<div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default"></div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">Hi Marita.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:#0b5394">I won't belabour the point as it may be getting more in-the-weeds than may be useful on this list. Unless really pressed this will be my last reply, though I'm happy to follow up offline (on email, or I can be found on Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.)<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> But, as hard pressed
as it is it is to be effective, civil society does, at least, play
an official role there. You suggest that it is all a grand
illusion?</font></p></div></blockquote><div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default">When I first became involved in ICANN At-Large in 2007, then ALAC liaison to the Board Wendy Seltzer took me (and Darlene, who joined about the same time) aside and told us that we were wasting our time, that At-Large was an expensive but effective display that enabled ICANN to pretend that it was paying lip service to to the public interest. Darlene and I belittled the thought at the time, but in hindsight I am forced to admit there was more truth to Wendy's observations. As the inaugural Chair of NARALO and an ALAC member (and Vice-Chair for many years), I look back on the thousands of person hours by me and my colleagues spent fighting the good fight, and I really have a hard time coming up with a substantial list of accomplishments. In my advancing years I can say without hesitation that ICANN has been the most inefficient use of my volunteer time (measured by good done per hour spent) in my life.</div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default"><br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Perhaps. Time will tell. But there are a lot of people
working very very hard, volunteers putting in thousands of
hours, in order to mitigate some of the effects you noted.</font></p></div></blockquote><div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default">I am reminded of the quote, often attributed to Einstein, of the definition of insanity as the doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I am seeing nearly-complete repetition of the work of your burnt-out predecessors.<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> I think
these people deserve our respect. They don't just do it for
travel chits.</font></p></div></blockquote><div><div style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="gmail_default">As someone who flew to ICANN's meetings on its dime for about eight years (and still occasionally do, as recently as last year as a substitute at the Abu Dhabi meeting), I know this all too painfully well. I earned every travel cent they spent on me, just as you and your current colleagues do. But never forget that we are detested by the rest of ICANN's constituencies because of that subsidy, even (maybe especially) our civil society friends at NCUC. I have heard first hand from the mouths of the domain industry that ALAC is ICANN's charity case, that spends "their" money just to come to meetings to complain. That attitude remains common, even now. The situation would be far worst were our complaints to actually lead to action.</div></div><div><br></div><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">And, with respect to
your criticism of At-large, I just spent dozens of hours working
on policy concerning community applications for new gTLDs.</font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Been there, done that, multiple times. I was co-Chair of ICANN's first-ever cross-community working group, that had the ALAC and GAC working together to create ICANN's Applicant Support program. Thousands of person hours. Massive obstacles, and a Board that needed to be squeezed by the GAC to consent. And yet not a single successful application once it rolled out.<br></span></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br></span></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">I've seen many legitimate community applications (.nyc, .music, .gay) get burned to a crisp the moment a commercial entity took interest in their effort, and the people behind those efforts humiliated. </span><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">If you think you have the formula that eluded some of the community's best minds in multiple constituencies in making community applications effective the next time around, I wish you best of luck. But my cynicism has far more legitimate rationale than I would like to admit.</span><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"> And I
am working hard with others on protecting some categories of geo
names from being scooped up by investors so they can turn around
and sell it back to the rightful owner. So I am feeling a little
slighted by your "</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif">fearful of losing its travel allowance that it spends
nearly zero effort on proactive ICANN policy and even less on
public education" description.</font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">I said what I did deliberately. ALAC has a massive role to play, and one in which it can wildly succeed, which is why I haven't just given up and walked away. But that role doesn't resemble anything like what it's doing now. ALAC should be involved in public education and advocacy, ensuring that end users everywhere know how this world of domains affects them and what they can do about it. And it desperately needs a research capacity, to survey the public so that its feedback to ICANN can be based on a broad sample of the global public interest and not the best guesses of 15 well-meaning people (one-third of which are NOT chosen by the At-Large community).<br></span></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br></span></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">I tried. Even planting the seed of such a dramatically changed strategy -- totally within the bylaw mandate -- was a non-starter. People are far too comfortable just reacting to ICANN public comment solicitations, or making minor tweaks to industry-driven policy, than proactively determining and then asserting what end-users want from the DNS.</span><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;color:rgb(11,83,148)">So for now I will sit in the back of the virtual room and launch spitballs, reminding people that all the current battles have already been fought and lost, ready to talk to anyone who wants off the ICANN hamster-wheel-of-futility. and towards something with the actual chance of fulfilling ALAC's mandate.</span><br></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif"><br></font></div></div>