On 12 July 1999, "Ben Edelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Mark C. Langston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> If there is/was a mechanism for active participation/input to this
>> teleconference, I'm unaware of it.
>
>I believe there was no remote participation today because there NC was not
>meeting in a single room, so the traditional means of remote
>participation -- displaying text comments on an LCD projector -- was
>unavailable. That said, it's not hard to imagine other ways to allow remote
>participation. For example, text messages might be sent to a trusted
>moderator who reviews them and reads at least certain messages to the
>teleconference. I'll suggest as much to the names council and attempt to
>make it happen *IF* they're interested.
That would be great.
>> Assuming,
>> of course, that you are not stuck behind a firewall and unable to
>> access such feeds via any method other than an HTTP stream.
>
>For the one person who was behind a firewall last time (and wrote to me
>during the teleconference last time explaining as much), Berkman provided
>listen-only access via a telephone link. To date, no one else has contacted
>me expressing trouble accessing the feed from behind a firewall.
That was me, actually. Please don't take any of this as a complaint,
but rather as constructive criticism. I appreciate the effort and
time required to set something like this up. While I may be the only
one complaining at this point, I find it hard to imagine that this
will always be the case, and I would think that making things as easy
to access as possible would be the ultimate goal.
Having said that, I'll say this: If you can fill me in with OS and
Real product version info, I'll see if I can figure out how to change
things so that the broadcast is available via HTTP as well. I think
I made this offer last time as well, but I may not have been clear.
[...snip]
>
>> Shouldn't the responsibility for making these
>> meetings open and accessible for both passive listening and active
>> participation be the responsibility of the pDNC and *not* the Berkman
>> Center?
>
>I'm not sure I understand what you mean -- I just don't see the problem with
>the NC-Berkman relationship as it currently stands. To clarify, the NC
>asked Berkman to webcast the meetings for them, and since we have the
>necessary skills and equipment, we agreed to do so. I for one think it's
>important to make the process as open as possible, but I realize every
>organization doesn't have the ability to webcast. So, to the extent that
>it's possible, I'm happy to help make available important content like the
>DNSO teleconferences and ICANN's 4/21 press conference. What's wrong with
>that?
Nothing, as such. Perhaps I'm unclear on the relationship. Is the NC
paying Berkman for these services, or is it voluntary? My point here
is that the NC has a responsibility to make these processes open, and
I'm questioning their diligence in this aspect, while trying not to
sound like I'm criticising Berkman, as I am not.
>
>Were it not for us, it's conceivable that the teleconference might not have
>been webcast at all, though of course it's also possible that the NC would
>have made other arrangements, perhaps through broadcast.com or the
>RealBroadcast Network, though it's not clear whether using a commercial
>broadcast provider rather than Berkman would address your concern.
My only concern here is that the process is open and available to
as many people as possible. The provider is not really an issue, as long
as the openness is present.
>
>> Because as things now stand, if there's a question about the openness
>> (or lack thereof) of these meetings, the pDNC can just point to
>> Harvard and say, "Talk to them. If there are problems, it's not
>> something we're handling". That doesn't feel very kosher to me.
>
>If you've got a problem with the way the NC is handling these meetings, your
>problem could be with either the NC or with Berkman. If your complaint is
>of the form "the webcast didn't work," that's probably a complaint best
>addressed to me, simply because I'm the one most likely to be able to fix
>the problem for you. But if your complaint is of the form "the current pNC
>has been illegitimate from the start" or "the NC is illegitimate because it
>doesn't allow sufficient remote participation," I think you need to talk to
>the organizers of the NC (perhaps keeping me in the loop if you're so
>inclined).
>
It's a bit of all of it, really. :)
>You may succeed in convincing them to make certain changes -- perhaps
>changes that they'll implement themselves as they implemented remote
>participation via email at the 6/25 meeting without my involvement at all,
>or perhaps changes that will result in modifications to the requests they've
>made of Berkman and of me. But I'd be quite surprised if they weren't
>interested in talking to you at all. For, from what I've seen -- and I
>think the beginning of today's teleconference reflects as much, though you
>should surely listen for yourself via the archives at
><http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/dnso> -- they seem duly concerned about
>the openness of their process, and I believe they'll be interested to hear
>your thoughts on the matter.
>
With that, may I make a suggestion? Currently your archives are
made available in the same manner as the existing live stream - that is
to say, via UDP or TCP only, and via a pure stream. The option of
download the entire stream for listening at a later date is not
present.
I realize some of these streams may be extremely large, but it may
be better if the option were present to download one huge .ra or .rm
file. Additionally, there would then exist mirrors of these
conversations, should something happen to the ones in your posession.
>> Well, apparently "open" in this context means those with a certain
>> level of technology and access are free to listen helplessly while
>> the pDNC makes decisions, erroneous statements, and claims of having
>> "consensus" while we are powerless to interject and/or correct in
>> any manner, be it rationally and calmly or otherwise.
>
>May I ask for concrete, specific suggestions as to how to make remote
>participation more effective? That's a subject I continue to think about,
>for we'll be using remote participation again in Santiago in August, and I'm
>extremely interested to hear what changes others would like to see.
1. There needs to be some mechanism in place for remote participation
that is open and fair to all. E-mail seems to be ubiquitous, but the
way it was handled at the 6/25 meeting wasn't very fair, as the pDNC
was able to ignore or brush off any email they didn't deem worthy of
discussion, instead of being at least forced to acknowledge it, as they
would a statement made by an individual in person.
Furthermore, the manner in which the e-mails were dealt with -- i.e.,
the haphazard, afterthought fashion present in San Jose -- didn't seem
fair at all. Perhaps what should be done is to have an individual
whose responsibility is to approach the mic and address the members
with the content of the email, unadulterated, in the same manner a
physical attendee would, would be the best solution.
And it should be made clear that all email is to be addressed, not
simply those deemed "worthy". The members do not have that option
with physical attendees, and they should not be allowed to do it
with email.
2. Unless the members in the teleconference are on cell phones,
chances are they're near a networked computer. Furthermore, they
are supposedly knowledgable in computers and networking issues.
Therefore, would it not make much more sense to hold these meetings
online, in a real-time interactive forum (e.g., a private IRC server)
than via telephone?
In this manner, there is just as much spontaneous, real-time
communication, there is less crosstalk, there is a verifiable
document recording everything that is said in a readily-available
text format, and everyone who wishes to may participate.
True, this would require some people to become familiar with
clients for the chosen real-time forum. But since they're
already being required to become familiar with RealPlayer, this
shouldn't be that much of an issue. At least, no more than
the existing issues surrounding the webcasting.
Plus, it would provide those desirous of such things even firmer
control over the order of speakers.
Finally, there would be an instant record of all decisions made.
The major tenets here are:
1) the widest possible participation
2) Maintenance of the real-time interactive aspect of physical
participation
3) the availability of both passive and active participation for anyone
interested
4) the quickest possible availability of a verifiable record of the
meeting (by verifiable, I mean that there are multiple copies of the
record in existence, so that one may be checked against another. In
a text-based forum as suggested above, any paritcipant would be free
to log the entire session, verbatim.)
5) The maintenance and/or introduction of remote participation on an
equal footing and with as much psychological presence as that held by
physical participants.
[...snip rest, as it's addressed above.]
--
Mark C. Langston Let your voice be heard:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.idno.org
Systems Admin http://www.icann.org
San Jose, CA http://www.dnso.org
