Fw: [ga] Re: Re: Hackers Hijacking ICANN Elections?

["Louise Ferguson" <louise.f@ntlworld.com>]

Jeanette wrote:
> > A simple, non-nationalistic explanation for this would be that many
> > european candidates were not well prepared for the sudden
> > international attention they've got.
>
> Absolutely true.
>
> However, all of the candidates
> > are more or less able to express themselves in english.
>
> Agreed, many can, and some of the continental European ones very well. My
> preoccupation was with people like Donnerhacke, who
> a) have an almost incomprehensible ICANN page
> b) seems to have posted little in English - what he has posted on ICB
Tollfree
> (ibctollfree.com) in response to Judith Oppenheimer's survey questions
makes
> him VERY unattactive to me, but he talks about his 'customers', so my
> question is "does he have some kind of business agenda" ie some kind of
> constituency he is addressing that I don't know about, or "was that just a
> language error and am I not reading him right"?
> c) are high on the nominations
> and d) then, in his case, we find out he is a member of CCC, from the
press
> (I assume people in Germany knew about this already - but Lutz Donnerhacke
> doesn't mention it anywhere on his material in English). For me, this is
> misrepresentation. If people are voting in Germany with that info, and we
> don't have that info and don't know what CCC is, then we are comparatively
> in the dark. Then I try and find out about the CCC, and of course the
> info is in German. I hope you understand my position.
>
> I don't want to appear nationalistic or linguaphobic (if there is such a
> word ;-))
> I speak several languages, am a qualified translator and in my immediate
> family we are four different nationalities. My point is the difficulty
> created by the language barrier in Europe means that people in for example
> Spain or the UK have a lot more problems getting a complete picture of
these
> candidates, and these candidates are the ones that are probably going to
be
> nominated. It's much easier for me to find out what Karl Auerbach really
thinks
> than what Lutz Donnerhacke really thinks. But I can't vote for Auerbach.
>
> > The owner of the list has asked  all european candidates to
> > subscribe. At least two of the officially nominated candidates are
> > among the subscribers; Schueller from German Telekom as a
> > lurker, Alf Hansen from Scandinavia as an active participant.
> > Last week some 130 people had subscribed to the list.
> >
> > This list is the first attempt to initiate a transnational discussion
> > among the european at large members. We are still at an early
> > stage, however, I'd expect the list to grow in the near future.
>
> If only ICANN had given a real forum for the different zones, then so many
> more people would know. ICANN is like a black hole. No-one I know here
knows
> anything about the list on the German server, and it is already 2
September.
> >
> > And a final remark about our allegedly german campaigning. Most
> > of the european candidates havn't done any active campaigning so
> > far. It's the german press that approaches us and asks for
> > interviews or background information.
> > As some of you may know, the european public sphere is still very
> > fragmented. While the german press has covered the election quite
> > extensively, the major papers in GB, France, Italy, Austria,
> > Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands and so on have preferred to
> > ignore the matter.
>
> This is also a chicken-and-egg problem. If the main candidates are German,
> the Spanish or UK press won't cover it, because they (the press) are quite
> nationalistic. There have been articles in the Guardian here, but not
many.
> In Spain the journalists don't know what ICANN is or what WIPO is or what
> NSI is (I read one story in the Spanish press last week that said WIPO had
> ruled against (?!) Network Resolution (!?) - the person obviously didn't
know
> what they were writing about).
>
> > Thus, the german focus should be regarded as an effect rather
> > than an intention on the candidates'  side.
>
> True.
>
> > I don't feel comfortable with this situation - not least because it
> > does injustice to non-german candidates. Any practical
> > suggestions as to how this imbalance could be changed are
> > welcome and may be directed to icann-europe@fitug.de
>
> Well, I think the fact that so many Germans registered with At Large was
> bound to mean that it was German candidates who would receive the support.
> Europe is still many nations.
Perhaps some kind of cross-national 'ticket' system like the US
presidentials ;-)
>
> Louise>
>
>

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