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Fwd: The idno mailing list

Dear Readers:

As I am sure many of you are aware, there have been calls for one or more constituencies that would embrace individuals as such.  These initiatives have sought to confer upon interested individuals somewhat more say in domain name governance than would be available under the rubric of the General Assembly.

One of the more vocal proponents of that initiative has been an organization calling itself, variously, the "Individual Domain Name Owners <something>", <http://www.idno.org> and "The Cyberspace Association."  A brief review of the content of the website reveals some vague obeisance in the direction of "democracy."  One would expect as much.  After all, one of the buttons that we would expect the IDNO's to push is the "Democracy is good" button.

Don't be suckered-in by them.  They're about as democratic as the Central Committee of the CPSU(b).  And I am their Leonid Trotsky :-)

I was a co-founder of IDNO.  However, I was foolish enough to criticize several aspects of its activities:

     (A)  ICANN-bashing
     (B)  ISOC-bashing
     (C)  Threats made by a single individual to squelch the comments being made on the IDNO mailing list by Dave Crocker and Kent Crispin.
     (D)  Votebots launched at the whim of a single individual to remove Dave and Kent from the mailing list.
     (E)   NSI-sucking-up.

The immediate result was that I was expelled from membership in IDNO.  No warnings.  No notice.  No voting.  Simply expelled by fiat of Joop Teemstra.

Many were those who thought that I must have been dropped in error, and that Joop would put me back on the website just as soon as he awoke.

Nope.  Instead Joop sent me a note confirming that my deletion from the list was not in error, and that he had done so because I had turned into an enemy.

I was still on the IDNO list, so I posted an essay about the nature of democracy; about how democracy is based on respect for the rules, and a belief that freedom of expression is a good idea, because out of the free exchange of ideas comes workable political decisions made by the people.  I thereupon shut up and proceeded to watch the ensuing debate about democratic processes.  I was heartened to see some real progress being made about the nature of the constituency and the "glue" that would hold it together.

Then . . .again without notice or warning or even the courtesy of an invitation to leave (such as had been extended to Kent and Dave) . . .I received the attachment.

Yessiree, unsubscribed from the IDNO mailing list by Joop Teemstra himself.  It seems that silencing me is an even higher priority with IDNO than silencing Kent and Dave combined.  Oh, and I was also unsubscribed from IDNO-announce.  Wowie, I guess even the announce list contains pearls which must be protected from swine like me.

My removal was done in a manner that leaves no doubt as to what drives the IDNO group.  It's not a legitimate constituency.  It's simply a group of people to whom Joop has granted hecksher (or nihil obstat, if that's your shtick :-).  Since I'm insufficiently orthodox to please Joop, I have been excluded from IDNO.  Not by the will of IDNO's members, but simply because I offended Joop.

I don't think that there's any reason to take IDNO/CA seriously again.  They're kooks.

Sincerely,

Kevin J. Connolly
<Please disregard the silly trailer which follows; it's my sysadmin's idea, and I can't disable it while using this account.>

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