Re: [ICANN-EU] Any interest in an alternative interface to the ICANN Q&A Forum?

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Alf, Andrew and all,

  Indeed Andrew is thinking in the right direction.  At least that
much is correct and wise.  However "Official" tools have thus
far not been exceptable or are overly restrictive as to not apply
adequately to openness.  Hence Andrew's suggestion is necessary
to "Route around the ICANN Damage"....

Alf Hansen wrote:

> Andrew,
>
> I think you are thinking in the right direction, because openness is a
> good thing.
>
> One thing I am concerned of is that we should be careful to make
> "official" tools that makes it easy for non-At-Large-members to
> distribute information to At-Large-members. In general this is no
> problem, but there is and will allways be a few people or organizations
> that may misuse this channel and destroy constructive discussions.
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Alf Hansen                     Mail address:
>                                  UNINETT FAS A/S
> aha@uninett.no                   N-7465 Trondheim, Norway
> Home page:                     Phone: +47 73 55 79 00
> http://domen.uninett.no/~alf/  Fax:   +47 73 55 79 01
>
> Andrew Bloch wrote:
> >
> > Use the power of the Internet -- let's not restrict ourselves by the ancient
> > limitations that ICANN imposes on us.
> >
> > As most of you probably know by now, ICANN has set up a question and answer
> > forum for members (only) to ask questions of nominees
> >  http://members.icann.org/qa.html ).  Unfortunately, there are a few
> > features missing that could be useful, and I've started thinking about
> > creating an alternative interface to make up for the shortcomings.   I could
> > create a mirror of all the questions and answers on ICANN's official site
> > and provide some advanced features.
> >
> > Here are some of the features I'm considering:
> >
> > 1.  Allow users (members and non-members) to post comments in response to
> > the nominees' answers.
> >
> > 2.  Forward new answers to interested users by email, so they don't have to
> > visit the website frequently.
> >
> > 3.  A compact table showing which candidates have answered which questions.
> >
> > 4.  A clearinghouse or other method for activated members to volunteer to
> > ask questions on behalf of non-activated members or members from other
> > regions.  (Under ICANN rules, active members can only submit questions to
> > nominees in their own region.)
> >
> > Before I start working on this, I wanted to measure people's interest
> > (because I have a lot of other things that I should be doing with my time
> > ;).  Please take a few seconds and send me your comments (to me only, unless
> > you really think it's important enough to distract 100 people).
> >
> > Would you use any or all of these features?
> >
> > Can you think of other features you'd like?
> >
> > Which features are most important, if there isn't enough time to implement
> > them all?
> >
> > *** If you are a candidate, would you try to read and/or respond to users
> > comments?
> >
> > Do you think a significant portion of at-large members will find this
> > useful?
> >
> > This would be most useful if as many members as possible know of its
> > existence and use it.  Would you help promote it via any contacts you have
> > with appropriate websites, email lists, etc.?
> >
> > If a lot of people do use it, we will probably need to run it on another
> > server, perhaps mirrored locally to each region.  Do you have access to a
> > web server that could handle the possible traffic?  (preferably a unix box
> > plus perl with the cgi and lwp libraries).
> >
> > I have other projects that I should be working on.  Are you a web developer
> > that could do this faster and/or better than me, with time to get this going
> > in the next 24-48 hours?  Do you have any scripts that would be very useful?
> > Or, should we instead involve a site like http://www.slashdot.org that
> > already handles user comments and can support the bandwidth?
> >
> > Thanks for your responses,
> >
> > Andy Bloch

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman INEGroup (Over 112k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1800 x1894 or 9236 fwd's to home ph#
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208