Re: [Clarification] Re: [wg-review] [Agenda] Issues List - 4

["Cindy Merry" <tomerrys@inter-linc.net>]

After reading Elizabeth Ponteneuve's posting, a few thoughts & questions
come to mind.

Are we actually accomplishing what the working group was set up to do?

When I followed this line from DecisionD4
"make the "terms of reference" "responding to the RTF questionnaire"

and found the RTF questionnaire with these questions:


How have the membership of constituencies grown over the past year?

How has the GA grown?

How has contribution to ICANN and NC secretariat increased in past year?

How many new countries added to membership in past year?

How many countries are not represented in DNSO?


I actually think the discussions and problems posed have been much more
interesting and enlightening.  And we have truly looked at what the
consensus building process is, however; IMHO (isn't it exciting when
someone learns), it seems like the RTF questionnaire asked for information
that couldn't be answered by somebody like me.  It also didn't really ask
questions that called for an opinion or a consensus.  And these questions
don't really ignite the spark of self-interest that causes folks to want to
respond to them, even if you do know the answers.  So if someone who
thought I was one of their constituents had ever circulated that
questionnaire, I wouldn't have even tried to answer it.

Therefore getting any type of "consensus" from a large percentage of people
who use the Internet (no matter how they use it - as a business, as a
domain name holder, as someone residing under someone else's domain, etc.)
would have been extremely hard.  So what we end up with is those with the
highest vested self-interest and a greater understanding of the process
participating the most.  Perhaps if more people understood how their
"rights" on the Internet (and the cost of getting a domain name) could be
affected by these various groups, there might be more folks getting
involved.


Of course my interest in this entire process grew out of a desire to keep
up with what new TLD's were being suggested.  As a general consumer using
the Internet, I didn't even know there was an ICANN, how TLD's were
"issued", or even that there were so MANY different organizations with
opposing viewpoints.
And maybe I should have found out on my own and maybe a group that
wants to reach the widest possible audience of interested individuals
should do a better job in telling the/their story.

So after this lengthy contribution to this working group, I'd like to
suggest that perhaps to gain "consensus"   (1) ICANN needs a better method
of reaching the general Internet population.  My second suggestion (2) is
that
when trying to build consensus that there should be clear questions that
define the specific problem(s) that need to be
address by the Internet community and why that question is pertinent.

Of course there are all those arguments going on about who should be
involved in consensus building...and that's another discussion so I'll save
it for my next posting.

Thanks,  Cindy Merry

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