[ga] Re: A note to Vittorio

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Il giorno dom, 06-03-2005 alle 21:50 -0800, Danny Younger ha scritto:
> Dear Vittorio,
>  
> I would like to have the opportunity to reply to the comments posted
> on your blog:

You're welcome (sooner or later I'll have a proper comments feature on
it).

> First of all, please note that I asked for your resignations because
> in my view your collective performance over the course of the last two
> years has not served the needs or expectations of the at-large
> community -- I did not ask for the committee to be disbanded; rather,
> I asked all of you to step aside (resign) so that others might replace
> you.

Point taken - it's a matter of opinions, and we possibly disagree (I'm
not saying that we didn't make mistakes, but I'm saying that we did a
good job, especially if compared with the available resources and the
"environment"). 

However, I would also like to ask you to stop making confusion among
your personal expectations and "the expectations of the at-large
community". The organizations that applied to participate in the
mechanism, for example, are part of the At Large as well. But more
importantly, I think that the real At Large community - the mass of
global Internet users - is still unaware of ICANN itself, possibly
because things, after all, don't work so bad. I think that neither you
nor me can positively affirm to represent or even know with certainty
the expectations of these people.

> Secondly, I requested transparency.  I have not demanded irc or skype,
> only that minutes be posted and/or mp3 recordings provided (as has
> long been the practice within the GNSO).

On this specific point, you are right. My personal opinion is that all
discussions of the Committee should use the public list, except those
few where we have to judge and recommend individuals. This has been an
ongoing subject of debate in the Committee, and I'm glad you keep
raising this point, as it might lead the Committee to change its current
practices. As you might have noticed, my proposal to allow observers
(even with speaking slots) at our internal meetings (in addition to the
public ones) has been well received by ALAC members.

> Third, I take issue with the disparagement of the icannatlarge effort
> that did indeed rapidly gain over one thousand members (most of whom
> you already knew through their prior General Asembly affiliation).  

As I was pointing out, it's not hard to gather one thousand signatories
on a website - it's hard to build something on them. We all tried, we
tried very hard, but in the end it became evident that there was no
agreement among the different "souls" of that effort - some of which
wanted to participate in ICANN, some of which not, and some even called
for ICANN's disbandment... some wanted the US Government to intervene,
some wanted the US Government totally out of the door... and so on. 

I think that icannatlarge.com/org was an exceptional experience, but it
proved how hard (perhaps impossible) it is to build a purely online
organization among people who don't share anything - culture,
objectives, ideals, proposals, languages. It wasn't me or any individual
that doomed its fate - it was its own nature, and intrinsic lack of
cohesion.

> You, Vittorio, were the chief architect of the At Large Organizing
> Committee (ALOC) submission to the Board.

I thank you for the compliment, but I wasn't the only one. Anyway...

>   By your own deliberate design you denied established international
> organizations such as icannatlarge the right to be fully integrated
> into the ICANN process -- you were only prepared to accept
> yet-to-be-built regional groups (RALOS) as part of your ALAC construct
> -- neither individuals, nor international bodies fit neatly into the
> boxes you had drawn.  

Individuals have always been expected to have a way to participate -
especially, at that time we fought to have the draft Bylaws changed so
that individuals would be allowed to join directly at the RALO level, if
the RALO so wanted.

However, the At Large was, I think, the first constituency to take
seriously the problem of internationalizing ICANN, and not keeping it
just as a place for expert, richer, English-speaking users like us,
pretending to talk for the world.

You can't have a meaningful flat structure at the global level - I'm
still convinced of this. You need intermediate structures where people
can discuss in a forum of manageable size, in their own language. That's
especially true for individuals.

So, the problem is that user interest in ICANN participation has
dramatically dropped. Whether this is the cause or the consequence of
the too slow growth of the RALO/ALS mechanism, we don't know. But we
know that something needs to change. We tried At Large 1.0, it worked
fine to some extent, badly to some other. At Large 2.0 was the same.
What about At Large 3.0?

> At least icannatlarge obtained a thousand members within a matter of
> months... what do you have to show for your efforts after more than
> two years?  

One month ago in Accra, Ghana, at the WSIS Preparatory Conference, there
was an At Large booth registering some hundreds of individuals (yes,
individuals) and organizations from all parts of Africa, and giving
information about what ICANN and the At Large are. I think that this
kind of advances (though we have few of them!) are more signficant than
any online thread.

For the rest, I recommend you to review, for example, this page:
http://alac.icann.org/announcements/
It's not complete, and it's not fully up to date (yes, our website is
not as good as we would like it to be). But I don't think that's exactly
nothing.

More importantly, again, At Large is still on the map. We now have funds
to travel (something that we didn't have when we started), other
constituencies interact with us, when we speak at public forums people
take note. Yes, we're still advisory, and yes, sometimes industry
lobbyists still do what they want, as in Lynn's ICANN; but I don't
remember the At Large having any practical role or influence in policy
decisions before the ALAC, notwithstanding Karl's efforts. In 2002 it
even seemed that we would be shut out of the door, and ICANN would
become just a sort of trade association... and it was extremely hard to
prevent this from happening.

> I would recommend that you take some time and consider the remarks
> made to you by Wolfgang Kleinwachter -- it is time for you as chair of
> the ALAC to recommend bylaws revisions to the Board.  

I've not made up my mind finally yet, but I think I agree.

Regards,
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...