On 22 August 1999, Diane Cabell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> IMHO, we should lighten up a bit. Rabid bean counting somewhat
>defeats the pu rpose 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 th e kind of
>face/voice time that Americans have had for quite a while now.
>Making ever yone 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.
But Diane, this isn't what the physical meetings do. All they do is
ensure that those with the money (i.e., those with corporate backing)
get to have meetings without all the annoyance of those who participate
online, and there will be a smallish contingent of people from whichever
host country is chosen. That's it. There may be a few people who can
afford to pay out of their own pocket to show up, or those who can manage
to get their Constituencies to chip in and put them there, but the
single overriding factor will be: Who's got the deepest pockets, who's
got the corporate backing?
And that particular group is always going to be the same people, no matter
where the meetings are held. It becomes, in essence, a nice trip for
the core corporate players in these proceedings, and a convenient way
to get away from everyone online.
...and those people aren't all Anglo American Males. But it's always the
same contingent of people from around the world. It's nothing more
than a publicity stunt doubling for legitimate outreach on the part
of ICANN, coupled with an exclusionary tactic.
> There are a couple other factors to consider. The Net debate is
>conducted usin g English, a language that is native to you and me,
>but is not always so easy fo r 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 enfo rcing these conditions harshly. Why not let the
>Meeting Chair use some discretion b ased on how easy it seems for the
>speaker to get his/her point across?
Unless the various groups there will be conducting their meetings in
a language other than English (not translated, but actually holding
the meetings in something other than English) this becomes a moot point.
...and what makes you think that the average person in these non-US
countries, who wants so badly to participate, will more easily be able
to travel to whatever location ICANN has chosen, than to afford
some form of e-mail access?
If you think that sitting in silence (no network), waiting for ICANN
to deign to bring their travelling roadshow to their host country is
sufficient as a method of inclusion, you're very, very wrong.
--
Mark C. Langston LATEST: ICANN refuses Let your voice be heard:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] to consider application for http://www.idno.org
Systems Admin Constituency status from organized http://www.icann.org
San Jose, CA individual domain name owners http://www.dnso.org
