Michael Froomkin wrote:
> I hope very much that the practice in Berlin of "editing" and
> "summarizing" comments will be kept to a minimum, at least in the case of
> comments of less than a page.
We do think it will be helpful to group similar comments together. Should
you and David Post happen to submit comments that seem (to us!)
substantially the same or overlapping in part, it seems a good use of the
meeting's time for your agreement, along with any notable differences, to be
reported. ("Michael Froomkin and David Post both submitted comments noting
that... while Froomkin also went on to note ...") My goal in suggesting as
much is only one thing: to save meeting time, for it's expected that there
will be a time crunch in this meeting as in all prior sessions. So, while I
certainly agree that the sort of summarizing / grouping I propose is not
ideal -- that, in a perfect world we wouldn't have to do it at all -- I
think it's perhaps the lesser of two evils. Assuming we have some finite
number of minutes to give to remote participants, I'd just as soon use those
minutes in as intelligent a way as possible, considering similar thoughts
together not to diminish their importance but to make time for, say,
minority views.
> I submitted a short comment, only to have
> it reduced to two sentences, losing one of my two points.
I am sorry to hear this. Looking back on Berlin, I think one of the main
problems with remote participation was that the Berkman team wasn't doing
enough and that we were asking Esther to do so much that her job became
unmanageable. She was receiving, on a notebook screen next to her
microphone on the board table, the text of every substantive comment we
received, and they'd scroll by and she wouldn't have time to recognize them
and they'd be "lost." Not good! So this time we're doing it differently.
In particular, Berkman staff will manage the process by which a comment is
received, reviewed, and presented from end to end; assuming we receive
sufficient, relevant, on-topic messages, we'll have a Berkman person read at
least excerpts of at least x messages after every y physical speakers --
constants there still to be worked out, perhaps 2 after every 5. Esther
will be able to go back to what I think she really wanted to do all along --
listen, think, and respond -- without being distracted by way too much text
thrown at her. And the whole system will work a lot better.
That said, there will be two new rules about remote comments. First, that
no comment can be longer than a length still to be decided but likely about
250 words. We don't intend to be mean about this -- but longer comments are
like a denial of service attack on other commenters, for the more time staff
spends reading one comment, the less is available for all others. So we'll
be asking -- and implementing code to enforce -- that all comments be less
than some fixed length. Second, just as I understand will now be the case
for physical attendees to the meeting, comments will generally be
one-per-customer-per-agenda-item. That's not to say follow-up questions
won't be permitted -- in the real meeting, I suppose that'll be at the
discretion of the chair. But in order to give everyone time to be
heard/read, it's crucial that a few individuals not submit half the
comments.
These changes may still not be sufficient to make the system work, but,
combined with some much streamlined tech on our end -- an improved database
structure for storing comments, an improved UI for managing them, etc. -- we
are hoping for significantly better results than in Berlin. Even so,
though, I'll readily admit that I remain worried about our ability to review
hundreds or even thousands of comments fast enough. It's hard, and we may
be pushed to our limits by the Santiago time zone (which puts this meeting
during the American day, unlike the Singapore or Berlin sessions). We shall
see.
> Otherwise, how about having people in person also submit their comments in
> writing on index cards and having them go into the same pot as the
> e-mailed ones?
We're a step ahead of you. Had this in both Singapore and Berlin: a comment
system in the back of the meeting room at each of those meetings allowed
physical attendees to use a pared-down version of the remote comment
submission system, and there'll be a similar system this week. (Look in
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/berlin/archive/comments0526.html> for
messages with the designation "in-room" to see some of these comments
submitted in writing from the Berlin meeting room -- there aren't many, but
there are a few.) Non-native English speakers have told us this is very
helpful to them -- lets them communicate in writing rather than orally,
which some say is much more comfortable & natural for them.
In conclusion: We're trying, folks! I'm working about as hard as I can
here -- did email for quite literally two hours a day while on "vacation"
the last two weeks. Have carried more gear to this meeting than ever
before -- for an enlarged Berkman team to attempt to process more comments
faster. And are generally trying to make this work. As always, it may not,
but if the first day doesn't go as well as some of you would like, I do hope
you'll give us constructive feedback & suggestions rather than a general
complaint that it just isn't working.
-Ben, who needs something to eat, having refused lots of airplane food and
then done hours of email and therefore found himself somewhat famished as a
result
