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Re: [atlarge-discuss] Re: What am I missing...



At 09:07 -0800 2002/12/01, Jan Siren wrote -- a long and thoughtful message which touched on a number of crucial issues. First of all:
>I lack a website for which you could provide a link.  Consider me as the 
>classic "user," for whom the Internet is primarily a source of information 
>(in contradistinction to those who view it primarily as a potential or >actual source of profit).  If you want a link, you will have to provide it >yourself.

Sometimes I get the feeling that many members of this group have *no concept* of what "Internet users" means because, to them, the only people who really matter are those like themselves -- people who live from or on the Internet, and participate in the endless, well-funded circuit of conferences and industry association meetings.

There are a relatively small percentage of such people. The majority of that 600+ million Internet users are people who neither operate Internet-related businesses nor belong to the technological elite nor belong to the "policy wonk" circle whose jobs are in reading and writing reports and attending "summits".

The "ordinary" Internet user is a human being who lives in meatspace and uses the technology to a greater or lesser extent -- for research, communicating with others, studying or doing homework, playing games, downloading software or music, shopping or whatever else is useful or interesting to them. Most are not equipped to do what Jan and I have done -- download one report and try to understand it by downloading and reading a whole pile of other reports of varying degrees of dryness and difficulty.

They shouldn't have to do that just in order to find out who is reponsible for what aspects of the Internet, how those people want to run it, and why that might not be the best possible way to go if we want the Internet to meet the global need for rapid, inexpensive communication amongst individuals as well as large corporations and quangos which serve their interests more than the public interest.

If there is any purpose to an ICANNatlarge.org, a large part of that purpose is to communicate the essentials to ordinary Internet users, to provide an environment where they can learn more according to their interests and capacities, and to create a forum where user needs can be expressed and the best means of meeting them can be thrashed out. If this group isn't interested in doing *that* job, it's just another place where the technology-policy "elite" can hang out and make themselves look important: it certainly won't be a real voice for the worldwide Internet user community.

2. >Therefore, I diverged from addressing Lynn's "Plan of Action" and have >since taken the time to download (from the ICANN website) and read the >"Final Report."  Although that document in turn references much other >material, which I have not taken the time to access, I believe that I now >understand the issues well enough to respond to Lynn (from 
>a user's perspective).  My intent is to provide a comment via the ICANN web 
>site, and to cross-post it here as well.  I will do so as an individual, >not as a representative of icannatlarge.org (nor in my opinion can any one >person lay claim to that distinction, just yet!).

Bless you for that! Thus far, we can only respond as individuals and it's important that we do so. 

It would be even better if we were clever enough to work together and assemble 1000 individual user comments into a report all of us could sign but that is unlikely in our present circumstances. Anyway, even if we were capable of it, the 1000 would merely represent themselves, not the much-broader constituency, and the report would be disregarded accordingly or efforts would be made to co-opt the signatories as a means of avoiding the arduous and messy business of creating a real, democratic constituency organization for Internet users.

3. >At this point I can draw a few tentative conclusions.  Even though the >"Final Report" mentioned above had been through many hands and a revision >process, it contained several annoying typos and inconsistencies, which >would have been caught had *any one* of the Task Force members committed >him/herself to reading it through *critically* from start to end.  (Yes, I >am aware that I am stepping on some toes here.  But the guiding principle >is, if a person is willing to have his/her name on a document, that person >should be responsible for all it contains.)

I agree completely ... but I think you've overlooked what really goes on among the report-producing classes, especially in the IT world as opposed to  scholarly circles. Government and corporate reports routinely bear the signatures of purported authors who never got past scanning the "executive summary", and MPs and Congressmen and Senators routinely pass legislation the full text of which they haven't received, let alone read. Most technology experts couldn't write their way out of a paper bag and most bureaucrats specialize in a prose as obscurantist as it is grammatically unparsable. It's increasingly rare to find anyone who is willing to take responsibility or to look beyond their own main chance or the chance to rise within a party or company by pleasing one's bosses. 

In that climate, the guiding principles are "suck up to superiors and blame mistakes on subordinates", "do what's expedient, not what's right", and "it's not worth the trouble -- the citizens are too stupid to notice". Critical thinking is a skill few of that crowd bother to learn if it won't put extra dollars in their pockets, and the documents they deliver as if they were the Ten Commandments reflect the lack of thought. These people will only start thinking about Internet users are equals if we make the necessary effort to demonstrate that we are actually *better* than they are at the analysis and synthesis of the information they think is their private preserve.

4. >The lesson learned for this organization is that some of ICANN's 
>time-critical publications are too important to let our members discover >for themselves.  Our website, when we can finally claim to have one that >works, should provide all necessary links.  And until that day, this >mailing list has to be the medium that informs the membership.

Amen, Jan! But I'd go one step further. It's not enough to provide all the links so a person as intelligent and self-motivated as yourself can study hundreds of pages of material so as to comment on it. We also need to be sufficiently creative and motivated to find ways of conveying the main points in terms Internet users can understand, explaining how the finer points of Internet technology and governance can either facilitate or prevent their own uses of the Internet, and helping them to find ways to articulate what they need in their own words so that we can carry those messages to the so-called elite in language that leaves no room for doubt.

In my opinion, this will not be achieved by operating either with ICANN or against it. We'd need to take an entirely different approach, centered on the Internet users themselves, which would create a constituency no ICANN or government or international supragovernmental organization could ignore with impunity. 

Will that happen? The jury's still out...

Regards,

Judyth

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Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
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"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
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