RE: [ICANN-EU] [Q&A] the exciting adventures of a nominee

["Andrew McLaughlin" <mclaughlin@pobox.com>]

Giorgio:

The problem is not "allocation" of budget -- the problem is that ICANN is a
small non-profit which has only about half the funding it needs to conduct a
full set of normal operations, not including special projects like the At
Large membership.  The problem is not a willingness to spend -- it's a
complete lack of funds.  As a technical coordinating body, we have to
perform day-to-day technical coordination tasks, the funding for which comes
from the various registries and registrars.  We cannot divert it from the
fundamental technical responsibilities of the organization.

As of now, ICANN has fewer than 10 employees.  We all work extremely hard to
keep things going, but you must understand that we have only one person
working on At Large.  Also, as you can tell, I spend a portion of my time on
membership, but I have a long list of other responsibilities.  I would
*love* to hire more staff to work on membership -- the At Large manager
received something like 6,000 emails last weekend;  obviously most of them
will go unanswered.

Looking forward, I'm interested in your thoughts on this question:  Why do
you think that no one in Europe (no government, no foundation, no company,
etc.) offered so much as US$1 to support the At Large membership program?

Anyway, I think Jeanette's complaint is not a fair one -- the nominations
period closed late on Friday, and she is unhappy that she must wait until
Monday morning (California time) to reach a staff assistant in the ICANN
office, to start using the Q&A Forum (which will be available for 1 month).
I repeat:  the election is not for Master of the Internet, but for the Board
of Directors of a small non-profit body in California that is responsible
for some specific, but important, technical coordination tasks.

These are all matters to keep in mind for the post-election study;  in the
meantime, it would be helpful for everyone to keep this process in
perspective.  Like anything that depends upon 1 or 2 human beings, there are
limitations.

--Andrew


[ -----Original Message-----
[ From: grunz@box1.tin.it [mailto:grunz@box1.tin.it]On Behalf Of Griffini
[ Giorgio
[ Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 1:59 AM
[ To: mclaughlin@pobox.com
[ Cc: icann-europe@fitug.de; Jeanette Hofmann
[ Subject: RE: [ICANN-EU] [Q&A] the exciting adventures of a nominee
[ 
[ 
[ Andrew McLaughlin wrote:
[ > Jeanette:
[ > 
[ > Please relax!  The ICANN staff does not work 24 hours a day, 7 
[ days a week.
[ > You'll get your login IDs on Monday, when the staff returns to 
[ work, after
[ > very long days on Friday and Saturday.
[ > 
[ > --andrew
[ > 
[ Yes, we understand the staff is not organized to have a 24x7 coverage but 
[ don't you
[ think that this maybe considered a miss about a worldwide election ? 
[ Time zones were not invented now, and altough we are quitely used to live 
[ with, dont you think that there is a little bit of 'unequity of 
[ support' if we ,for 
[ example , have to stay up the night to talk to someone and have problems 
[ solved quickly while instead better time zone favoured regions may do it 
[ under the light of the sun ?
[ This is not a complaint now, but it will easily became on the 
[ next election 
[ run I think.. so please consider this msg just as a hint on 
[ considering also 
[ time zone problems when approaching elections next time.
[ 
[ Best regards
[ Giorgio Griffini
[ 
[ PS. Ok. There is no budget now.  
[ Hope some will be alloted for next run uh ?
[ 
[