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All the news that's... whatever. Welcome to Random Bytes...
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For a good part of this week I was rather excited that I had something nifty to do this weekend. Respond to email. But this wasn't just any email. The email that I was excited about contained *answers* to musings that I had posed concerning the identity of Users. So its not so much that I was excited about interacting with my favorite POP3 server yet again, but rather, I was impressed by the fact that I was about to learn something new. It turns out that Danny Younger read some of my "not quite talking to myself" mutterances about Users and forwarded them off for the general digestion of the group that hangs out on the atlarge-discuss mailing list. I didn't figure this out right away but when he posted the original message, he cc'ed my "athome" email address rather than the one that I use for my professional activities. Needless to say, the one that I use for work gets checked a lot more often than the one that I use at home. I happened to glance at the box on Wednesday and noticed that I had a whack of new message. I was pretty pleased when I saw the subject lines pop up in my mail client. People had actually taken the time to answer the questions that I had put forth. "Neat," I thought. And then life took over and I got busy. Which brings me to Friday night at the Rader house. I've got a nice teriyaki turkey breast roasting in the oven, sweet rice in the steamer and just enough time before it all cooks up to dive into the emails. Now in going through these messages, the first thing that jumped out at me was the seeming "hostility" that a few participants had towards what I thought had been an honest question. I've seen similar reactions elsewhere when honest questions get asked and I was puzzled until I remembered a quote from an article that I read earlier this week, "the memory of pain can be more damaging than the initial experience." Who knows, it could have been cynicism or goodness knows what else - email is a terrible medium for conveying intent and context. But, it was obvious to me that my questions touched nerves that had been touched before. Let me be very clear. My agenda in asking these questions was simply to get answers that advanced my understanding of the *real* issues. And besides that, how harmful can I really be - the cabal hasn't gotten back to me with a response to my membership application. The second thing that jumped out at me was the degree of conviction that these letters possessed. Each author has some pretty serious beliefs about why its important for Users to have a meaningful role in the goings-on of ICANN. It is relatively easy to write this group off as being "the fringe element", "unwashed rabble" or "gadfly's" as has been done in the past. The actual fact is that these are real people with real beliefs - strong beliefs - as to what will make ICANN work. They tend not to agree on all points, but they disagree without shame. I suspect that its this lack of shame that often leads to the wide casting of aspersion as this is a difficult temperment to understand. They also sent a very clear message. Unless Users have a meaningful role in the goings-on of ICANN, then ICANN cannot have a meaningful role. Simple, elegant and to the point. I'd also tend to agree with it. "Consent of the Governed" is the only way that legitimacy can be achieved. Joop Teernstra took this a bit further with his commentary, particularly that "the Registration industry cannot be "convinced" that unilateral contracts of adhesion with captive customers are not a great idea." A few of the respondents pointed to a number of specific examples of processes gone awry that completely justified getting the Users a seat at the table as quickly as possible. Sunrise processes, UDRP fiascos, burdensome contracts. Again I was reminded of another passage from the article on pain, "...[treating pain] is better than stoic endurance of untreated pain." These messages make an extremely strong case for the idea that only Users possess the context and experience necessary to help Users. Registrars can't do that, IP Lawyers can't do that, only Users can do that. Let them pull up a seat and remarkably, they will probably be able to start treating their own pain. And if all of this wasn't enough to answer my question, Judith Oppenheimer of ICBTollfree fame put the entire line of reasoning over the top with her lengthy response. While I don't always agree with the politics of those that she quoted as having already answered the question, especially that Denton guy, the trip down memory lane was valuable. It is worth reading through in its entirety even if just to enjoy the closing dig, presented in a manner that would have made Robert Benchley laugh. I am however politely ignoring her subtle implication that I should RTFM - or at least RTFICBTollfree - before I ask stupid questions ;) These and the many other extremely logical justifications were a comfortably stark reminder that Users need a place at the table. BUT, they all failed to draw a line between those that use the DNS on a day to day basis as they surf the web, send emails and collect MP3s and those that have a hard stake in the DNS - the Registrants. I think I need to ask one of my questions again. What does "Users" mean? Scratch that. I think I need to take a swing at the bat myself and see what people think. But not now, the turkey is ready and its getting late. Which of course means that we don't get to the good stuff until Part II.
-rwr
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© Copyright 2003 Ross Wm. Rader. The opinions expressed in this weblog are solely those of the respective authors.
Last update: 1/27/2003; 11:22:30 PM.