RE: [ga] 6000+ unique At Large Members?

[Joanna Lane <jo-uk@rcn.com>]

ICANN really must reassure the Department of Commerce that it is not
bolstering its credibility by falsely claiming interest that it does not in
fact have. The 6000+ must be a typo, or how has Denise arrived at this
number?

Conservatively, that has to be about 5,000 more people than have actually
participated in the At Large debate since the end of the Elections in 2000.
Of those registered at that time, many are now represented in the GNSO
constituencies, on the ALAC itself and in ICANN Staff Offices. Even serious
lobbying in the public fora by the most passionate of activists failed to
raise more than, say, let's be generous, 1,000 at any one time on any list.
So who are these 6,000 unique individuals exactly? Where are they from?

In total there have been 3 Announce lists for the At Large, each grown from
the previous, with a large number of duplications between the lists as
people rolled from one to the next, each shut down by ICANN in turn. ID
verification is an unresolved problem as people joined these lists multiple
times using different names and email addresses. What steps are ICANN Staff
taking to protect the integrity of the lists they are compiling?

Even if the 6000+ number is correct, which is hard to believe, it is a
matter of record that the vast majority were attracted by the opportunity to
vote in an election. ICANN's abandonment of democratic foundations, viewed
as a betrayal, has now manifested itself as zero interest in this new
venture. In reality, prior interest is most definitely not ongoing from the
At Large Lists of the past, especially for an organization that is not
founded in democratic principles.

Did Denise take the original At Large electorate data for 2000 and subtract
the number of emails that bounced on the ALSC Announce List? If so, that
would confirm an impressive 90+% failure rate to foster At Large
participation over the last 3 years.

For the record, the At Large Announce lists amount to these:-

1) Year 2000: At Large Elections List, closed more than 2 years ago.
2) Year 2001: ALSC list, roughly 1,000+ rolled over from earlier list,
numbers declined to a handful of participants when closed more than 1 year
ago.
3) Year 2002: 100+ active participants from the 2001 list rolled over to
ICANNAtLarge.com, originally funded by ICANN Staff under the leadership of
Denise Michel. Membership grew to roughly 1000, of which only a handful
remain active today.

By my calculations, that makes about 60 left, not 6,000.

Regards,
Joanna

>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ga@dnso.org [mailto:owner-ga@dnso.org] On Behalf Of
> DannyYounger@cs.com
> Sent: 22 April 2003 17:13
> To: ga@dnso.org
> Subject: [ga] 6000+ names
>
>
> Just posted:
>
> ICANN's technical staff is working on combining past At-Large announce
> lists (with 6000 + names) for the ALAC's use and an announce list
> subscribe/un-subscribe mechanism for the ALAC's website.  I expect this
> to be operational very soon.
>
> Denise
>
> http://forum.icann.org/mail-archive/alac/msg00189.html
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