[ALSC-Forum] Bottom up process and group dynamics

[William S. Lovell]

 DannyYounger@cs.com wrote:
> 148.ceffb05.29ec5e21@cs.com">
> The Board Committee on Evolution and Reform has set a deadline for comments 
> that is now only two weeks away.  As I peruse the comments that have been 
> posted thus far, I note that only 1 out of the 759 members of 
> icannatlarge.com has bothered to send in a personal recommendation on the 
> best way forward for ICANN.  
>
> What does this tell me?
>   
 Well, it should tell you that your current plan, or anything else having
to do with
 "ICANN -- The Organization," does not amount to a hill of beans, and is
not
 worth bothering with. 
> 148.ceffb05.29ec5e21@cs.com">
>
> At the last Board meeting, Alejandro Pisanty spoke of election practices in 
> certain South American countries where political organizers would round up 
> the uninformed peasantry and cart them by truck to the polling stations.  It 
> is certainly easy enough to rally people to go to a particular site... such 
> at icannatlarge.com... but it is quite another matter entirely to get them to 
> offer substantive recommendations (either personally or collectively) in a 
> timely fashion.
>     
 Unlike the knee jerk practices of ICANN, and especially of those who always
have some new
 election scheme to try out, icannatlarge.com takes its time to get set up
in a definitive fashion. Elections
 to our interim Supervisory Panel, which has a 3 month mandate to get icannatlarge.com
organized,
 will be held Apr. 23 - 27, from which 7 members of the panel will be elected
out of a field of 20
 candidates (or more -- the deadline for acceptances is not yet up).
    
 And I must say, I have never in my life seen a more cynical, elitist bunch
of naysaying than I see in
 reading in this post. Throwing around impressive buzz words like "group
dynamics" does nothing
 but drive off the largest majority of internet stakeholders, I should think.
The Supervisory Panel
 has as one of its mandates an outreach program, not the inreac
h program that you espouse.
 Your proposal is just like all the rest of what ICANN has always done --
maintain the positions
 of the insiders. You would perpetuate your bunch of "active participants"
in precisely the same
 way that the ICANN BoD has been perpetuating itself -- actions, which if
I recall correctly,
 you have properly criticized in the past.
> 148.ceffb05.29ec5e21@cs.com">
>
>
> So, I have to ask myself, what exactly is the value of a large group that 
> offers no substantive comments when compared to the initiative shown by those 
> three dozen individual participants that were not members of some 
> "collectivity" that actually did submit recommendations?
>       
 Recommendations to whom? For what? Are you aware that the ALSC-Forum is
the tail end of a 
 dead horse? ALSC no longer exists, so why are you all "horsing around" there?
> 148.ceffb05.29ec5e21@cs.com">
>
>
> I am confident that I will receive plenty of explanations as to the virtues 
> of sizable democratic representative structures... but at issue is whether we 
> can reasonably expect any group to organize their thoughts within the next 
> two weeks so that a recommendation can be made to the Board?  Perhaps you 
> believe that this is possible, I do not.
>         
 I'm sure that the icannatlarge.com members will break a rib or two cackling
over having been likened to
 an "uninformed peasantry" -- I shall commence a campaign to make it an icannatlarge.com
slogan! I
 would sincerely doubt either that icannatlarge.com will do anything pertaining
to any ICANN
 schedule.  Has not ICANN and its pet horse, the ALSC, recommended against
any global, online
 elections? Well, that's how icannatlarge.com proposes to conduct its business.
The real issue here
is whether or not the Internet will be operated by an insider, elitist bunch,
or whether all of the
users of the Internet will have a say.  icannatlarge.com adopts the latter
position, and thus is hardly
likely to participate in anything that would perpetuate the status quo of
insider control. Go to
icannatlarge.com and read the stuff, the Forums and all, and you'll get a
better picture, methinks.
> 148.ceffb05.29ec5e21@cs.com">
>
>
> All I expect is to hear are the lame excuses that it was first necessary to 
> organize, to structure, to establish discoursive mechanisms, to abide by 
> best-practice procedures... and that there just wasn't enough time to submit 
> comments.  This is folly.  I have heard such similar comments from the IDNO 
> over the course of its existence, and have yet to see any meaningful 
> contributions from that organization either.  Process continues to kill 
> substance.
>           
 In other words, you don't like us doing what ICANN, and especially ga@dnso.org,
was never able
 to do. Well, we shall see who survives the longest.  You say "process continues
to kill substance"
 even as you have yet one more "election process" scheme -- hello? Is there
anyone at home there?
> 148.ceffb05.29ec5e21@cs.com">
>
> In my view, the current icannatlarge.com (while well-intentioned) is no more 
> than a large group that will organize itself out of existence by not putting 
> forward any plan other than the one now on the table (the Lynn Plan, which 
> effectively kills the At-Large) because the organizers are too consumed by 
> "process".  They will miss the deadline for comments because they will be too 
> engrossed in electioneering to pay any attention to that which is really 
> necessary, and the Board will make their final decision without the benefit 
> of their input.
>
> We cannot rely on the group dynamic to arrive at recommendations.  It is not 
> happening within any other established DNSO constituency, and it will not 
> happen within icannatlarge.com... 
>
> If you have thoughts on how ICANN can be improved, now is the time to submit 
> a personal individual comment to reform-comments@icann.org
>
> I recommend that you don't wait for any organization to act on your behalf... 
> it won't happen.
>             
 icannatlarge.com has adopted the premise of self-organization, which means
that we don't wait for
 any organization to do anything for us.  People have been waiting for years
for ICANN to do anything
 constructive, and it never has. In short, we operate on the premise of your
last paragraph, while you
 do not.
            
 I find this whole post to be incredibly self-contradictory, filled with
smoke and mirrors, with no
 substance whatever. This and the other comments above are not meant personally,
and say nothing
 at all about Danny Younger, but only that Danny Younger's notions contained
in the post to which
 I respond are simply beyond any kind of rationality.
            
 Bill Lovell
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