Hello Richard,
At 20.12.2002 08:31, Richard Henderson wrote:
>The idea that the At Large should be structured, promoted, and developed
>WITHIN Icann is a disastrous wrong turning, as the whole issue has been
>about ICANN's desire to stifle, control or eject critical voices from its
>organisation.
You realize that you are in agreement with ardent critics of
the 2002 elections? The first At Large attempt was in fact
At Large WITHIN Icann -- At Large members had to sign up at
the ICANN website, they got PIN letters from ICANN and
elected ICANN directors.
The Regional At Large Organizations (RALOs) are NOT WITHIN
Icann, and neither are the user groups which form the RALOs.
>Since this is the battlefront which must be fought - the need and right of
>ordinary people to criticise the Board and challenge its undemocratic
>authority - it is wholly unacceptable to allow ICANN to draw the mechanism
>for challenging it, into a structure that ICANN determines, ICANN directs,
>and ICANN develops.
Ordinary people can at all times criticise and challenge
anything. The point is that unless they organize, they will
have little influence. The RALO structure has not been
determined by ICANN, the RALOs are not directed by ICANN
(the user groups will choose both the RALO leadership and
the way they are chosen), and I don't understand how ICANN
is supposed to "develop" the RALOs. If the RALOs are not
self-organizing, getting user groups in each region together,
we will simply not have any bottom-up user participation in
ICANN except for comment periods.
>It is absolutely plain that ICANN is trying to create a 'tame' controllable
>alternative to the REAL At Large, a kind of 'controlled' pretence of
>user-involvement, whereas the real independent views of ordinary users are
>far more threatening to their powerbase and need to challenge the idea that
>Internet Users should somehow be orchestrated and manipulated 'inside' ICANN
>structures developed by ICANN.
There's a major problem with your capital letters REAL At
Large: It does not REALly exist at the moment. Yes, there
is ICANNatlarge.org and there are user groups, but they
are not well-organized and thus don't have influence. To
see what Internet users want, you have to involve and
organize them. And hey -- there are lots of user groups
already out there, and I don't think they are willing to
be orchestrated and manipulated. Getting such user groups
in each region together to form a Regional At Large
Organization -- that's one way to get the REAL At Large.
>Ordinary Internet Users need their own structures and organisations, and
>their own independent voice, and the initiative to develop this plain and
>distinct identity is not helped at all by the appearance of a worldwide user
>structure *inside* ICANN.
Again, the user groups and the RALOs are not INSIDE Icann.
There already are organizations of individual users out there,
and hopefully many more to come -- and all these organizations
are not about to *join* ICANN or something similar. They are
to form regional alliances.
>A big problem I see is the confusion I think is created when leaders of an
>independent group like IcannatLarge.org are helping and aiding the
>development of the ICANN 'pretence' which actually sidetracks and detracts
>and endangers the likelihood of an independent At Large emerging. ICANN will
>simply say (like a smiling tiger): "But we already have an At Large, and
>RALO's etc etc". We are helping them build the very structure which helps
>legitimise their fasle claim to be representing ordinary users (while
>expelling User representation from any real power). They will claim that the
>reasonable and informed At Large already exists and has a home inside their
>(carefully-controlled) structures.
IcannatLarge.org was founded with the intent of having a
voice for user interests within ICANN. It is up to our
organization to choose how it bests achieves this goal.
If there is an opportunity to participate and IcannatLarge.org
deliberately chooses to stay away, that's fine. I just
don't think it makes much sense.
>Whereas the truth is that ICANN itself is palpably illegitimate and
>unrepresentative, has chosen to expel dissenting voices, and clearly and so
>obviously wants a captured At Large which it can contain.
>
>Vittorio and others, by participating in the development of this ICANN
>agenda being created for ICANN ends, are helping to legitimise the coup
>which ICANN has been carrying out : I believe that our organisation should
>be given the chance to vote and decide whether they want to be ICANN
>insiders supporting the creation of an ICANN At Large, or whether they want
>to be independent outside voices for the At Large community worldwide of
>ordinary internet users.
This is a skewed set of choices. You don't become an
ICANN insider by setting up a user organization or
forming a regional organization of At Large groups.
>Vittorio will say that he is present at these meetings in his guise as ISOC
>Italy rep but as Chair of IcannAtLarge I feel he is both compromising the
>goals of that organisation and trying to draw IcannAtLarge.org into the
>ICANN structure and organisation.
>
>I respect Vittorio as a person but I disagree with his apparent strategy. It
>is playing into the hands of Denise Michel (and for "Denise Michel" read:
>"The ICANN Board" because she is of course their stooge). Denise has no
>interest in helping Internet Users form their own independent identity and
>reclaiming their full number of places on the Board. Denise is carrying out
>a management task for the ICANN Board. It is clearly a damage-limitation
>exercise.
Suffice it to say that I disagree.
>And we want to *help* ICANN limit the damage to its reputation following the
>expulsion of elected representation from its Board? We want to *support*
>Denise Michel carry out her management goals? Denise is out of step and out
>of tune with the noble, idealistic democratic impulse of the At Large
>movement, which wamts to protect the Internet for a future generation of
>people all over the world. Denise is in it for the management and the money
>and the career. She is the wrong person to be trusting and entrusting with
>the future of the At Large.
That's a harsh personal attack in the name of "noble,
idealistic democratic impulses".
But it is also factually wrong: The future of the At Large
rests with no single person. The regional At Large
structure is a way of influencing ICANN without "joining"
ICANN or having membership lists under the control of
ICANN. Independent, bottom-up user organizations can form
Regional At Large Organizations. It's a chance for a
network of Internet user groups in each region and
worldwide instead of a monolithic At Large user organization
(and the history of this organization's name/domain should
teach us something about single points of failure).
I understand that many people are angry and disappointed,
but I hope they still consider the choices rationally:
How much influence has IcannatLarge.org had until now? How
has it achieved its (somewhat sloppily defined) goals?
Is it the best way to influence domain name etc. policy
development from a user perspective? Is a regional approach
likely to be easier or more difficult to organize (think
language, think communication, think time zones)? How
do you get existing user groups to participate?
These are the questions we have to discuss *before* we have
the answer to the second question -- what IcannatLarge.org
should do with regard to regional At Large organizing.
Best regards,
/// Alexander
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