Re: [wg-review] Resumption of Review.

[Eric Dierker <Eric@HI-TEK.COM>]

Dear Mr. Crispin,

My review of the by laws and the reports generated by other reviews leads me to
the same conclusion as you reach.  Just the name indicates the correctness of
this, working group, not popular election consensus.

I think that the voting is a good way to get a feel for what the "interested
majority" feel on a matter and is helpful for guiding in writing the report.  I
also think that it helps as a testbed for process and technique, and maybe even
participation.

Assuming we want the extreme of  Internet Democracy. This requires two factors,
educated populace and great leaders. The degree of quality required of either is
in direct proportion to that lacking in the other.

Assuming we want Internet Monopoly. This requires two factors, content populace
and great leaders. The degree of quality of either is in direct proportion to
that lacking in the other.  Under any system I am most content when not so
ignorant that I cannot accomplish my goals.

I have had the extreme pleasure during the time of this wg to be simultaneously
evaluating Technical schools for export to a nation desirous of increasing it's
citizens contentedness in and through the Internet. You see we wish to do great
Internet business with this nation but we all recognize that in order to
accomplish this we must educate the populace. The leaders are great and therefor
realize that the must educate their populace in order to be a successful Internet
Nation.

The same is true for ICANN.  Education is the only chance it has of accomplishing
it's goals. With Postal, we could slide by with an undereducated populace. Now
with the legitimacy of our leadership constantly questioned, it is far more
important to have a highly educated populace.

As far as Outreach goes, it must be through education.  There are churches with
great outreach who bring new people to the doors all the time but because first
they impose harsh rules and then educate, their population never grows, funny
that.  The Alm had a great membership drive, this wg started out with huge
numbers the ga maintains a large membership but the education level of the
members is such that the information received therefrom is noise. Conclusion:
Outreach without a successful education is useless if not harmful.

The lists are not increased nor decreased in activity to any substantial degree
by any specific input. The lists increase and decrease with firm direction from
the leaders and an agenda which is being followed.  It would clearly appear that
participation is directly related to the value one sees in what their input will
add. IF MEMBERS FEEL THAT THEY CAN CONTRIBUTE  SOMETHING OF VALUE TO A MEANINGFUL
PROCESS THEY PARTICIPATE.  (I refer to the ga and this wg)

I count no less than 15 sites with direct informational content related to ICANN.
The corporate site is loaded with information. Yesterday I found 24 news sites
with reports of ICANN activity. Conclusion: Information is not education.

The money is available from all types of sources, the business of education is as
old as those other professions.  We do not need to reinvent the wheel or start
from scratch.  ICANN simply has to make education at all levels a priority, hire
the people and implement the mandate.

I am quite certain that even my small mind could produce a schematic that would
both reach consensus and vote success.

Sincerely,

Kent Crispin wrote:

> 3) It's interesting to note that this mechanism (summarizing material
> and incorporating minority opinions) is precisely the mechanism
> described in the bylaws.  It's a good one; we should have used it from
> the beginning, and avoided voting altogether -- it does nothing but
> convey misleading information -- sort of like asking professional
> baseball players to vote about which sport is best.
>

--
This message was passed to you via the wg-review@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe wg-review" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html