Re: [ga] Getting Heard by the ICANN Board

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Veni and all,

  Frankly Veni, I as a stakeholder/registrant and long time
ICANN participant do not see, recognize or have seen
or recognized, any difference sense Karl was a Bod member.
If as you contend, shouldn't it be easily/readily apparent to any
and all stakeholders/registrants and/or participating users, that
their is such a significant change and/or difference between
Karls tenure and yours?  If not, can you enlighten us all with
your rapier like wisdom and wit, as to why not?

  Or as I suspect, are you doing some parting CYA PR?

  As I recall, when Karl was a Bod, this forum had nearly all
of the ICANN BoD members active on it, as well as all of
the than legal staff, AND this forum was than an "official"
ICANN forum and the GA was an "official" organ of ICANN.
As I also recall, Kent Crispin, Dave Crocker, AKA "The
Crock"  and Roberto were central in the demise of the GA,
with Marilyn Cade playing a supporting role as well...

Veni Markovski wrote:

> Karl,
> a note on your comments - you were a director until June 2003, when I
> joined. Things with staff - board relations are quite different
> today; people should reach conclusions about today's ICANN based on
> your experience. Perhaps it's good to say that, so that there's no
> misunderstanding.
>
> veni
>
> At 11:43 AM 13.12.2006 '?.'  -0800, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> >Bret Fausett wrote:
> >>We're fortunate to have at least three current or former Directors
> >>on this list. In recent days, we've seen posts from Roberto Gaetano
> >>(the new Vice-Chair of the ICANN Board) and former directors Veni
> >>Markovski and Karl Auerbach. I wonder whether we could hear from
> >>each of them about what influences(ed) their thinking when they
> >>consider(ed) an issue before the Board.
> >
> >I interacted directly with everyone I could reach.  I was not
> >passively waiting for interaction to occur; I would initiate
> >it.  And it often involved several rounds of questions/answers in
> >order to clarify words, ideas, concepts, and values.
> >
> >And it was a lot more than 5 minutes per email.  Many often took
> >hours to consider and absorb.
> >
> >Sometimes I had to dig down and do some investigation of my own - as
> >when the .tw ccTLD seemed to be running its own, inconsistent, root.
> >
> >During ICANN meetings I would make a positive effort to sit in the
> >public rooms so that I could be found and engage in discussions.
> >
> >I also wrote papers, talked to reporters (there are some smart
> >reporters out there who really ask good questions, the kind of
> >questions that can make one think hard about why one holds a given
> >point of view.)  And I gave testimony to Congress.  I visited the
> >folks at NTIA a couple of times.  I even went to the ICANN offices
> >where I interacted with certain members of staff who could be
> >described as extremely capable and constructive.
> >
> >Some members of ICANN's staff, on the other hand, actively worked
> >against me. For example, ICANN's webmaster ignorred every request to
> >publish on ICANN's website any thing that I had written even though
> >such requests from other directors, and previous directors, and
> >certain members of "staff" were routinely honored.
> >
> >ICANN's staff was utterly useless.  They presented, if they
> >presented at all, only very condensed summaries, that dismissed or
> >ignorred that material that went against staff position.
> >
> >ICANN's law firm was a downright disaster.  I learned to give
> >absolutely no credit to any advice they would give - it was often
> >incorrect or self-interested.
> >
> >Other members of the board could have been asleep as far as I could
> >tell, or perhaps they had super-abilities?   For example one board
> >member, acting alone and without special expertise in accounting,
> >was described (in a court document) as having absorbed about 12 feet
> >thick of accounting reports in a short morning's review.
> >
> >Among the board of my time the technical expertise about networking
> >was near zero.  I had to spend a lot of time giving tutorials to the
> >board on how DNS and other parts of the net worked.
> >
> >The email discussions among the board were rarely focused, almost
> >never drilled down onto issues.  Live meetings (by phone or in
> >person) were run as time constrained serial monologues, again
> >without the ability to drill-down onto an issue.
> >
> >I wrote about nearly every decision I made in an online diary.  I
> >tried to record the input to my choices, my rationale, the values
> >and criteria I used, etc.  I tried to refrain from speaking about
> >what other directors did.  I even pointed out when I had made a mistake.
> >
> >Apparently ICANN's staff and certain directors were privately
> >incensed that I did this, and it is my understanding that ICANN now
> >encourages current directors to interact with the public only via
> >ICANN press-managers.  Certainly from experience it is true that few
> >ICANN directors ever discuss matters with the public.
> >
> >I tried to read public comments and reports.  I even read the
> >contracts, although I clearly missed a few big klunkers, like the
> >5-day grace periods.
> >
> >And I abstained when I did not have enough information.  (An amusing
> >thing was that other directors gave me quizzical looks when I would
> >abstain from approving minutes for meetings where I was present.  I
> >think things have improved on that teensy point.)
> >
> >As a director I understood that my duty was to make informed and
> >independent decisions.  That meant, to me, that I had to make an
> >active effort to learn from primary and secondary sources.  I did
> >not put great faith staff summaries or positions; I felt that to do
> >so would be an abrogation of my responsibility of independent
> >judgement and my experience had taught me that staff reports would
> >not make me "informed".
> >
> >And look what happened when I tried to exercise my duties to inquire
> >into ICANN's financial status, I was blocked by staff and certain
> >members of the board (who are still on the board) and ended up
> >having to spend months on end in a legal battle that I finally won
> >during a 5 minute hearing in which ICANN's actions were declared unlawful.
> >
> >                 --karl--
>
> Sincerely,
> Veni Markovski
> http://www.veni.com
>
> check also my blog:
> http://blog.veni.com

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
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very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

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