Re: [ga] More ALAC Follies

["Richard Henderson" <richardhenderson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In September 2004 I wrote a post entitled: "ALAC's graveyard forum". In it I
noted that no mail has been published on the ALAC public forum for 135
days...

An analysis of the ALAC fora suggested they were almost dead... which is
little surprise when you create an organisation for Individual Internet
Users but do not allow Individual Internet Users themselves to vote and
determine the shape and representatives of "their" organisation...

Forum: Domain Name Registration Issues: last post: 171 days

Forum: WHOIS: last post: 185 days ago

Forum: Spam: last post: 171 days ago

Forum: Internationalised Domain Names: last post: no post ever submitted

Forum: New TLDs: last post: 163 days ago

Forum: WIPO: last post: 135 days ago

Forum: Registry Service Changes: last post: 222 days ago

Forum: Verisign Redirections Policy: last post: 161 days ago

Forum: Miscellaneous Comments: last post: 236 days ago

Forum: At Large Organising: last post: 185 days ago

* * * * * * * * * *

Because these forums were not being used, all 10 were closed down and
replaced by one central forum. Out of the millions of Internet Users in the
world, in the past 53 days there have been just a handful of posts, 1 of
which was spam about Vitamin D, 5 of which were spam from OMTEL, 2 of which
were from Danny and myself encouraging ALAC to disband, 1 indecipherable
spam email in a jungle of html, 1 spam message offering a picture of a woman
called Viviane, 1 post from Danny redirecting people to a statement at
icannatlarge.com, and just 8 emails from anyone else.

This, for a constituency that numbers millions...

I suggest that this demonstrates pretty clearly the lack of involvement of
ordinary internet users, and the lack of credibility of ALAC.

Unfortunately ICANN does not understand that openness and democracy are the
lifeblood of community, and that ICANN will only truely become
representative when it allows representation.

If Individual Internet Users are denied the right to determine their own
representatives, why should they take ALAC seriously? Particularly when
ICANN has already demonstrated its disdain for democratic representation by
expelling the democratically elected representatives of the At Large from
the ICANN Board.

ALAC was invented by ICANN, who hired Denise Michel and co-opted Esther
Dyson to get it started. They co-opted a handful of people, to try to
massage it into life.

These silent forums illustrate that you cannot bring back to life something
which was dead from the start.

Yrs,

Richard Henderson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Danny Younger" <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <aizu@xxxxxxx>; <alac_liaison@xxxxxxxxxxx>; <alac@xxxxxxxxx>;
<ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2005 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: [alac] RE: [alac-admin] Re: [ga] More ALAC Follies


> Vittorio,
>
> It is evident that you and the ALAC are at your wits
> end.  Your project is falling apart by the seams.
>
> Give it up.  Throw in the towel.  It's not working.