Names for the Working Group on InternetGovernance

[Marc Schneiders]

I support Milton's position, though I appreciate a little less the
bluntness :-) Then, if we are going to praise people on a public list,
why not damn them as well.

I think WSIS does not need nominees from us, that merely do what other
reps in WSIS already do: defend country positions, for example.

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004, at 14:35 [=GMT-0400], Milton Mueller wrote:

> Adam,
> I appreciate your willingness to bluntly express
> opinions about nominees.
>
> But I don't agree with your assessment of Karl at all.
> I know that you have much more moderate and
> protective views about ICANN than Karl (and I),
> but if you disagree with his policy positions you
> need to make that clear, not malign his personality
> and spread provably wrong statements about his
> participation.
>
> I think Karl has gotten a bad rap because the
> early ICANN self-selected Board deliberately
> tried to isolate and marginalize him. The Board
> did some really nasty things, like instantly modifying
> the bylaws so that he and other the elected members
> could not participate in the new TLD selection, or
> forming an Executive Committee composed of a small
> minority of cronies which made all the real decisions, and
> then railroading those decisions . To resist this, Karl
> ended up looking like a marginalized, protest
> Board member - which he was. But the point is that
> the ICANN Board at that time badly NEEDED a
> vocal protest member.
>
> Regarding communication, Karl appeared in as many if
> not more NCUC meetings than any other Board member -
> but it would be hard for you to know that, Adam,
> because you almost never attend NCUC meetings.
> I think the last NCUC meeting you attended was
> in Yokohama 2000, which preceded Karl's installment
> as a Board member. While you are a valued participant
> on our list, I sincerely believe that Karl has
> appeared in more NCUC/NCDNHC meetings than
> you.
>
> Regarding list communication, I think if you
> check the NCDNHC archives from the period when
> our list was open, you will find active participation
> from Feb.-April 2002. It is true that he showed more
> interest in At Large than NCDNHC most of the time.
> But: 1) he was elected by the At Large, and 2)
> the nomination is for a civil society representative,
> not an NCUC representative per se.
>
> If you can, try to put forward a technically-oriented
> person from NorthAmerica who is more accountable and
> more wise to the ways of Internet governance politics than
> Karl.
>
> --MM
>