RE: [ga] chaos and confusion on this mailing list

["Debbie Garside" <debbie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Simon

Welcome to the GA.

It would appear that there is quite a lot of history surrounding the GA.

Briefly, the GA was part of the old DNSO; the GA came under their authority
and had some clout at that time.  When this was abolished by the ICANN Board
and the GNSO created in its stead the GA became little more than a mailing
list for (what would seem to be in the main) the disgruntled.  As I am sure
that you have witnessed during your past year of listening in to the list,
very often the conversation became a little heated and sometimes somewhat
personal.  This was not helping anyone - stakeholders or ICANN policymakers.
We seem to be seeing this sort of behaviour rearing its head again today,
but given the topic, I, for one, think it is important to let this one run
its course.

So for this list to serve any useful purpose a few people got together and
revised the old GA (of the DNSO) rules ( revised rules are here
http://www.geolang.com/draftGAListRules6.htm) in order to try to bring the
topic of conversation back in line with the original objectives of the GA.

Thus we hope to serve some useful purpose and to bring some semblance of
order back to the GA in the hope that we may attract people, like yourself,
who are willing to participate in a constructive way.

That's it in a nutshell really.  What we should be doing is keeping an eye
on what is happening in the big wide internet world pertaining to the
jurisdiction of ICANN and advising on what can be done when problems arise;
in addition to producing commentary and helpful suggestion wrt ICANN policy.

I am sure if this rather succinct history is in any way wrong someone will
correct me.

I hope you can bear with us until such time as order is restored.

Best regards

Debbie
List Monitor

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Simon Schuster
> Sent: 03 October 2007 23:04
> To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [ga] chaos and confusion on this mailing list
>
>
> Supposing I'm someone who just joined the mailinglist, though
> I've been reading on and off for the past year or so, could
> someone take some (preferably a lot of) time to explain these
> recent developments regarding the GA entity? And who has
> worked as the catalyst for these devlopments, and what do
> they mean, and who is opposed, and why? And for anyone
> stepping in, maybe you could explain what I'm vaguely referring to.
>
> Maybe we need a GAWATCH.org to keep up with all of it :) or a
> few, because there seems to be a few differing opinions on the matter.
>
> Thank you!
>
>