Ah, thanks Danny.

Although this worries me because there is simply no way for all lists to be monitored and the input on particular issues pulled into responses. People will of course read the lists and see the messages and that will fed back into discussions.

But that is a very loose and unstructured and unquantifiable way of providing comments. If people comment on the specific public comment forum, their comments will be included in the summary/analysis created at the end, and then that summary will be provided to the relevant body with the request that it is explicitly discussed in their relevant meeting.

That’s my feeling anyway – or am I missing something?

Kieren

Rather than respond defensively to an aggressive comment, Jim, I would like to draw the assumption that you are interested in having your views, insights and perspectives included and discussed within ICANN’s decision-making processes.

ICANN wants the same thing. The organisation’s entire structure, with its supporting organisations and advisory committees, is designed to pull in viewpoints from every stakeholder.

My concern – and it appears to be your concern as well – is that the systems behind that structure are not achieving their full potential.

You appear to have misunderstood this post’s intention – perhaps I should have worded it more clearly – but it was intended as a question: what can be done to improve participation?

What do people want? Why are there no responses to this particular comment period? Are people just not interested? Are they uncomfortable with the way comment forums are set up? Is it because -as you appear to suggest – that you don’t think your comment will be taken seriously or have much impact?

I am trying to identify the problems so we can arrive at the solutions.

I hope this acts as a more useful answer than direct responses to the questions you asked.

Kieren

Hi Andrew,

I don’t mean the blog. I meant the official public comment forum – you can see the announcement here:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-06sep07.htm

and the zero comments (this time around) here:

http://forum.icann.org/lists/stld-rfp-post/

The point is also not that it is .post but that one of the suggested changes provides that .post domains may be handed out for free and without passing through ICANN-accredited registrars i.e. a sea-change in the way domains are created and distributed.

Kieren

Yes. Terrific points Spenser – thank you.

I actually want to produce automated RSS feeds for all different aspects of ICANN’s job. You can see what my basic idea is http://www.netvibes.com/icann. What you suggest should be possible with new forum software.

We have been looking at new forum software for a while but the main problem is that we can’t find any that allows people to both post online and send emailed comments.

But yes, it would be great if everyone was automatically informed of public comment periods AND if those that send a response are then kept informed of what is happening within that comment period i.e. new responses, plus when the period is closed, and when the summary/analysis is available.

I’ll get onto it Spenser – please do post any other thoughts you might have.

Kieren

Yes. It is as clear as it could possibly be on all the main pages.

What has happened is that Vincent went directly to the page containing the comments and on that page, there is no clear route back to the rest of the public comment period.

This is because of the software we use. But with direct linking becoming increasingly important, there could be a lot of people arriving at a comment page and failing to find an easy route back to the issue at hand. So we need to supply a route back into ICANN.

We can easily fix this with new software but in the meantime I will try to create a temporary workaround with the tech department.

Kieren

I can see your reasoning throughout all of this gpmgroup, but I just don’t agree with it.

I think you’re right in that there needs to be *more* emphasis put on registrants within the ICANN model. And that is exactly what is happening, with the ALAC/RALOs model now in place and rapidly growing. I would expect to see ALAC becoming a much more important stakeholder in the coming year (so long as it shows it is willing to work with groups).

But putting the registrant first, as you suggest, goes against the whole point of ICANN. ICANN acts as a co-ordinator for all those that need to have an input into the expansion and running of the DNS. Times are changing and we need to carefully shift the degree of influence that different groups have within the current model, but to put anyone first would break the whole model.

I don’t buy your paralysis of choice argument at all. But the interesting thing is that at this precise moment in time, no one knows where the DNS is going to go. My view is borne of having followed the Internet’s growth journalistically for five-ten years. Whenever they has been room, something extraordinary has resulted.

The gTLD market is just about to get a bit of legroom and it will be fascinating to see what happens. The only rule I think with the Internet is just not to constrain it because you think you know where it’s going.

Kieren

This is a very precise viewpoint – that of an American IP lawyer.

But I have to say from a personal viewpoint that I don’t agree with the many assumptions and the philosophy that stands behind your point.

I have no doubt that your viewpoint will be put strongly in ICANN’s various bodies – which is just as it should be – but I think you may need to recognise that your perspective on this is alien to many of the people that use the Internet across the world every day.

Kieren

Well, in the two last comments on this blog we have had the two opposing views pretty clearly stated.

The reality is of course somewhere in between. And that is where ICANN tries to get people and from there, draw up policies.

Corporations certainly do view domain names in a different way to the average consumer. And, yes, the Internet is much, much bigger than just companies and people trying to pretend to be companies – so, no, corporations shouldn’t be in a position to control or dictate what is done with domains.

On the other hand, neither is the corporate position without basis and it most certainly isn’t some conspiracy to rob people of the right to legitimate expression. The difficulty comes in getting both sides to recognise – and respect – the others’ viewpoint.

ICANN seeks to do this in a multitude of ways but clearly there is still a disconnect or people wouldn’t feel the need to write such comments as have appeared here.

I have been pondering for some time about how to point out to people how decisions have been arrived at through ICANN processes – because there are often arrived at after very long, wide-ranging and considered discussions.

I have some ideas but all suggestions are welcome.

Kieren

Sorry for the delay in replying Spenser – been very busy moving and working on the LA meeting next week.

You won’t be surprised to hear I don’t agree with you. I think the argument “new is not always better” is very seductive, seemingly wise. But in the case of the Internet new isn’t so much “better” as “required”.

Let’s not forget that Tim Berners-Lee was furious when Netscape allowed for pictures to be viewed over the Internet through Navigator. Or the people that continued to insist until even very recently that Gopher was fine for them and the rest was just frilly nonsense.

There is still a view in parts of ICANN that having anything more than plain text on the website is unnecessary and cumbersome.

The fact is that mailing lists pale in comparison to technologies and software that has become available in recent years.

Even email itself is failing out of use among those that are most Net-savvy – namely the teenagers who have never not known the Internet.

If you want straight observations:

* Mailing lists provide every message with the same value, regardless of its content. The upshot of this is that those who shout loudest are heard more often. It is a godsend to bullies and trolls.

* Mailing lists are very poor at stripping different threads of conversations. So if it easy to lose track of a conversation. Don’t believe me? Then how come we feel the need to include the previous message in the current message? How many real-world conversations do you have that go:

“I thought it was blue.”
“So you thought it was blue. I thought it was red.”
“I said I thought it was blue but you said you thought it was red but I am convinced it was blue.”
“You said it was blue after I said it was red, but I think it may have been green.”
“If you remember I said it was blue but you said…”

Real conversation goes:
“It was blue.”
“No, red.”
“Blue.”
“Actually it may have been green.”
“Green, now?”

* Mailing lists are quite poor at reaching consensus and excellent at provoking argument

* Mailing lists are great at opinion and terrible at policy. That is why Internet people meet face-to-face more than any other people I know.

* Good ideas in mailing lists tend to be lost amid controversy elsewhere.

* Mailing lists are biased toward short, punchy comments. Unless you have readily accepted authority, this is the worst way of arriving at a solution.

Other technologies on the other hand allow for such things as peer voting – removing the incentive for disruptive elements. They can be used to hone ideas. They enable people to jump into threaded discussions rather than have to filter through long numbers of emails.

I also don’t buy the frequent argument that you can download email and then peruse them at your leisure. The fact is that we are moving more and more to ubiquitous Net access. Already email is slower that instant messaging and other forms of interaction.

RSS feeds are also not dry feeds but can be used with new software to provide instant and simple perusal for people, without them having to go to different spots on the Internet to gather the same information.

In short, I think mailing lists are what some people are comfortable with but are already rapidly falling out of date. The fact that a good chunk of the community continues to be comfortable with the format means that we will continue to cater for it. But to pretend that mailing lists are somehow actually better is no more than wishful thinking.

Kieren