Subject: Fostering productive compromise?!

From: Jay Fenello <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 18:41:46 -0500

This posting is about ICANN, the new not-for-profit 
corporation that the U.S. Government is considering 
to take over the administration of Internet resources.  

Here are some excerpts from an excellent article at:  
	http://www.newsbytes.com

>ICANN Meeting Produces Mixed Reactions 11/16/98
>By Robert MacMillan
>
>"I am very disappointed with [w]here
>this board is and where it's going," Fenello told Newsbytes. "They
>have had a lot of opportunities to address these concerns of
>openness and trust and accountability... yet their position remains
>entrenched... (they say) 'We want to do what we want to do, and we
>want to do it behind closed doors,' and that's a problem."
>
>The purpose of the closed meetings is to help speed up the
>decision-making process, and to not get bogged down in a miasma
>of micromanagement, but Dyson said the board indeed is "transparent"
>enough at this time.
>
>Fenello said more openness could have been achieved in a compromise
>that would have allowed the meetings to be closed but would have
>made board members' voting records public.
>
>"There is, of course, a spectrum across which you can have
>accountability and openness," Fenello said. "One end is closed
>meetings and closed decisions and verdicts handed down from on high.
>The other is where every nuance is public and discussed and made
>available."
>
>Rather than those, he said, "Someone suggested a very reasonable
>approach to give them confidentiality and privacy would be to (apply)
>the Supreme Court standard... where they publish what they decided
>and why, and who voted for what."
>
>Dyson said she disagrees with ideas like this, adding that it "does
>not foster productive compromise."

Respectfully,

Jay Fenello
President, Iperdome, Inc.  
404-943-0524  http://www.iperdome.com