[atlarge-discuss] Atlarge-discuss summary 04 Aug - 10 Aug 2002

[Giampaolo Bonora <bonora@nettuno.it>]

[As this is the first tentative summary, please see considerations in
the next post. Comments welcome]

atlarge-discuss list
Archives: http://www.fitug.de/atlarge-discuss

Summary, 04 Aug 2002 - 10 Aug 2002

Judyth Mermelstein, as registred voter in ICANN's 2000 elections, asked
why she did not receive a ballot for this election. Joanna Lane answered
explaining that this organization need a different registration, which
raised a question about ICANN's list of voters. In her reply, Judyth
asked for a distinctive name for this organization.
Norbert Klein:
>Is it not natural that a person who registered for the only open "ICANN
>At-Large" elections thinks to be also authorized to vote in the "icannatlarge" elections - in our organization that was created to take up the history which the ICANN board wants to cut?
Izumi Aizu:
>I was quite annoyed when the ICANN staff "destroyed" all the record
>of the first election right after they confirmed the result.
Alexander Svensson:
>I don't think they were physically destroyed, but not using and
>updating them amounts to something similar since e-mail addresses
>change so rapidly that many e-mail accounts are inactive after
>a short period of time. Which reminds of the fact that ICANNatlarge.com
>needs some mechanism for checking/updating its membership records
>as well.
From the discussion, it's not clear what happened to the original list
of voters. The ALSC mailing list is a different one.
Esther Dyson: 
>I do not believe the records were destroyed, but they are certainly out of 
>date. [...] Re the ALSC list, I'm pretty sure that is around.

Sub-thread on membership records:
Three suggestions from Judyth:
>Within a worldwide membership-based organization with a zero budget, I suspect the best thing to do is to send eveyone a message at intervals, asking for confirmation that the contact details on file are still valid.
>... to use an e-mail alias like "update@icannatlarge.com" (cited at the bottom of official announcements, etc.) to steer all the address updates to the person responsible for updating the database.
>... setting up the organization's Web site to provide permanent e-mail accounts like "joeblow@icannatlarge.com" configured so as to forward mail to whatever ISP account the individual is using at the time.
Vittorio Bertola:
>we could possibly have on the site a "personal account"
>section where you can supply and edit your updated personal data
>... we have to consider that
>not everybody has web access - some can just use e-mail"
This was developed by Judyth.
David Schutt:
>Perhaps one way to achieve a robust system is to have a nice front end for basic contact info, but distribute the rest of the functions. I think that even the website might work best if it's thought of as a 'portal', rather than as a central repository of information.

The elected icannatlarge.com panel was announced from Alexander Svensson
on Monday 06 Aug 2002.
There was a thread about votes for an unknown candidate and some
discussion about Chair's election.

Richard Henderson focused on outreach, he's committed to increase
membership
>I have stated that I want to see at least 100,000 members by this time next year
and later he cc. this list with his proposal to panel to establish a
General Outreach Working Group.

To ensure continuity Sotiris was invited from Joanna to stay as observer
in a teleconference, and after there were some posts about  this
organisation's involvement in ALOC and in other fora. Joanna's 
>"understanding is that the Panel may delegate representatives to relevant fora as observers, but these individuals have no advocacy role without a mandate from the membership.
Hans Klein proposed to make independent comments directly to 
the ERC. So there are two policy issues open:
1. Response to ERC demands
2. Positions to ALOC

Joe Bordo started a thread about volunteering asking:
>Where might a “new” member of icannatlarge.com post biographical information and icannatlarge.com volunteer interests?
This lead to establish a new forum topic to collect expressions of
interest from folks willing to donate a bit of time or expertise.

Quoting two news about Chinese dissident jailed for online violations
and Chinese Internet Cafe Pioneer Closes All Cafes, Judyth Mermelstein
said:
>The messages quoted below are exactly the sort of thing that I think an Internet users' organization should be monitoring, publicizing and commenting upon in the right quarters to effect change. 
In the same message, she argued in favor of accessibility:
>Personally, I'd like to see the site itself made fully accessible to even the first-generation text browsers, and an e-mailed newsletter (naturally including instructions for subscribing to this list by e-mail and on the Web, joining, etc.) which covers the major events related to the organization's mission. Personally, I can't see recruitment being terribly successful unless the organization is committed to doing what it takes to make sure the Internet is there for everyone
Danny Younger posted and Eric Dierker commented news about Internet
usage's inspection in Vietnam two biggest cities in a crackdown on
"harmful information" from cyberspace.

Erick Iriarte Ahon started a long thread saying:
>I think is necessary to create a mechanism to include almost one people 
>from Latin America and Africa in the Board of icannatlarge.com
This Judyth's opinion was agreed by Richard Henderson and Joe Bordo:
>Whatever the method chosen to select a Latin American and an African to
>provide that input, it is very important that we be clear: these people are
>not being "appointed to" the Panel, which is by definition made up of
>elected representatives. Instead, they would be invited to join its work as
>non-voting advisors to the Panel
Bruce Young said that is most important to have this people "in
commitees that will doing the hard work to build and monitor our
processes" and connected this item with outreach effort:
>... it will be vital that we have members "on the
>ground" in every region of the world willing to talk to the press,
>professional organizations, labor unions, etc.,

Richard Henderson opened the running thread about
Deciding Name for Organisation
In this thread Vittorio Bertola inserted a wider issue yet posted to
panel list:
>I think that first we should decide some basic points about what we
>want to be - then the mission statement and the name will descend as a
>consequence.
>[...]
>A) You could build:
>  A1) a single monolithic organization, or
>  A2) a federal organization with the centre plus local chapters, or
>  A3) a lightweight "glueing" organization - something that has not
>only individual members, but also organizational members, and that
>wants to act as point of coordination and confrontation for all At
>Large-related entities and individuals in the world.
>
>B) You could build:
>  B1) a generic Internet user organization (thus entering in direct
>competition with, just to name one, ISOC, even if ISOC is now shifting
>towards an industry organization), or 
>  B2) an organization focused by mission on Internet governance, or
>  B3) an organization focused by mission on DNS governance, or 
>  B4) an organization whose mandate is limited to participation in
>ICANN.
>
>Personally, I'm for A3 and B2 or B3.

Sotiris Sotiropulos, who owns the domain name worldatlarge.org, said
that he's happy that we use http://www.worldatlarge.org and he'll put
there early next week a testing alternative to the current site.



------------------------------------
Giampaolo Bonora - bonora@nettuno.it

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