On Fri, Feb 05, 1999 at 10:39:48AM -0500, Ron Fitzherbert wrote:
> Kent,
>
> How is it now for some reason you have made me feel uncomfortable for
> displaying the grey ribbon?
>
> Ron, (member of PAB and still a supporter of the gTLD-MOU - which doesn't
> mean I don't support ICANN (doesn't mean I do either), just means I think
> the current visability leaves something to be desired)
I just listed all the ones where there was a contact that I knew. I
thought the pattern was rather striking in the context of a message
titled "spin doctoring", and that pattern would make me feel
uncomfortable displaying a grey ribbon even if I was otherwise
inclined to do so.
As a PAB member, you will undoubtedly remember my efforts to get a
public archive of the PAB list. Opening that up was one of my
primary concerns. I am definitely in favor of "openness and
transparency".
However, I have also seen the phrase used as a mindless mantra so
much that I no longer think it has any useful semantic content on
these lists. I see intelligent, respectable people like Karl
Auerbach say things like "open is open", like it was some kind of
absolute characteristic, instead of the rather vague relative
charactistic it actually is. Furthermore, openness is not a panacea,
and there certainly are occasions where it is either inappropriate or
ineffective.
There are several reasons I am not inclined to sport a grey ribbon on
my site.
1. Private discussion is a necessary component of any leadership
position. The Board is geographically dispersed, so casual private
group discussions are not possible. Their only realistic opportunity
for such contact is through structured meetings or telecons, and
therefore there must be private meetings.
2. ICANN is running under a set of severe practical operational
constraints. It has an insignificant budget; the directors are
unpaid and do this on their own time, despite having significant
other lives; they don't have an extensive paid clerical or technical
staff -- I'm sure the CEO does most of his own document preparation
on plane flights; they are operating under tremendous time pressures;
they have to go all over the world
3. ICANN lives in a press fishbowl. In the formative stages there
needs to be a lot of blue sky discussion and arguement back and forth
about possibilities that should not be blown out of proportion in the
press, which requires more time to handle than they have time to
spend.
4. There are in fact a number of issues that ICANN is dealing with
that are private. The discussions with DoC are private, and that is
DoC's call -- the negotiations between NSI and DoC that led to
amendment 11 were private, as well. The drafting of contracts and
other documents frequently do have privacy issues.
5. ICANN is just in its initialization phase. The implementation of
the corporate infrastructure is just beginning, and some of the
mechanisms for publicizing information are not in place.
6. Under these rather difficult circumstances ICANN is actually
doing a pretty decent job of getting out information. There are
minutes to meetings, there are public announcements, proposals are posted,
there is a significant amount of interaction with the directors in public
fora.
7. Finally, I would rather work with ICANN than against them. I
think that the Directors are all intelligent people who are trying to
do the right thing, and I think the same about Mike Roberts. I may
disagree in detail about things, but overall I think they are the
best hope by far for resolving a lot of the problems that have
plagued us for several years now.
So, all these things considered, I think the "grey ribbon" campaign
is counterproductive and divisive.
The US Constitutional Convention was a closed meeting.
Kent
--
Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
