[Membership] Remote Participation in the Singapore Open Meeting

["David Schutt" <david@speco.com>]

If I were a propagandist, I could have all sorts of fun with the fact that
an organization accused of being authoritarian is having one of its first
meetings in Singapore, a notoriously authoritarian city-state.

Fact is, there is a substantial and growing network community in the
Asia-Pacific region. This includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia,
etc. and on and on. Singapore is where -they- choose to have their
networking wing-ding, whatever the reasons may be.

People in this region are already at a significant disadvantage when it
comes to this process, they have had very little chance to participate. It's
a long haul, but many have made the trek to meetings here, even when it has
been a stretch financially. Consider that even some wealthy Asians aren't
feeling quite as wealthy as they used too, and you might understand the
difficulties.

People in North America, (especially the east coast) have had more than
ample opportunities for face-to-face gatherings. Check the history of
meetings, and you'll see that they are outrageously biased towards
Washington D.C., Boston, NYC, etc. From outside of North America, I'm sure
it looks pretty ugly. People in the American power establishment making
decisions for the rest of the world, and other such arrogance.<g>

A sure sign of fairness in this question of physical participation is when
it is as inconvenient for North Americans as it is for those in the rest of
the world.

David Schutt

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Gendron [mailto:mgendron@gcstech.com]
Sent: Friday, February 19, 1999 3:06 PM
To: 'David Schutt'; membership@icann.org
Subject: RE: [Membership] Remote Participation in the Singapore Open
Meeting


OK, but APRICOT is an Asian-Pacific event - how about the rest of us who can
not afford to attend the ICANN meeting?  Should it be held to take advantage
of APRICOT?  Just a lot of questions on my mind.

This really seems to bias the ICANN meeting to participants with money or
from that part of the world.  Sure that happens with all meetings, but I am
not sure  the rational of "taking advantage of another pair of events" is
sufficient.  As Bob Allisat has said in many ways, the political tone in
Singapore might not be the right venue for a democratic event.


-----Original Message-----
From:	David Schutt [SMTP:david@speco.com]
Sent:	Friday, February 19, 1999 8:59 AM
To:	membership@icann.org
Subject:	[Membership] Remote Participation in the Singapore Open Meeting

Not obscure, just very far away.

ICANN is taking advantage of another pair of events, see

http://www.apng.org/apricot99/

David Schutt


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-membership@ISI.EDU [mailto:owner-membership@ISI.EDU]On
Behalf Of Michael Gendron
Sent: Friday, February 19, 1999 12:42 PM
To: 'Bob Allisat'; Ben Edelman
Cc: membership@icann.org
Subject: RE: [Membership] Remote Participation in the Singapore Open
Meeting


I appreciate the attempt at a real video connection, but how did Singapore
get selected?  Where are the majority of the people coming from?  That part
of the world?  It just seems like an obscure place for such a meeting.

Michael Gendron