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Username: friedrich
Date/Time: Wed, October 18, 2000 at 9:07 PM GMT
Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer V5.5 using Windows NT 4.0
Score: 5
Subject: My Internet, your Internet, our Internet!

Message:
 

 
               Dear participants of this forum:              

I want you to pay attention to an important fact, which has not been mentioned:

When I joined my first "official" forum concerning the future of the Internet years ago, there where some dozens of comments and, if I remember well, about one dozen participants.
At that time it was obvious, that the forum could not reflect the opinion of the rest of the world, even though the internet community was still quite small compared to now.

Comments in the newspaper were not in favour of the Internet at all and in meetings CEOs of major companies were still convinced that this new technique would never play any role for them ...

A little later the commentaries in the official forums extended to about 200 - 300, then 500. More recently it reached the 1000-line and it started to become difficult to follow it in detail.
But even then, about half a year ago, it was a comparably small group of pro's against a comparably small group of contras. Both of them might not have thoroughly represented the internet and accused each other of acting out of self-interest.

This forum now is showing what may soon happen: There will be thousands of comments!

Without interpreting those comments, we all have to admit, that a new area has just started. It will be impossible to accuse all of the participants of self-interest, except you accuse EVERYBODY of self-interest, who participates actively in politics.

I know that ICANN is proud of that rather unexpected success, given the fact that no publicity took place from their side.

And ICANN is well conscious of the fact that this public opinion will increase, say continue to explode.

With this much of participation it is unlikely that "one group" can ever influence the general picture of this forum anymore.

Therefore every opinion is important and respected.

ICANN should start finding ways for handling an even more extensive participation before the next forum starts. I pesonally think that it must then be possible to view new contributions separately following to pre-defined subjects given in a scroll-up menue.
Otherwise it shall become impossible to follow the thread.

This may be the first really "democratic" forum but it also shows us the limits.

ICANN now has the difficult task not to neglect these massive contributions from all the world.

The Internet has started to walk, it's no longer crawling!
Thanks to all of you, no matter what your opinion may be!

Regards,
Friedrich Kisters
Switzerland    
     
     

 


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