Re: [ga] Proposition to take advantage from Members' cultures

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

Dear Jefsey,

while I agree with the spirit of your proposal, I don't
agree with all your practictal suggestions:

> I propose - conforming with international WTC agreements - that the GA
> maintains a ML at least in the language of each of the countries where a
> meeting was held or is expected. This will permit the people who met/will
> meet in such meetings to continue relating and develop their local ICANN
> oriented community. Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, etc... ML
> should therefore be implemented by Secretariat. So the genius of every
> culture may be taken advantage from by the ICANN..

I don't think we have to formalize the additional
language mailing lists, which partly already exist.
I prefer to have /the/ General Assembly list, and
would encourage that new regional ICANN-related
lists are brought to the attention of the GA.

> Obviously votes will continue on the GA. But motions should be translated
> in every ML language under the common responsibility of the motioneer and
> of the language ML Chair. I am sure we have enough bilingual experts able
> to fairly, promptly and exactly translate such texts for free. There is
> therefore no additional cost incurred.

Obviously, I don't mind voluntary translations of GA
motions. But I think that currently a *procedure*
for *passing motions* has to be the priority. First,
we need a way to get to meaningful motions, then we
can translate them.

> As indicated earlier france@large is the incorporated association we set-up
> to foster initiatives in that area. The icann-fra ML already exists on a
> commercial system. I propose its transfer under the DNSO system and other
> MLs to be implemented in parallel. The GA counts more than 1000 Members.
> Voting Members are in the 200 range for the USA, 50 for France, 40 for
> Germany, ... These figures become coherent with such a proposition and will
> help developing and stabilizing the GA, the DNSO and the ICANN.

We all have a limited amount of time and energy, and
I am especially careful when burdening the Secretariat
with a task which Yahoo!Groups seems to have been
doing well for your French list.

> As an example, issues like Whois are today of enough international
> importance to be addressed too by people of different cultures and
> countries where the currently debated propositions are illegal. I certainly
> respect the professional approach of ATT and VeriSign lobbyists but if
> their influence is not balanced by people from different cultures, legal
> understanding and network vision the result will be so unbalanced that it
> will result in Governmental negative actions, detrimental to everyone,
> starting with ATT and VeriSign.

To me, this is a good reason to bring those people of
different cultures and countries to the GA list instead
of separating them in a language list. If we want to
debate, we have to come to one place. I cannot expect
a lobbyist to listen to me when I don't join the list.
So: I encourage the regional lists, but I don't think
making them look more official helps us with the balance.

> Another example is the ".name" TLD. This English only proposition is an
> obvious challenge to the rest of the cultures and a deliberate incitation
> to the creation of open Internet TLDs for other languages.

On the other hand, we should be careful not to hand over
words instead of strings to the registry operator.
If you look at the original GNR proposal
(http://www.icann.org/tlds/name1/), you will find that
they originally also applied for .jina, .nom, .san and
.xing and that
 "GNR would like to emphasize that our application is primarily
  for .NAME, while the strings .NOM, .SAN, .XING and .JINA (withdrawn
  due to misleading placement on the ICANN site) are our suggested
  future expansions in the personal domain space, to accommodate
  other cultures and languages once the market need for .NAME is
  proven."
 "Hypothetically, if GNR should receive .NOM as a new TLD instead
  of .NAME, it is our opinion that the market demand would be slightly
  lower than what has been projected for .NAME. This would, however,
  not materially inflict on the viability of the Registry, although
  GNR estimates that the demand in the North American market would
  be lower than projected. Demand in Europe, on the other hand, would
  rise, but not enough to reach a global overall penetration like
  projected. .NOM, instead of .NAME, would therefore enjoy a lower
  growth and adoption rate, but not enough to threaten the business
  plan of GNR and its viability"
  http://www.icann.org/tlds/name1/qa.html

There is no universal language and probably will never be:
From a European point of view, Greek and Latin sometimes
seem like natural choices when searching for common
word-bits, but this is obviously equally regio-centric.

> There are two Aborigine TLDs on the open Internet. I am proud of them. As
> they said about the Melbourne meeting "the lords of the ancient domains
> welcome the masters of the new domains". This is the Internet I am proud
> of. I am sad that their TLD Managers were not acknowledged.

As far as I recall, there were also plans for Native
American TLDs which didn't make it.

Bottom line: If people know about ICANN-specific regional
or language mailing-lists or want to create new ones, they
should spread the knowledge. If people want to translate
GA motions, I think it is a highly welcome contribution,
but I would emphasize the need for GA procedures before
we have anything of value that should be translated.
The physical meetings could obviously be well suited
to get regional or language mailing-lists started, but
I'm not yet convinced of stamping them "official".

Best regards,
/// Alexander
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