viability of the list to aid in the discussion/decision-making process,
and strengthens the claim of selective censorship. The "reasonable people"
that are being dissuaded from participating as a result are the people
that the GA desperately needs needs most in order to effect any real
legitimacy. Without   

I'd like to reiterate that the mentally-unstable, and/or those individuals
that simply lack any life beyond whatever pathetic joy and sense of
achievement they receive in disrupting these lists by misrepresenting
themselves have a right to post and make their personal opinion(s) known.
While I wish they would go away and/or seek professional help, I respect
their right to speak. Indeed, there is no shutting them up as they
apparently have an endless amount of time in which to create personas,
send public email between these personas, concoct stories of non-existent
corporations which they head, software that doesn't exist,threaten
lawsuits and law-enforcement action against participants, and
generally spread their own personal brand of useless B.S. for the
"benefit" of anyone without the ability to or anyone that can be duped
because they are too new to these discussions to know better and to either
simply ignore/filter them. The problem that this causes is two-fold:

    1) It becomes apparent that some people, such as Jeff and Joe Baptista
       post what they do because they simply crave attention, and the
       members of these lists are a potential source. 
       It doesn't matter if that attention is positive or negative as long
       as they receive the personal validation a response to any of their
       crap, or mention of their name offers. As negative attention is
       much easier to obtain than positive recognition, their posts are
       primarily filled with personal insults, attacks, name-calling, etc.
       which helps get a rise out of people increasing the chance they
       will respond. Unfortunately, many people(including myself in
       the past) have been and continue to be too easily baited into
       spending any amount of time reading or responding to their trash,
       creating more volume/noise unrelated to the subject(s) at hand.

       The employment of ficticious personalities by Jeff and others like
       him offer an additional benefit: the complete freedom from
       any sense of personal responsibility for the manner in which they
       address others in these discussions, the misrepresentation, and/or the 
       outright lies they employ which are often seemingly limitless in
       size and scope since their character isn't real, and no one is
       likely to find out who is really behind the posts. 
       
       What is important here, and what is hopefully of concern to
       those of us interested in the productive use of these forums is
       that as time and experience has shown, the attention-seeking
       behaviour only worsens over time as people learn to ignore
       them/filter them. This results in the individual to becomes
       ever-increasingly obnoxious, profane, outrageous, and willing to go
       to whatever lengths required in their statements and actions to
       elicit the sort of attention I am now unfortunately offering them,
       if but for the sake of illustration. 
   
       Ample evidence of the reality of this has been offered by
       Jeff(assuming that is his real  name,) in creating a persona
       associated with dnsvip6@aol.com, using the exact same posting style
       as Jeff and claiming to be part of the same completely fictional
       organization that Jeff does, or with Joe Baptista forging
       very profane email to the list. Their actions were completely
       transparent, with Joe going so far as to publicly state that he
       forged the messages in question. Their actions are supposed to be
       transparent.  Both want to generate as much visibility and
       be as disruptive as possible so they can be the center of
       discussion and debate. 

    2) Potential new participants in these discussions, seeing
       or hearing that the majority of traffic is generated by such
       individuals, and viewing/hearing about the way in which they
       interact with people, make the mistaken, but completely
       understandable assumption that these persons are representative of
       the majority of the participants on these lists, and
       they either don't join or they immediately leave.

Since I've given them both the aforementioned individuals the personal
recognition they crave so badly, I'd like to offer that attention just a
moment longer. In my estimation, both of these individuals have completely
crossed the line by their actions. Jeff, while an easily-verifiable fraud,
I believe has a basic right to participate in these discussion. What he
should not have the right or easy ability to do is pose as multiple
individuals, aiding in the ever-increasing level of distrust among
members attempting to gauge the consensus level of proposals.

The same basic right was extended to Joe, but Joe chose to abuse this
right by forging profane messages, an act which is illegal in many places,
and is in any case completely inappropriate.

Both of these individuals have a right to speak, and to be represented. 
However, they both violated *my* right not to have to listen to either one
of them which I protect by using filters, which were bypassed by their
employment of forgery and misrepresentation.  Beyond that, both
individuals, in their own special ways, were or are continuing
to attempt to disrupt any chance of the meaningful use of this list. 

If such individuals are allowed to succeed (predicated on ICANN garnering
sufficient support/credibility to be considered viable, surviving
litigation, etc.) all the substansative decision-making of the GA will
only be able to occur at the in-person meetings. This would virtually 
assure that the primary source of decision-making ability within the GA as
is currently the case with the rest of ICANN would be from representatives
of large, well-funded organizations who can afford to fly their employees
around on the permanent ICANN world-tour so that they can act as
individuals for the purposes of the meetings.

I don't believe the very few disruptive individuals should be allowed to
wield such power. My rights, and the rights of every other person on the
list not to be subjected to such postings are no less valuable or
important than any arguable rights they have to post such things for those
that wish to view them. As mentioned previously, I believe these rights
should also include the right to expect that fraud is made as reasonably
difficult as possible, including efforts to ensure a single person is
posting only from a single account, the right to not be subjected to
constant personal attacks and insults, and finally the right to know that
all of these rights will be protected by the application of a
consensus/vote-based, publicly-available, objective sanction process.

In the absense of establishment and/or enforcement of any and/or all of
these rights by the membership at large, many of whom may believe such
actions unecessary because they personally know how to behave
appropriately and expect others to do likewise, the bad element which
refuses to do so wield all the power. They are allowed to forge
profanity-laden email, launch an endless stream of personal attacks
and insults, impersonate multiple individuals so as to launch these
attacks, sway opinion by their lies, and/or destroy any ability to gauge
consensus. All of this serves to greatly undermine the perceived value of
the GA list and its participants. While these activities are ones which
the vast majority of list members would never engage in or condone, the
unfortunate reality is that a handful of others have. It's time to stop
letting them run the show.

Contrary to the apparent opinion of some(beyond those individuals whose
activities I am discussing,) I don't believe discussing those perpetrating
such activities and measures of addressing them constitutes a
"witch-hunt", nor is censuring or censoring someone always an
unacceptable action if it is justified by that persons own actions, and
is carried out via an objective, fair, and clearly-defined set of
rules and a process developed by those subject to them. 

The right to post carries with it a corresponding *responsibility*
for the content of that post, a responsibility which is both as equally 
great as the right to post, and one which is far too often overlooked by
misguided zealots screaming about their right to post/say whatever they
wish, wherever and however yet are often unwilling to accept such
responsibility.

I keep hearing the term "Internet community" bandied about in these
discussions. If members of this list believe this even in the
most abstract sense, isn't it reasonable as a community to demand a
certain minimum level of trust that someone posting is either who they say
they are, or at a minimum not someone posing as additional member(s), and
a minimum level of responsibility from community members in how they
conduct themselves with others?

As you all may surmise from the percentage of my post on the subject,
based on the discussion that I have seen here, I believe the
ongoing, often-succesful attempts at disruption of the list with the
resultant FUD(fear, uncertainty, doubt) it has created poses the greatest
risk to the viability and/or credibility of the GA. This is nothing new.
The same individuals succesfully employ the same tactics on other lists,
ruining them.

The difference is that the decisions made by the GA could potentially
affect millions of Internet users directly or indirectly. If anyone
takes this role seriously, the importance of facilitating open, honest,
constructive discussion among interested parties should impress upon a
sufficient number of list members the need to assert certain
basic rights, recognize when these rights are being violated as they have
been by a single pair of foul-mouth, attention-starved individuals,
understand the greatly debilitating effect such activities cause,
and result in the "community" saying "ENOUGH is ENOUGH, as a group we
aren't going to allow individuals to shout fire in a crowded theater."

In short, the GA needs to build the house before trying to paint it.
This is something that those that established ICANN completely failed at,
so I wouldn't recommend looking at them for guidance on the subject,
and it is a very real way in which the GA can succeed where the rest of
ICANN has failed. If successful, the GA would have far greater credibility
as being truly self-organizing and representative, a combination that all
the other ICANN structures lack, or possess only superficially. To
accomplish this:


1) Do basic validation of list members in order to create a list of those
   who may vote. It's very inexpensive, and while it won't completely
   eliminate fraud, it both serve to decrease the ease and current level
   of fraud, while making large-scale fraud more difficult. A person
   might be able to dig up a couple of addresses, but coming up with
   50,100, or 1000 addresses that they could receive mail
   at would prove much more difficult. 

2) Once a defined and validated voting membership exists, establish the
   minimum processes necessary to conduct business(such as motioning and
   voting on issues and representatives.) 

3) Establish a consensus/vote-based set of rules of conduct which are
   minimal, fair, and objective so that all the "reasonable" people,
   who are currently being intimidated by the free reign and actions of
   the liars,  frauds, and loons enjoy, may feel more comfortable in
   offering their opinions, and the validity of the people they are
   discussing issues with. This should also serve to aid in establishing
   credibility.
   
4) Enforce the rules of conduct for the same reasons.

It's disheartening to see the disorganized mess which is currently the GA.
What is even more disheartening is that people, apparently not familiar(or
all too familiar) with the rest of ICANN's decision-making before process
or representation actions, are even attempting to proceed with substantial
activity within this completely undefined structure, where disruptive
individuals enjoy complete freedom, where a nomination process is being
attempted without a defined nomination process, where no one has any real
idea who is even conducting the ambiguous process of choosing a nomination
process, and where given the lack of membership validation, combined with
the blatant presence of individuals posting from multiple accounts and
admissions by others of having any of a number of aliases, no one would in
their right mind  would trust the results of a vote or consensus-gauging.
All of this dooms the nomination process to being invalid before it
started, and all of this is completely, utterly, and absolutely
UNECESSARY.