RE: [atlarge-discuss] Issues

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

Dear all,

there were a number of interesting points made in the
thread about substantive issues. Here are some short 
responses to a few of them.

At 25.07.2002 10:51, James Love wrote:
>    Alexander, IMO, there are many "important" issues that you might not think are important.  I think transparency, (fiscal and policy) accountability, and the scope of ICANN's mission are big big issues, and also ones where many at large members may agree, even when they disagree about other "policy" issues.
>
>      Also, there are the issues that keep being surpressed, such as problems with the UDRP, the failure to allow more gTLDs, and the unwillingness to allow civil society groups to run their own TLDs (such as .union), or preventing the WHO from running .health or the UN from running .un, are important, to me.  But maybe they are not "important" to others.

Except for the underhanded assumption that I "might not think"
transparency, accountability and scope are unimportant (I might
borrow Jeff William's "Sheeesh!" here), I agree. I never said
that we should stop discussing these issues or the second set
of issues you mention. I just warned not to fall into a trap:
If we focus almost entirely on meta-issues, we are isolating
ourselves from a large part of policy development and might
not look too credible. If the message is "we want in!", that's
fine, but we shouldn't stop there.

And yes, that has been a problem in the past. Despite lots of
non-commercial groups being concerned about Whois issues, these
groups have -- at least in my perception -- not been too vocal 
when the issue was up for discussion in the DNSO.

At 25.07.2002 16:10, Jkhan wrote:
>I Disagree, "substantive domain name issues..." isn't the Big-picture
>issue here.

Maybe that's what I meant: We are all aware of the Big Picture
and I believe we all agree that it is important. But if we are
arguing that bottom-up process is important, how can we leave
it there, looking at the Big Picture and not doing work from
the bottom up?

At 26.07.2002 14:29, Joop Teernstra wrote:
>I do not agree with Alex that this is now the time to start discussing specific Domain issues in this Forum.

I never said so.

>These issues will not disappear, they are likely to get worse.
>Our individual members can discuss these matters in the GA and show what they think there. The electorate should be able to watch them.

That's where I disagree. I think the At-Large "thing" (whatever
it turns out to be) should be involved in policy development
on exactly that: *specific domain issues*. We *should* have an
opinion on the Redemption Grace Period and those who don't even
know what that is should get up to speed (again, I'm not referring
to Joop -- I'm sure he knows).

Best regards,
/// Alexander


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