Subject: Re: [dnso.discuss] Re: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN

From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 15:15:47 -0400

At 09:04 PM 7/31/00 -0400, Michael Sondow wrote:
>Do you work, Mr. Bush?

This is an ad hominem statement. Ad hominem attacks have no place on an 
engineering list. If you dislike Mr. Bush or have an issue with the work he 
does, take that up with him in private. If you have a comment regarding the 
engineering of the Internet, make it. If you have a comment regarding 
ICANN, not only does DoC NTIA not run ICANN, the IETF doesn't run ICANN either.

You notice that I have managed to not spam the world with my CC line...

---

From: Michael Sondow <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 19:56:50 -0400

Fred Baker wrote:
> does, take that up with him in private.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Baker, I was replying to an email that Mr.
Bush sent to a series of email addresses that included that of the
IETF. His message was full of ad hominem attacks on others, so I am
justified in using the same against him. Did you take him to task
for his ad hominem attacks, in his original message? If not, why do
you do so with me?

> If you have a comment regarding the

Well, in the first place, I don't take orders from you, Mr. Baker.
So you can take your strident orders to me and put them where they
fit best.

Secondly, as I said above, I was replying to a post of Mr. Bush. His
was no less, and perhaps no more, concerned with engineering than
mine. Did you ask him to cease sending non-engineering posts to your
precious list? If not, why do you do so with me?

Thirdly, you are obviously mistaken about ICANN. DOC NTIA does run
it, since ICANN has no power or authority whatsoever beyond the
contracts that DOC NTIA has signed with it. ICANN is, both de facto
and de jure, a sub-contractor of the DOC, and so has it been judged
by the GAO and the courts.

> You notice that I have managed to not spam the world with my CC line.

That is only because you are embarrassed for the world to see what
you have written.

Michael Sondow
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---

From: Michael Sondow <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000 20:11:48 -0400

Mr. Baker-

For your interest, here are some of the ad hominem attacks against
myself and my colleagues made by Mr. Bush:

some of us want to do work

play in the snake pit

your list of the disease-laden

Are these a "comment regarding the engineering of the Internet", Mr.
Baker? If not, why did Mr. Bush copy them to the IETF list?

Yours,
Michael Sondow
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---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 11:10:08 -0400

>So you can take your strident orders to me and put them where they

I'm all for heated technical discussion, and this is not it.  At this 
point I strongly suggest that Michael Sondow get his warning about abuse 
of the list and potentially being blocked out.

---

From: Jean Camp <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:30:29 -0400

As friends, or at least a collegial colleague,  of people on both sides of
what began as a cooperative process and has become a series of sometimes
personal battles I believe I offer an useful perspective  on ICANN.

In organizations which are participatory people are far happier with the
outcome than in organizations which are not participatory regardless of the
facts of the outcome. Winners and losers are happier and more define
themselves in the first category.  In short the problem with ICANN has been
overwhelmingly ne of participation.

There has been anger at ICANN that has further mired a struggling
organization which is attempting to met an ill-defined mandate in
unrealistic conditions created by flawed Federal oversight. Ironically two
of these problems -- the anger and the struggling -- could be solved by
increased participation.   ICANN has tried to solve its problems itself
without reaching out to other organizations, beyond the notable and
admirable exceptions of ISOC and IETF. For example, one way in which the
problem of franchise could have been solved would be to have other
organizations offer cycles on their servers, simultaneoulsy splitting the
load and offering opportunities to participate in a distributed manner.
Neither the ACM nor MIT nor IEEE have been contacted with such a request,
to my knowledge. Two of those mentioned are large membership-based
organizations which have extensive experience in international elections.
All three have technical legitimacy.  Beowolf could have been or could be
helpful, harnessing the strength of the Linux users community.

While it may seem odd to advocate an offering envelope-stuffing and
cycle-sinking opportunities to those who now seemed to be entrenched as
opponents; I believe that in fact such an action would covert opponents to
participants. There are things besides rage to be seen in the previous
letter including passion and commitment.

In fact, it seems that some are opponents because it is the only role which
is structurally open in ICANN. As a result ther are people who would seem
natural supporters of ICANN who have been forced to choose between a role
in the opposition and no role at all.  As such, some can participate as
partners or perceive exclusion and eventually, inevitably, be  forced into
opposition as the only available role.

At a recent Harvard workshop on markets, governance, and globalization I
returned to find that the final note from the day before remained on the
top of my pad, "participation itself is happiness." Going back one page I
found that the sentence began, "Regardless of the final outcome.."

The importance of participation in long term legitimacy cannot be
overstated. The less participation the less legitimacy among losers AND
winners. Regardless of the outcome those who have not participated see
themselves as losers in a closed and exclusionary process. And I believe
that is why ICANN seems unable to make many willing to offer support,
regardless of rulings and outcomes.

The closed nature of the nominations committee, the monotonic decrease in
number of popular board members, and the lack of volunteer recruitment have
severely damaged the legitimacy of ICANN. Not because they will lead
necessarily to outcomes which would be unacceptable from any quarter, but
because the reduced participation reduces the acceptability of any outcome.
No outcome can alter the fact of a closed process. An engineering focus on
outcomes over process is often the only correct and appropriate focus. But
in the case of ICANN it has proven woefully narrow. Transparency in the
engineering sense means that a process is so seamless as to be invisible to
the system user. In the governance sense transparency is exactly the
opposite -- transparency means users can see each and every step.  ICANN
has been seeking a high transparency system in the engineering sense in
order to produce an efficient and useful mechanism. But transparency in the
governance sense is what is needed.

Voting and membership are critical elements of participation. This
election, IMHO, could create or destroy the legitimacy of ICANN.

Please do reopen the registration, allow universities, graduate students,
companies, individuals, and membership organizations to assist in handling
the  processing load.  You (and I) were amazed by the sheer number of those
who would participate. Allow participation,   Legitimacy is difficult.  Yet
there is only one way to achieve it: embrace an open, inclusive,
transparent process regardless of the inefficiencies which offend an
engineering sensibility.

best regards,
Jean

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/people/jcamp

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From: "Russ Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 11:44:33 -0400

>In short the problem with ICANN has been

I don't believe that is the problem.  The problem is blocking people who
want to participate.  A prime example is the dispute policy (UDRP).  There
is an extensive record of people who attempted to participate and identified
several problems with the policy.  These inputs were ignored.  Now many of
these identified problems have come to light and ICANN has no mechanism to
correct these deficiencies except for vague answers.

In addition to this ICANN has refused to release basic information such as
how their committees are chosen and how decisions are made.  All they do is
put out news releases claiming a community consensus.  A few months ago
ICANN put out one these announcements and an attorney made an extensive
effort to identify to find out who was actually consulted when this
so-called "community consensus" was reached (the attorney has participated
in the ICANN heavily over several years).  I do not believe he found anyone
who was consulted.  ICANN does not seek transparency or openness, they block
it.  Those phony news releases they put out only make things worse.

I don't see why anyone would want to waste their time trying to participate
in something like this.

Russ Smith
http://consumer.net

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From: "Steve Doty" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 08:48:55 -0700

Well the real question her his do any of us that are complaining have corp.
sponsors? If we do not have that Million dollar sponsorship then We can not
do nothing. We are just specks on the icanns ass.

IMHO
Steve Doty
Jaxx Communications, inc. (been fighting for ISP's right for 6 years and
getting no where)

best regards,
Jean

---

From: Tim Salo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 13:44:57 -0500 (CDT)

> From: "Steve Doty" <[email-masked]>
> Subject: RE: Complaint to Dept of Commerce on abuse of users by ICANN
> Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 08:48:55 -0700
> 

An alternative explanation is that the "complainers" don't have sponsors
because their ideas (complaints) haven't been interesting for anyone
to fund them.

-tjs