Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
> I was (too subtly?) hinting that they should write their messages out
> and be subject to the same word and
> interest-in-the-eye-of-the-filtering-authority limit. Only fair?
>
> PS. Is the time limit based on the equivalent of 250 words? Or is the
> 250 words based on the time limit? Or neither?
MF:
I think Berlin was the first time a timer was used and Santiago will be the first time
a like restriction is requested of the writers. Can't recall exactly, maybe 3
minutes. It's probably something gauged depending on the size of the crowd. Berlin
had a heavy turnout.
IMHO, we should lighten up a bit. Rabid bean counting somewhat defeats the purpose of
having meetings in different regions of the world. One of the primary values is to
give folks outside the US a little more bandwidth; to let someone else have the kind
of face/voice time that Americans have had for quite a while now. Making everyone
play by the same Word Meter seems to me to be counterproductive to that effort,
especially for those who've made the effort to travel to Santiago.
There are a couple other factors to consider. The Net debate is conducted using
English, a language that is native to you and me, but is not always so easy for the
rest of the planet to use succinctly. Also, Net access is very, very cheap in most
parts of the US; however, as you know, this is not the case in the rest of the world.
My point is that we do no service to Peruvians, Chileans or Brazilians by enforcing
these conditions harshly. Why not let the Meeting Chair use some discretion based on
how easy it seems for the speaker to get his/her point across?
dc
>
>
> On Sun, 22 Aug 1999, Diane Cabell wrote:
>
> > The Chair uses a timer for physical speakers.
> > dc
Diane Cabell
http://www.mama-tech.com
Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LLP
Boston, MA
