[NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Post-Paris Review

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Izumi and all,

  Indeed and agreed!  But didn't I already make this point?  I believe
so.  In any event transparency and accountability should take
precedent, don't you think?  Different regions "Cultural" or
"Organizational" differences should be far down the list of
concerns or considerations in comparison with transparency and
accountability.

  Frankly I don't believe ICANN should be using it's largess for
travel expenses for anyone other than direct ICANN employees
if it is indeed a California 501 (c3) corporation.  Either this, or it
should provide travel expenses for any and all whom cannot otherwise
afford travel to ICANN meetings and/or "Retreats".  I fully recognize
that the ALAC has been unable to provide it's own funding model, or
unwilling to do so.  But that is not a good excuse for asking ICANN for those
funds needed for traveling to various ICANN events/meetings/retreats.

Izumi AIZU wrote:

> In general, I agree with Vittorio's suggestion. In detail, however, there can be
> some "cultural" and maybe "organizational" problems in the diverse world
> of five regions/continents and many cultures where AtLarge members are based.
>
> Some cultures are not accustomed to be exposed in financial details
> on individual basis. If ICANN community wants to know how much ALAC
> is spending, then aggregation should be sufficient.
>
> But if we/they want to know who received how much exactly, then there
> is a danger, or concern, that these figures might be used as a measure
> to evaluate the performance of each. I am not saying this will happen
> in definitive way, but I think there is a room for speculation and that
> is not that much helpful for us to work together.
>
> # I can self-declare how much fund I received so far from ICANN, but it may take
> 5 hours or more to do that for all of my travels to ICANN meeting to date ;-)
>
> izumi
>
> 2008/7/16 Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org>:
> > Vittorio Bertola wrote:
> >> Elisabeth Porteneuve ha scritto:
> >>
> >>> Do you know if ICANN or ALAC keep statistics on funding travels, including
> >>> number of ALAC participants per meeting. How many ALAC were in Paris, and
> >>> how many with travel/accomodation support (and the same in former places)?
> >> In fact, it's never been possible to get public information on travel
> >> funding by ICANN to any kind of ICANN-funded attendees.
> > It is true that ICANN makes the information difficult to attain --
> > indeed, any request for details on how much money is allocated to
> > At-Large generally results in evasion and obfuscation. However, it
> > should not be difficult for ALAC  itself (and/or ALAC support staff) to
> > provide a "roll call" of who attended, from the registration
> > information. This is helpful, not only for funding reasons, but also to
> > help At-Large be aware of who exactly is representing their interests at
> > each meeting.
> >
> > (It is also interesting to match the list of registrations against
> > meeting attendance...)
> >
> > There should be no reason to hide the basic attendance information.
> > Indeed, info on those who pre-registered is already online
> > (http://par.icann.org/attendees/).
> >
> > For costs, I would personally prefer aggregate amounts -- "ALAC sent the
> > following people and it cost a total of $Y in travel expense". For much
> > the same reason that ICANN does not break out staff salaries from its
> > public budgets, I do not think it is helpful for the to world have
> > access to dissect which individuals' flights cost the most.
> >
> > - Evan
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > ALAC mailing list
> > ALAC at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> > http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac_atlarge-lists.icann.org
> >
> > At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org
> >
> >
>
> --
>  >> Izumi Aizu <<
>
>  Institute for HyperNetwork Society, Oita
>  Kumon Center, Tama University, Tokyo
>  Japan
>  * * * * *
>  << Writing the Future of the History >>
>  www.anr.org
>
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>
> At-Large Official Site: http://atlarge.icann.org

Regards,

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