[NA-Discuss] quora

Evan Leibovitch evan at telly.org
Fri Jun 24 05:46:30 UTC 2011


On 24 June 2011 11:48, Danny Younger <dannyyounger at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I well understand that when one openly criticizes an organization, the
> typical organizational response is a concerted effort to circle the wagons,
> to adopt a bunker mentality and to declare that everything is just dandy
> within the group.  So be it.
>

Heaven knows At-Large is the target of plenty of criticism. A good amount of
it has been constructive, and leads to better operations, better policy, and
indeed constant self-analysis and evolution.

And some is needlessly distracting, and obsess with disenfranchisement at a
time when quality volunteer person-hours are so hard to come by. The
response is predicable because the complaint is familiar, repetitive, and
unchanging in the face of At-Large's substantial and high-profile
evolutionary achievements.

Of course improvement is always possible and the infrastructure is still in
evolution. The self-evaluation process continues to be an integral part of
At-Large activity at and between ICANN meetings.

The money spent on At-Large by ICANN pales next to the value of the time and
expertise provided by its participants, most of whom incur out-of-pocket
expense to augment ICANN's resources both in travel and other areas. I make
no apologies for our reduced level of formality, for it provides an
atmosphere that enables participants to cut through the clutter of excessive
process to actually get things done. Achievements such as forcing applicant
support into the gTLD agenda are nothing to apologize for, and if making
that process easier to traverse means the participants wear bunny ears to
meetings, then so be it.

We do what we can, in moving forward while engaging in constant
self-improvement along the way. Yet some will continue to disparage
individual efforts from a convenient distance, using stale arguments that
haven't changed significantly since ALAC was all-appointed, while themselves
refusing to step up and match the standards they set for others.

So be it. Just don't expect me to take such complaints seriously. Even this
response, in retrospect, seems a waste of useful volunteer time and energy
better spent elsewhere. I'll be far more frugal in the future when dealing
with such distractions.

- Evan



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