Two people in ALAC are pushing to create a Consumer constituency within the new Noncommercial Stakeholders Group. While superficially this may seem like a good idea, nothing in ICANN is simple or straightforward. The Board should not recognize a Consumer Constituency now. There are four reasons why the Board must wait until next year before even considering it.
1. The proposed consumer constituency is empty. It has no demonstrable support or official participation from any major consumer organization. When a petition to form it was filed in February, the proposer, Beau Brendler, claimed the support of Consumers Union, Consumers International, Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, and the Australian Consumers Consumer Action Network. But none of these groups filed comments in favor of the petition. And none of them are members now. In fact no consumer organizations filed supporting comments! The only public comment that supported the petition was a business group, the trademark lobbyist association AIM. The proposal for a Consumer Constituency is basically a two person show. Its only backers are Beau Brendler and Cheryl Langdon-Orr, both of whom were appointed (not elected) to ALAC and would like to extend ALAC's remit into the GNSO. Mr. Brendler was employed by the Consumers Union in the U.S. for a while, but the CU was so uninterested in his involvement in ICANN that it laid him off this summer. Mr. Brendler currently does not speak for any consumer organization. Langdon-Orr claims to speak for an ACCAN – but the ACCAN has nothing about this on its web site and did not file comments in favor of the petition. The simple fact is that this constituency has nothing in it.
2. The move divides and fragments consumer advocacy within ICANN. At this time, there are more active consumer protection advocates in the existing Noncommercial Users Constituency than there are in this proposed new constituency. Consumer advocacy groups like Public Citizen, Free Press and EPIC are currently members of NCUC; moreover, these groups are members of Consumers International and Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue and further linked to them via the OECD civil society advisory council. All of them would be happy to work with new consumer organizations in the flexible, integrated Stakeholder Group structure proposed by the NCUC. But a new constituency under the current charter would create a separate organization, run by Brendler, and so fragment the consumer organizations involved in ICANN. (Fragmentation and division is really the object of this proposal, as explained below.) The charter imposed on the Noncommercial stakeholders by ICANN means that creating a new constituency in the GNSO is a zero-sum game: it takes representation away from one group to and gives it to another. So if this “consumer constituency” is created it means that all existing consumer organizations involved in NCUC get less influence.
3. The most serious problem with this proposal is that it makes it impossible to come to a consensual agreement on the future Noncommercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) charter. If a new constituency is created, it will be created under the terms and conditions of an interim, temporary charter. That charter was imposed on noncommercial stakeholders and is based on a model of fragmenting civil society into separate constituencies which must always fight with each other over how votes are apportioned. That model was decisively rejected by civil society and constitutes a totally unacceptable way to achieve the goals of the GNSO reforms. Several Board members have questioned it and insisted that it be reviewed after a year. The disagreement over the charter has been recognized by the Board and needs to be negotiated and resolved consensually. But if a new constituency is created now, it would have the effect of making the illegitimate charter a fait accompli, by locking it into place. That is why Brendler and Langdon-Orr are trying to push the Board into recognizing this fake constituency now, before the issue of the charter is settled. That way they won’t have to negotiate in good faith regarding the If their actions have to obtain support and consensus from the broader noncommercial community, they know they will be dead in the water.
4. It makes no sense to rigidly separate “consumer” issues from other noncommercial concerns. Consumer advocacy in communications policy often revolves around economic issues, such as prices, fraud, unfair contracts and business practices – but those concerns are often closely linked to concerns about privacy and freedom of expression. The constituency model forces noncommercial groups into rigidly separate boxes where they discuss issues in isolation from the other perspectives. It is a model that has only one aim: to divide and conquer. That explains why the trademark groups, who are resentful over the redistribution of votes on the GNSO Council, are supporting this Consumer constituency and none of the noncommercial groups are.
As we speak, ICANN staff and Langdon-Orr are orchestrating a vote by the ALAC to support the creation of a consumer constituency. She is not telling the At Large members that she is a very interested party in this decision. She is hoping that they will fall prey to the simplistic appeal of being pro-consumer.
It is ironic, but very revealing of ICANN politics, that members of ICANN’s policy staff are supporting the creation of a Consumer Constituency, a proposal which did not receive one supportive comment from any consumer organization in the world, but are fighting tooth and nail to implement a NCSG charter that nearly 100 noncommercial organizations opposed. Let’s hope that the Board and new CEO can see through this ploy and respect the request of the noncommercial constituency to wait until the charter issue is resolved before forming any new entities.
I wonder if it would be possible to have some fact integrated into these musings… Happy to help clarify in whatever valid and open fora we need to so we can explore and rectify what seems to be a considerable pile of misinformation you must have used as the basis for this piece of creative writting… Cheryl Langdon-Orr
Cheryl:
What facts are wrong? Are you asserting that the Consumer Constituency petition actually got comments in support of it? It didn't: that is a documented fact. See the staff summary of public comments, linked in the article. Are you asserting that the NCSG charter imposed by the staff was not roundly rejected by every noncommercial entity involved in ICANN except you and one or two other ALAC people? That too is documented fact. So please do specify which facts are wrong, and we'd be happy to either discuss, debate or correct them. –MM
MM perhaps a small sample of some of them from an email to the ALAC and RALO Internal list from the Chair of NARALO Evan might give you a hint… “…there is much that is factually incorrect.
Take the blog's attempt to personalize the evil of the consumer
constituency:
> “The proposal for a Consumer Constituency is basically a two person show. Its only backers are Beau Brendler and Cheryl Langdon-Orr, both of whom were appointed (not elected) to ALAC and would like to extend ALAC's remit into the GNSO”
Last I recall, Beau was elected fair and square by NARALO to ALAC; and I seem to also recall Cheryl being duly elected by APRALO. I have no
freaking clue what Milton means by “appointed”.
As for “extending ALAC's remit into the GNSO” … does Milton have any idea how many people and organizations are already members of both ALAC
and NCUC? And now that At-Large is getting its own Board member, are we really that power-mad that we need a tiny piece of GNSO's Board presence?
Worst of all, from my POV, is the painting of the ALSs and RALOs from North America and Asia Pacific as mice who are being led into GNSO hell
by an elaborate pied-piper tag-team:
> “As we speak, ICANN staff and Langdon-Orr are orchestrating a vote by the ALAC to support the creation of a consumer constituency.”
As Chair of NARALO, I take deep exception — on behalf of every ALS and individual who has participated in our mailing list and conferece calls
— to the assertion that we have been bullied, coerced or otherwise manipulated into to our position to support a consumer constituency.
It's my understanding that APRALO has taken a similar position, and I would imagine that its members would have reason to feel similarly slighted.
I recall NARALO — with absolutely ZERO prodding from Beau, Cheryl or Staff — explicitly reaching a consensus to advance the matter to ALAC, and that we would press the issue even should ALAC decline to support the initiative.
Moreover, I want Beau, Cheryl and Staff to know that I offer to re-affirm this at any appropriate opportunity or request. Though this is an internal mailing list, you have my explicit permission to reproduce what I have said above as may be appropriate….”
Now I have other matters to deal with, kindest regards, CLO
How sad.
How personally vindictive.
How factually incorrect.
How low must this go?
Evan Leibovitch
Chair, ICANN At-Large North America (NARALO)
Milton,
ALAC voted to support the consumer's constituency during a meeting on April 29, 2009. See https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?28_april_2009_summary_minutes_en. It was a consensus vote. (it was also the subject of clarification and change of minutes during ALAC's meeting of August 12.)
There is no vote being orchestrated, ALAC's support for the new constituency was agreed some time ago. There has been interest by more than two ALAC members in the creation of a consumer's constituency.
On various calls, other ALAC's meetings, email, Cheryl has made her connection to the Australian Consumers Consumer Action Network very clear. Any conflict of interest was made known to ALAC/At Large. That ACCAN would be one of the founding members of any consumer's constituency was made known to ALAC/At Large from the outset. I believe Holly Raiche has been the main contact for ACCAN.
Unfortunately your post is full of errors, mainly errors about people. The title, given the personal attacks in the text is particularly offensive.
Adam
What we have here is a failure to communicate…
It's really disappointing that civil society actors in ICANN seem to be dug into a permanent circular firing squad. Like other readers of this blog I've participated in a lot of CS coalitions around national and global ICT policy, and I have never seen anything like this elsewhere. Nobody benefits from this, other than the commercial interests and related forces for whom effective public interest advocacy is an unwelcome disruption. As a participant in both NCUC (on the GNSO Council since 11/08) and ALAC (on the EURALO board since 5/07) I'd like to believe that the two sides can not only co-exist but collaborate extensively. Each should be able to play its unique role on planet ICANN without stepping on the other's toes, and indeed on many substantive ICANN issues there is often significant agreement between their respective memberships (which in fact overlap a fair amount, I'm hardly alone). But there seems to be a lot of long-standing interpersonal boogie joogie among some key people on both sides mixed with faux turf and other considerations, and there are no functioning channels of communication to help dispel misperceptions and suspicions.
For my part, I offered almost a month ago to serve as a liaison but never got a reply from ALAC, and am now told that they've decided they don't need to liaise with NCUC. And to my knowledge there's no NCUC-ALAC meeting planned for Seoul. Hard to see how this is going to go anywhere but downhill from here, but whatever, I guess.
FWIW, I understand Milton's thinking in this post, and share much of it, but I wouldn't have put things in the same manner. The title of the piece and some of the text personalizes the differences and seems guaranteed to insult, so the responses from CLO, Evan and Adam fix on this aspect and hence don't address the core institutional issues at stake. I'd suggest putting the interpersonal stuff aside and focusing on substance.
I think NCUC is right to argue that the SIC/staff charter that was overwhelmingly rejected both by NCUC members and a good many independent civil society supporters during the public comment period is poorly designed and likely to reproduce ad nauseum precisely the sort of fragmentation and dysfunctionality we're seeing here; and that, per Milton's point 3, approving new constituencies now probably would have the effect of locking in that charter as a fait accompli. Hence, in an 18 August letter http://www.icann.org/correspondence/ncuc-to-beckstrom-18aug09-en.pdf NCUC asked that the board to 1) meet with us in Seoul; 2) agree to work with us to arrive at a final charter all can live with, and in this context to give full consideration to the NCUC-proposed charter alongside the SIC/staff charter; and 3) refrain from locking in new constituencies until fundamental structural issues involving the relationship between constituencies and stakeholder groups have been resolved.
The position outlined in the letter is pretty reasonable, given all that's transpired around the charters. Unfortunately, the letter is perhaps a bit confusing on the time frame. We asked that the board review the transitional charter “within one year” (p.1) or “over the next year” (p.4), but of course, we would prefer to do it as soon as possible if the board were willing. Given that, as Adam points out, ALAC voted to support creation of a consumer constituency in April, it is therefore unfortunate that this has been sort of processed by many as meaning NCUC wants no constituencies before July 2010, and it doesn't help that Milton argues in his first paragraph that “the Board must wait until next year before even considering” a consumer constituency.
It would have been great if ALAC could have supported NCUC's call for collaboration with the board to resolve the charter issues (on which some ALACers agree with NCUC and some don't) to their mutual satisfaction, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, with any ready-to-go constituencies to be launched soon thereafter. Instead, what we have is a move (“orchestrated” isn't a slur) in the RALOs to denounce the NCUC's call for a delay, which I guess they read as for one year. And while his word choice was over-heated, I didn't actually see Milton saying, as Evan alleges, that the RALOs “have been bullied, coerced or otherwise manipulated.” But it's a fair bet that many members are not fully aware of NCUC's thinking, either. I have a EURALO call in a few hours and expect we'll be dealing with all this, sigh…
Finally, while he's blurred them together in this post, the merits of the consumer constituency proposal are entirely separate from the charter-related issues I've just mentioned. Personally, I share Milton's concerns in point 4 above the practicality and effects of separating “consumer” issues from others noncom people care about like privacy and freedom of speech, and would have appreciated a probing dialogue on the best way to advance such issues in the NCSG. On the other hand, I'm also open minded, and if in fact there's an internationally diverse and representative group that can make a strong analytical and operational case for such a constituency, fine. This hasn't been obvious to me, but then there's been little effective communication between NCUC and ALAC on this and other matters.
A sad state of affairs all around…
Bill
One thing that is important in this discussion, something I think is being blurred, is a distinction about whose view this Blog represents
The blog is one group's view, the IGP's and specifically the view of its author. And while Milton is one member of the NCUC, he does not represent the views of NCUC, but just of one of its prominent members. Yes, his voice is associated with NCUC as one of its founders, but he doesn't currently speak for the the NCUC as far as I know. and I do not think he meant this piece to be a NCUC statement.
I agree with Bill's view and have argued the same in many places – the ALAC and the NCUC have to learn to work together. And we have to learn how to accept the view points of all of our respective members without necessarily attributing them to the entire groups. We also have to learn how to harness all the energy we spend slinging arrows and accusations at each other to actually achieve the goals of our respective memberships.
Lets not let ourselves be divided and conquered.
a.
Not that actual facts seem to be getting in the way of the rhetoric here, but, for the record:
1. I was twice elected to the ALAC, and am serving out the last year in a two-year term. The voting records are public record.
2. I was laid off May 29 from Consumers Union for economic reasons and no other, as you will see clearly stated at http://blog.consumerwebwatch.org. Any speculation on my departure from Consumers Union is inappropriate, as it would be if I publicly speculated on anyone else losing their job and why. Expect consequences if it continues.
3. Milton's claim that there's no support for the consumer constituency because no one wrote in to support it is ridiculous. It presupposes a process that's unnecessary. The support for it came from other consumer organizations and people working together within the ALAC — back before the NCUC got some new blood in, and was primarily concerned with defending free speech and little else.
4. Though I may no longer be at Consumer's Union (everyone involved with telecommunications issues there, including Milton's old friend, have left), I am still continuing the work of WebWatch, writing a weekly column, for which I am paid, on consumer Internet fraud issues for AOL:
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/bloggers/beau-brendler/
In fact, I even wrote a column on DNS abuse as it relates to consumers:
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/09/04/phentermine-phentarmine-phentirimine-trust-no-one/
Though it can be said I am no longer employed by a consumer organization, plenty of consumers have been responding to my column, which is more one-to-one dialog and more insight into what they might think than most people who claim to speak for them in ICANN fora.
For the record, I will be in Seoul and I'm happy to talk about the consumer constituency petition. Though you can also talk to Holly Raiche, Gareth Shearman, Rudi VanSnick, Breda Kutin and others. Believe it or not, we're not taking money from ICANN, and we're on the same side of just about all the same issues as the NCUC.
Well said, Bill.
To date, I've been personally uninvolved in the NCSG charter debate and have been open to arguments both ways. Anyone who recalls my recent work on the joint NCUC/ALAC statement wrt the IRT knows my primary passion is about advancing sane policy. I have little taste for process debates.
What moved me to comment was the gutter tone, the insinuations, the tinfoil-hat-level conspiracy theories and ad-hominems that laced Milton's attack. They were petty and desperate and (on the facts I knew) inaccurate. Neither Beau nor Cheryl deserve this kind of verbal assault over what is, really, nothing more than a strong difference in strategy.
The decision to personalize the complaint, to vilify two people whom I work with and respect greatly, poisons the substance of the debate in ways that will be difficult to repair. This post, along with previous ones (eg, “ten myths”) indicate to me a last-resort strategy. Such a “nuclear option” abandons hope of reasonable discourse (why insult people you need to work with?). Instead, it simply seeks to discredit opposing proponents by any means possible as a means to effect change.
I'm just not sure how to move forward. I'm certainly willing to help engage on a personal level, as Bill has, given all the bridge burning that has taken place. At a personal level, an apology to Beau and Cheryl, and an official disclaimer of Milton's remarks by NCUC leadership, would be a good start and the humane thing to do. Disagreements can remain but the tone MUST be raised.
I am SOOOOO glad that ALAC has never posted such a vindictive diatribe. I would like to think that they are above this kind of childishness.
Darlene Thompson
NARALO Secretariat
Cheryl:
Your comments do not address the main points of the post. The issue is why are you supporting the creation of a Consumer Constituency when it has no real support among consumer organizations, and when NCUC has requested that the charter issue should be resolved before new constituencies formed?
No one asserted that the RALOs were being “coerced” or “bullied”. I said that a vote was being organized and pushed by you, which it is. I want to know why you are so interested in pursuing a confrontation over the charter and getting an unready constituency recognized when it destroys our chances of reaching a consensus around the NCSG charter.
OK, so Beau was elected rather than appointed- that was indeed a mistake. But neither that nor anything else you said addresses or contradicts the real issue here.
I almost missed the sarcasm! The ALAC Chair has sent similarly ad hominem messages.
I missed it completely.
Can you point us to a sample?
I am very disappointed in Milton's ill informed, indeed, almost insulting remarks. He quite wrongly states that the two signatories to the new consumer constituency are Beau Brendler and Cheryl Landgon-Orr. In fact the two names are Beau and myself, Holly Raiche, Exeuctive Director of the Internet society of Australia (ISOC-AU) In itself, ISOC-AU has both individual and organisational members that, between them, would represent several thousand Australians. But I am there with the impramatur of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) a newly formed comunications peak body in Australia (www.accan.org.au) ACCAN has over seventy organiational members (with such diverse organisations as disability groups, privacy groups computer user groups, pensioners, chidren's groups – all of whom have real interests in communications issues. (and ISOC-AU is one of those members) Between those over 70 consumer organisations, many, many thousands of Australians aremembers, and even more are represented. So when Milton asks who we represent, we representa very large segment of the Australian population – unless he does not believe that a large segment of the Australian population counts for anything, in fact I bring a very significant constituency to the table – setting aside other organisations who are also interested in the constituency. Both Beau and I would look forward to the constituency working with NCUC, but I would hope that Milton does not represent the ill will of NCUC and that the relationship of NCUC constituencies can be far better informed, respectful and cooperative.
Holly Raiche
Internet Society of Australia
is this blog moderated?
I understand what Avri says that “this blog post is not an NCUC Statement” but unfortunately the current NCUC Chairwoman started to share this post on Facebook and Twitter.
So is not just as simple. I´m aware that NCUC is bigger than Milton and Robin also.
Personally I respect Robin and was really glad when ALAC and NCUC worked toghether in the past on Robin´s and CLO´s leaderships (remember Sydney´s public forum) but this time is hard not to be sad or dissapointed with this confrontative way of communicating.
I strongly believe that ALAC and NCUC should keep liason (Bill or whoever) specially to begin stablishing some “non written rules” about how “potential conflicts” should be faced between Non Commercials in ICANN (first in an Internal Way and keeping a broad communication).
In Argentina, a popular advice says that “If you have to take a side”, one of the first elements to analyze is “who is raising his voice”. Not everytime but quite often, you can recognize the person who is wrong looking who is shouting or taking this personal.
In Latin America and Caribbean RALO we are starting to discuss our position regarding NCUC´s petition to the Board. And this post is really helpfull to understand things.
Andrés Piazza
LACRALO Chair
This really is an appalling blog post.
From my perspective as ICANN's general manager of public participation, it clearly demonstrates why it is so difficult to get people involved in the organization's work.
These petty internal squabbles are embarrassing. And the toxic environment keeps people away – especially when, rather than actually talk to people and treat them respectfully, we are subjected to conspiratorial and personally offensive rants like this.
It is simply appalling to make groundless accusations against individuals, impugning their motives, to wave at vague conspiracies, and to seek to undermine hundreds of hours of voluntary work just because things aren't going the way one individual wants.
If we had a community Code of Conduct, this would be a clear breaking of every rule in it.
I don't know how on earth anyone expects people to participate in ICANN when this is the environment.
Kieren McCarthy
On IPv8 we'll consider adding a special field that will let you control freedom of expression when somebody, appropriately or not, says something you or other icannites don't like. We'll install a big red button at the icann's ombudsman office, and when somebody at his criteria violates the code of conduct pushing the red button will erase the comment from every corner of the Internet and instantly electrocute the author.
This post has generated quite a reaction, but it is worthwhile to note that all the negative ones emanate from ALAC and staff. I think the main issue here is that my post made open and explicit a problem that already existed and has been gaining momentum for months. When conflicts are aired, it is tempting to shoot the messenger: the person who identifies an internal conflict and makes it public is frequently accused of causing the conflict.
But this post, and the controversy around it, reflects a fact: ALAC and NCUC are fundamentally divided over the future of the NCSG. As Bill Drake's comment indicated, the problem of suspicion and accusation characterizes both sides. The tone of indignation in the ALAC responses is unjustified, because people within ALAC have been badmouthing NCUC around this issue for months, and a few policy staff have been aiding and abetting those divisions. Sorry if that isn't pretty, Kieren, but that's what's happening. Don't blame me for the underlying problems of ICANN politics.
I will concede that the tone of the article is angry, perhaps inappropriately so. I will also concede that in a few minor matters that don't really affect the argument (e.g., whether Beau was elected or not) there are errors. Although it names names, I do not concede that this article is personal. It is about an important substantive issue affecting the GNSO.
ALAC as a whole, and certainly Beau and Cheryl, are fully aware of the fact that NCUC — and almost everyone in civil society — has rejected the NCSG charter that the staff and the SIC imposed on us. They know that NCUC believes that a constituency-based structure is designed to divide and cripple us. Indeed, Cheryl and two ALAC members are the ONLY people who commented in favor of the constituency based charter. Cheryl even falsely portrayed her opinion as that of ALAC as a whole. Even a substantial portion of the Board now realizes that it was a mistake to impose the SIC charter on the NCSG, and the Board as a whole has agreed to review it after a year.
If that review is to be a real one, no new constituencies can be recognized and put into place before the charter issue is settled. Because the role of constituencies in the NCSG is precisely
the issue that needs to be resolved. To insist on the Consumer constituency being recognized now
is exactly the same as saying there should be no charter review. Cheryl and ALAC are in effect trying to pre-empt and bypass the continued negotations among NCUC, the Board and ALAC. And that is the same as saying, “we don't care what 150 civil society organizations think, their views should be excluded and ignored, as they were before.” And that is far more insulting than
anything in my blog post.
Adam Peake points out that ALAC voted in favor of a Consumer Constituency back in April. True.
But that was before the battle over the nature of the charter was joined. That was before virtually every civil society organization and every individual in NCUC made clear in the public comment period that they wanted an integrated NCSG, not one fragmented into warring
constituencies. That was before the NCUC letter to the Board asking for a moratorium on new
constituencies until the charter was settled.
I apologize if my blog wasn't clear on this: What ALAC is doing now is not merely reiterating their support for a Consumer Constituency in a general sense. What they are doing is asking the Board to disregard the NCUC request to delay the formation of such a constituency until the charter issue is settled.
So Adam, based your worthwhile observation, here are a few questions for Cheryl, Beau, and any other person involved in this current vote. Had ALAC's leadership made any attempts to
communicate directly with any officer of NCUC about this vote? Had they given NCUC members or officers an opportunity to present their case to the RALOs? It is clear that the nature of the NCUC letter was misrepresented to the ALAC and RALOs. The letter was described as proposing to
delay the GNSO reforms, when that is not true. The letter was described as being “against” a
Consumer constituency on principle when in fact NCUC is simply asking that any decision about it
be deferred until the charter issue is settled.
What about other comments on the post? What do they contribute. Beau Brendler is notably vague
about the level of support this consumer constituency has. He says, “The support for it came from other consumer organizations [what other organizations, Beau?] and people working together within the ALAC [i.e., this is really the ALAC constituency, isn't it?]. We have learned from Holly that she has the “imprimatur” of ACCAN, (the article already recognized the connection to ACCAN) but that doesn't change the fact that ACCAN did not formally express its support for such a constituency, and one organization does not a constituency make. To my ALAC critics: please explain to me why an entity with over 150 members, 5-6 of them consumer organizations, should have have of its votes taken away by a group of 3-4 ALAC people calling themselves representatives of “consumers.”
Then we have Evan Liebowitz, who is so outraged by my post that he acquires the special moral status to call me a bunch of names: “the gutter tone, the insinuations, the tinfoil-hat-level conspiracy theories…petty and desperate…sad…personally vindictive.” No substantive contribution, there.
So let's soberly focus on the real issue: why is ALAC – which is not a representative of
noncommercial users in the GNSO, seeing as how it is not part of the GNSO and includes a mix of commercial and noncommercial
actors – attempting to prevent the 150+ entities in the NCUC from having a real say in the
future charter of the Noncommercial Stakeholders Group?
Wow – and all you had to do was apologise to those two individuals that you wrongly and publicly maligned.
Presumably this response is why we need to protect people's rights to post anonymously.
Kieren
Ohh, you don't have to, I forgot that if I'm not logged in the post is shown as anonymous.
Now you have my name, go run and press the red button 🙂
Cheers
Jorge
Jorge,
This is no red button; there will be no red button.
Hopefully what there will be is a refusal to accept people making unsubstantiated, unwarranted and inaccurate personal attacks on others.
Only in a very strange atmosphere would it even be necessary to have to argue for such a basic level of decorum and common decency.
Kieren
“If we had a community Code of Conduct, this would be a clear breaking of every rule in it.”
You can borrow the ORSC ones if you want. They worked for us and came from the MSGGROUP work.
Open DNS dsicussion has been contentious on both sides of any argument since 1986. Why are you acting surprised at this? Morseo, why haven't you done anything about it?
Here's some recycled 1970s technology you might want to try. It's worked for decades, it'll work for you.
Or is ICANN too proud to use things the alt.root guys figured out? Sticky question, I know.
http://open-rsc.org/positions/civil_discourse/
Richard Sexton
richard@root-servers.orsc