Mark C. Langston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If there is/was a mechanism for active participation/input to this
> teleconference, I'm unaware of it.
I believe there was no remote participation today because there NC was not
meeting in a single room, so the traditional means of remote
participation -- displaying text comments on an LCD projector -- was
unavailable. That said, it's not hard to imagine other ways to allow remote
participation. For example, text messages might be sent to a trusted
moderator who reviews them and reads at least certain messages to the
teleconference. I'll suggest as much to the names council and attempt to
make it happen *IF* they're interested.
> Assuming,
> of course, that you are not stuck behind a firewall and unable to
> access such feeds via any method other than an HTTP stream.
For the one person who was behind a firewall last time (and wrote to me
during the teleconference last time explaining as much), Berkman provided
listen-only access via a telephone link. To date, no one else has contacted
me expressing trouble accessing the feed from behind a firewall.
I'm still interested in reconfiguring our RealServer to allow access through
firewalls, but Real's documentation didn't solve the problem for the person
I was previously in touch with. If anyone knows how to do what's needed, or
knows anyone who does, please send info my way. Else, I don't know what I
can do -- I'm doing my best, have made all reasonable efforts to resolve the
problem, and have come up empty. Suggestions welcomed.
> Shouldn't the responsibility for making these
> meetings open and accessible for both passive listening and active
> participation be the responsibility of the pDNC and *not* the Berkman
> Center?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean -- I just don't see the problem with
the NC-Berkman relationship as it currently stands. To clarify, the NC
asked Berkman to webcast the meetings for them, and since we have the
necessary skills and equipment, we agreed to do so. I for one think it's
important to make the process as open as possible, but I realize every
organization doesn't have the ability to webcast. So, to the extent that
it's possible, I'm happy to help make available important content like the
DNSO teleconferences and ICANN's 4/21 press conference. What's wrong with
that?
Were it not for us, it's conceivable that the teleconference might not have
been webcast at all, though of course it's also possible that the NC would
have made other arrangements, perhaps through broadcast.com or the
RealBroadcast Network, though it's not clear whether using a commercial
broadcast provider rather than Berkman would address your concern.
> Because as things now stand, if there's a question about the openness
> (or lack thereof) of these meetings, the pDNC can just point to
> Harvard and say, "Talk to them. If there are problems, it's not
> something we're handling". That doesn't feel very kosher to me.
If you've got a problem with the way the NC is handling these meetings, your
problem could be with either the NC or with Berkman. If your complaint is
of the form "the webcast didn't work," that's probably a complaint best
addressed to me, simply because I'm the one most likely to be able to fix
the problem for you. But if your complaint is of the form "the current pNC
has been illegitimate from the start" or "the NC is illegitimate because it
doesn't allow sufficient remote participation," I think you need to talk to
the organizers of the NC (perhaps keeping me in the loop if you're so
inclined).
You may succeed in convincing them to make certain changes -- perhaps
changes that they'll implement themselves as they implemented remote
participation via email at the 6/25 meeting without my involvement at all,
or perhaps changes that will result in modifications to the requests they've
made of Berkman and of me. But I'd be quite surprised if they weren't
interested in talking to you at all. For, from what I've seen -- and I
think the beginning of today's teleconference reflects as much, though you
should surely listen for yourself via the archives at
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/dnso> -- they seem duly concerned about
the openness of their process, and I believe they'll be interested to hear
your thoughts on the matter.
> Well, apparently "open" in this context means those with a certain
> level of technology and access are free to listen helplessly while
> the pDNC makes decisions, erroneous statements, and claims of having
> "consensus" while we are powerless to interject and/or correct in
> any manner, be it rationally and calmly or otherwise.
May I ask for concrete, specific suggestions as to how to make remote
participation more effective? That's a subject I continue to think about,
for we'll be using remote participation again in Santiago in August, and I'm
extremely interested to hear what changes others would like to see.
So far, I've heard several calls for more regular recognition of remote
comments -- a request I'll attempt to satisfy in Santiago.
It's also been suggested that comments be presented without modification,
classification, or summary of any kind. But this seems much more
problematic to me since I believe it to be incompatible with the need to
process and respond to a large number of comments in a short time. Given
the convenient hour (for North and South Americans) of the Santiago
meetings, I'm expecting a huge volume of remote participants and thus of
remote comments. However, if each comment had to be read to the group in
its entirety, without similar comments being grouped together, I'm concerned
that minority opinions (not to mention original, creative, or generally
off-beat comments) would be slighted. I question whether that's really so
desirable a tradeoff, especially when I'd like to think that the Berkman
staff can fairly group comments for more efficient presentation, and
especially when the web archive of the meeting will include a full text
archive of all comments submitted.
That said, I do understand that the physical attendees seem in a certain
sense to be getting "a better deal" than remote participants. (However,
this "advantage" is questionable: remote participants get their comments
archived in searchable text form, while physical attendees have only the
unsearchable audio archive.) So, I'm thinking about steps that could be
taken to remedy that situation. For example, I'll suggest to the ICANN
board -- subject to their approval, of course, since ultimately Mike and
Esther run the meeting -- that perhaps each audience member should be
limited to a single speech at the microphone on each agenda item; that might
free more time for consideration of and response to remote comments.
Thoughts on this? Is my proposal too drastic? Would some other rule better
accomplish the goal of limiting the amount of time taken at the microphone
by certain "outspoken" individuals at the expense of others' opportunity to
speak? Or is this too dangerous path to go down in the first place? I have
my reservations, I'll admit, so I'm interested in input from this list.
Hoping for intelligent, focussed, detailed responses to the questions
raised,
Ben Edelman
