Public participation site

ICANN has changed the method by which it draws input into its public meetings - including the public forum - in an effort to make it easier to interact, and hence encourage greater interaction.

-----------

For the ICANN public forum on Thursday 29 March 2007

Please note: You need to register with the site and be logged in to gain access to the chatrooms

-------------

ICANN used to accept comments and questions to a static email address. These comments were then printed out and provided to the chairman of the meeting.

From now on, ICANN will accept and publicly post any comments to the public forum through its new public participation website, found at http://public.icann.org.

On that site, each meeting has its own webpage. At the bottom of each webpage any registered user is able to "add new comment", and what they write will quickly appear on the site. There is also a chatroom, a clear link to which is provided on each webpage.

ICANN staff will follow the chatroom and seek to raise any relevant comments or questions made to the room itself. Occasionally, if there is an expected high demand for comments, ICANN will also set up a special forum. That will also be clearly linked to on the meeting's webpage.

The meeting chair (and panellists) will themselves review each method of input on the participation website, but in the meantime, ICANN staff will seek to fill the gap.