Question: As I understand it, questions not answered by any candidate never appear here. Is this not in itself a form of censorship? Are the really hard questions not being answered by candidates?

Nominee Replies

Barbara Simons - posted on 2000-10-04 18:47:47 There certainly are some hard questions. To the extent that we have been forced to think about new issues, I think this has been a very worthwhile exercise for the candidates, as well as a source of information for the voters. But, as Karl mentioned, this election has been incredibly time consuming for the candidates. I was out of town the week that the questions were first posted, and I was unable even to access them for the first couple of days. I was concerned that my lack of response might appear to be indifference or worse, but there was nothing I could do. In addition to the questions posted on the ICANN web site, the candidates have received several lists of candidates from various interested groups. We have also been asked to participate in debates, and we are being contacted by reporters who want our opinions on various aspects of ICANN. When I have not been traveling, I have been spending most of my time working on questions, emails, and phone calls. I'm still falling behind.... Donald Langenberg - posted on 2000-10-01 20:40:29 Whatever it may be, it's not censorship. Check your dictionary. Harris Miller - posted on 2000-09-29 13:11:57 Robert, I agree that all questions should be available upon posting. I try to participate here as actively as I can as well in as other venues. I agree that the user interface for this site could stand some improvement. Time constraints are also a factor. Having said that, I am fairly confident that all questions will be answered by at least one if not more candidates. Karl Auerbach - posted on 2000-09-26 21:19:24 Yes, some of the questions are hard. But I suspect that many of us are pressed for the time to deal with all these questions - remember this isn't the only forum in which we candidates are being queried. I personally receive several hundred e-mails a day that are related to ICANN and this election. (Also, some candidates have daytime jobs and families. ;-) I do think, however, that ICANN has created a very difficult mechanism for this Q&A - we candidates have to do a lot of digging just to find the questions in the first place. And ICANN's web pages seem to have been designed to maximize the effort needed to compose a response. And I agree with you that hiding the existance of the questions until there is an answer is a bad idea. Lyman Chapin - posted on 2000-09-26 08:43:49 I don't know why the Q&A system works that way. It takes more time to answer the really hard questions, which may delay their appearance. It's possible that all seven candidates might decide not to answer a question, in which case it would never appear in the list; but I'm not sure that would constitute censorship. As I've said before, I would prefer for all questions to appear as they are posted, whether or not a reply has been submitted. Emerson Tiller, J.D., Ph.D. - posted on 2000-09-26 07:26:33 Most questions have been answered. I expect that before we're done, all questions will have at least one response and will be posted. I put a challenge to myself and the other candidates to make sure this happens. Lawrence Lessig - posted on 2000-09-26 02:56:43 As I understand it, if one person answers, then the answer is posted. There are just a few I haven't answered. But I'll be sure to either answer those or indicate why not. (Cowardice may be a reason, unfortunately).