As Andrew pointed out at domainnamewire.com the ICANN meeting is being held in a very dangerous Mexico City from March 1-7.
For those that don’t know Mexico city has the highest rate of kidnappings in the world.
ICANN has just made available a online form that you can use to submit a question to ICANN that they may address in their meeting.
Please note the form restricts the question to 30 words.
We used the opportunity to ask:
1. Is ICANN going to pass a uniform rule for all expired domains?
2. Is ICANN going to reduce it’s $.20 fee now that it has a surplus well in excess of its own stated requirements.
You can ask about these topics, the new gTLD’s or anything else on your mind.
In response to the questions I submitted, ICANN sent me this:
“””We will make sure that as many questions as possible are asked in the room itself (and the answers captured by the meeting transcript). If we run out of time and your question isn’t asked, don’t worry – we will produce a response in the weeks following the meeting that should include both your question and a response to your question.”””
For all of you that comment on this blog, tha tICANN doesn’t listen to you, here is another chance to have your voice heard
Cool, Thats my first question in 🙂 …pitty they only allow 30 words
…I better go and get some more email accounts because I have quiet a few questions I would like to ask those numpties.
The fact that they restrict a form to 30 words is enough to say they still have no desire to listen a whole lot but rather include a forum for people to suggest since they are obliged to do so.
Pretty cool, they have free “bodyguards”.
Ask a wrong question, you will be gone.
Next venue, will be in China.
ICAAN should be I’Can’t
@ BullS – Should be
“ICAAN do whatever the hell I want..so I will !”
…non-profit corporation…my arse !
Michael quote –
“Is ICANN going to reduce it’s $.20 fee now that it has a surplus well in excess of its own stated requirements.”
I would be happy for Icann to keep the $ 0.20 per domain per year if they would cancel the Verisign contract. Or, at least state, they will put it up for bid when the contract ends.
But, I doubt that will happen.
Hopefully, Obama will let Icann know that he is not going to cut them loose.
Someone should ask at the meeting –
1. What will Icann do if the US DOC will not release oversight authority?
2. Is the .com contract going to be open for bidding?
Domainer
First of all you can ask these questions by clicking on the link.
This is why I published this post, to let you know you can ask questions to ICANN.
So you ask.
FYI, The .com/.net contract does not expire until 2012.
As ICANN’s general manager of public participation, I created the question box, and I think you can get a lot of information and context in under 30 words. Don’t you?
[Exactly 30 words]
Kieren
Kieren,
simply said — NO.
As Mike’s last line stated
“For all of you that comment on this blog, tha tICANN doesn’t listen to you, here is another chance to have your voice heard”
thats 24 words.
I’m not trying to be sarcastic but many of us “domain owners” are highly educated people with interests both within the domain industry and out.
Limiting comments to 30 words to an association which many of us feel never listen anyway is like saying ok – we agree to listen but send us a text message (almost the same count) but if you go over then dont bother.
We get emails all the time about different investments, questions about articles published, edits to scripts we write – 100’s of emails and its very rare one is under 30 words when the entire purpose of the reply was to comment.
Its the responsibility of an association such as ICANN to hear and listen to the community in which funds thier paycheck. Editing comments or weeding through them to find points to consider comes with the territory – limiting comments to 30 words is just ridiculous – have no other word.
As much as their seems to be a seperation from consumers and wall street much can be said for how many people feel about ICAAN vs domain owners so my suggestion would be to let people comment as they want without limiting them.
You may end up hearing more than 30 words that make a difference.
Also the larger point .. 30 words – where is the room for someone to list reasons for their comment??
For and against discussion are some of the most critical points for explaining comments – how would you, I or ICAAN always get the point if we were limited to 30 words and no room for explaining why the person believes in its advantage or disadvantage?
Alan,
If the question box was that this was the *only* way to input into ICANN’s processes, I would agree with you.
But it is very, very far from that. Any work that ICANN does is put out – at least once – to public comment. You are free to send an email of any length to any of those comment periods.
You are free to send lengthy responses to any blog post posted on the ICANN blog.
You are free to attend any of the many ICANN meetings that take place and have your say.
You can use the contact form to send in inquiries. And you can use the Information Request Procedure to ask for information about the organization. I may be missing some.
The question box this post is about serves a very particular function: to ask questions in the public forum at an ICANN meeting. At each public forum we have around 1,000 people physically attending.
That forum format is set up for people to make short comments or questions and then have ICANN staff or Board respond. That is why everyone values it. It needs to be relatively fast paced to everyone an opportunity to ask their question.
Otherwise you could have an entire week-long meeting of people just asking questions.
I would be more than happy to talk you through the many different ways you can participate within ICANN’s processes.
Kieren
Thanks for the clarification – I still think its too short but see the purpose – maybe a week long meeting is really not a bad idea 🙂
We’ll chat one day
“You are free to attend any of the many ICANN meetings that take place and have your say.”
and how many words would one be limited to in that case?
@ Cartoonz: Well, I suppose that depends on how fast you speak and how interesting you are.
Kieren
UPDATE
For all those that asked ICANN a question through their automated process they have no published results for the questions asked and the answers given.
http://www.icann.org/en/participate/mexico-city-public-forum-response.html