Fwd: Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN committee recommends votingrestrictions,fewerAt-Large directors

Barbara Simons simons at acm.org
Thu Aug 30 20:54:27 CEST 2001


Dear George,

You appear to have picked up on Kent's statement:
"It is not surprising that Barbara won't deign to reply to any serious
disagreement, since statements like her above paragraph are simply
thoughtless emotional reactions."

I'm sure that everyone reading that posting realized that it was
insulting.  What they may not have picked up, especially the
non-US folks on this list, was that for most Americans a phrase
like "emotional reactions" is code that  has been used for years
to put down women.

Since Kent clearly is not interested in holding a rational debate
on issues, I can conclude only that his goal is to make this list
unusable by picking fights with individuals and filling up everyone's
inboxes with copies of nasty emails.  If someone doesn't respond
at first, he tries harder to push their buttons until either they refuse
to read his email or develop the discipline to refrain from responding
to insults, no matter how offensive.

I appreciate your effort to add civility to this list, but quite frankly
I don't expect that it will work.

As far as the proposed 6-6-6 split goes, the fact is that the 12 who
do not represent the at-large are representing specific interests.
Why should the developers and the providers *each* have as many
seats as the public?  Can you imagine someone proposing that the
seats in the US Congress should be divided so that the public gets
to elect 1/3, R&D institutions get 1/3, and manufacturers get 1/3?
It would be laughed out of the room.

I may not respond to your response for several days, not because
of any rudeness on your part, but because the rest of my life is making
some major demands on my time.

Regards,
Barbara

George Sadowsky wrote:

> Kent,
>
> You and Dave Crocker could be a lot more effective if you eliminated
> the vitriol from your remarks.   Barbara and others are absolutely
> right on that count.  It may be possible to do good and NOT be
> lonesome.  I suggest that you and Dave try it.
>
> Barbara,
>
> The first quote that Kent takes from the report is a good one.  It's
> certainly consistent with my own view of the quality of
> representation on the Board and the origins of the Board members.  Is
> it possible that the 6-6-6 balance is a good idea?
>
> I'd be curious to know if you agree of disagree with the Committee's
> model of the Internet as a crossroads of developers, providers and
> users.  If you accept that, then it's easy to reconcile yourself to
> the 6-6-6 distribution.  If you don't accept that, why, and what
> alternative model do you propose in its place?
>
> Regards,
>
> George
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> >From: Kent Crispin <kent at songbird.com>
> >To: discuss at icann-ncc.org
> >Subject: Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] ICANN committee recommends voting
> >Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 09:54:47 -0700
> >
> >On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 12:10:18AM -0700, Barbara Simons wrote:
> >>  Unfortunately, Alexandro, some of us won't be in
> >>  Montevideo and therefore won't have the opportunity
> >>  to discuss the report with the ALSC there.
> >>
> >>  For my part, I couldn't care less about their reasoning.
> >>  The bottom line is that the representatives of the public
> >>  can be outvoted on every single issue, especially
> >>  bylaw changes.  The reality is that the at-large will be
> >>  made politically powerless.
> >
> >Note the following quote from the draft report:
> >
> >    Based on our view of ICANN as a balance among developers, providers
> >    and users, we would recommend that the At-Large membership select a
> >    third of ICANN's Board.  We have found that more narrow interests
> >    could seek to influence the ICANN process through all three avenues,
> >    but that wider and more public interests can also be found in all
> >    three.
> >
> >It is not surprising that Barbara won't deign to reply to any serious
> >disagreement, since statements like her above paragraph are simply
> >thoughtless emotional reactions.  Her above paragraph makes the
> >completely unrealistic assumption that the interests of the at-large
> >directors will be completely aligned, and that the interests of the
> >other directors, coming from the SOs, will be completely aligned in the
> >opposite direction.  That is, to put it mildly, highly unlikely.
> >Moreover, she apparently also suffers from the delusion that the
> >at-large directors would somehow represent the "public" (whatever that
> >means in this context), and not simply be industry representatives
> >elected through manipulation of the votes.
> >
> >>  Other details, such as the
> >>  anti-democratic imposition of a poll tax (how do they plan
> >>  to collect it in countries such as Nigeria, Romania, Vietnam,
> >>  Honduras, etc?)
> >
> >To quote again from the paper:
> >
> >    To help ensure that this approach to At-Large membership is not an
> >    impediment to those who want a domain name and want to participate in
> >    an ALSO, the ALSC suggests that the ICANN community identify and
> >    encourage organizations that could provide appropriate assistance to
> >    such users.  We encourage input on this and hope to include specific
> >    suggestions and named institutions in our final report.
> >
> >--
> >Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
> >kent at songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
> >_______________________________________________
> >Discuss mailing list
> >Discuss at icann-ncc.org
> >http://www.icann-ncc.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss




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