[governance] Re: [IRP] Occupy The Digital Commons

Wed Nov 16 17:13:01 EST 2011

Thomas, this is indeed an interesting identification of commons and
TLDs. During the last decade there was some movement around the issue
of Asia Commons through a conference held in Bangkok in 2006. I was
authoring the Asia Commons Learning Guide afterwards and can vaguely
recall a discussion around the commons and domain names.

I think this is a very interesting approach and being able to identify
this relationship within the sphere of Digital Commons is indeed an
important activity. This debate will always remain whether ICANN is
really working for the common good or is just an association of
registrars and registries (just kidding) but seriously, the new gtld
program brings along itself a great deal of hassle while is an
opportunity for innovation as well.

There is a very uneasy feeling across a diversity of groups around the
globe and there is a lot of gossip and whispering about parties
getting ready for hitting ICANN with a series of injunctions around
the issue of Community gTLDs etc. I've even learnt that there was
quite a debate in or around the GNSO about whether .nyc was a
commercial tld or a community tld and where does that stand at moment
is very unclear.

There will be new topics of politics in the new gtld space especially
around issues of city, regional and community tlds and there might
also be conflicting views across the broader spectrum of discussions
around the commons but this seems to be an interesting start.

I wonder if there is going to remote participation for this upcoming meeting?

Best

Fouad

On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 11:44 PM, Thomas Lowenhaupt
<toml at communisphere.com> wrote:
> Fellow New Yorkers [see apology below if you're not],
>
> When Matt Cooperrider suggested a commons approach to governing New York's
> TLD in 2007, I said "Nice idea, but people aren't ready for this." Over the
> past four years several developments have led this rusting old head to
> reconsider Matt's proposition:
>
> Elinor Ostrom's 2009 Noble Prize for Economics for "her analysis of economic
> governance, especially the commons." This transformed a then slow-growth
> effort to nurture and reclaim the commons into a global movement. There's
> now even a School of the Commoning in London.
> The city's decision in early 2009 to support an application for a city-TLD.
> This relieved us of the burden of developing a structure and securing
> financing for a TLD application, and provided time to think about a
> city-TLD's broader implications.
> The 2010 closing of city hall's gates to public engagement in imagining our
> TLD's role in social and economic development and civic affairs. (With
> ICANN's deadline for filing an application for our TLD fast approaching,
> we're not sure if that move represents a blunder, cronyism, or something
> else.)
> ICANN's initiating the New TLD Program without providing any guidance to
> cities. With cities home to more than half the global population, the key
> generators of economic growth, and the hope for a sustainable planet, it
> seems their multi-stakeholder governance model demonstrated its limits.
> Governor Cuomo's office saying in September that New York's TLD issue "was
> not a priority."
> And most recently, at an October 20 "Tea & TLDs" meeting, David Bollier, a
> leading thinker about the commons, observed that city-TLDs provided "an open
> greenfield for new governance structures." Further, he suggested that the
> Occupy Wall Street movement might provide the opportunity to present
> city-TLDs as "greenfields" to cities globally. Since the Occupy movement has
> grasped the essence of the commons in the "Whose streets? Our streets!"
> mantra, it might be a short hop to urbanites chanting "Whose TLDs? Our
> TLDs!"
>
> So with the extant governance structures having failed, we've decided to
> explore the commons approach by bringing the city-TLD opportunity to the
> Occupy movement.
>
> While we've explored commons governance over the years - see here and here -
> this Thursday we're digging deeper into the potential, participating in a
> "Occupy the Digital Commons" meeting at the Atrium, 60 Wall Street, from 6-8
> PM. The meeting was convened by Occupy Wall Street's Campaign for the
> Commons working group (an entity we're part of). Here's part of the meeting
> announcement from the Occupy Wall Street site:
>
> This will be the first face-to face-meeting of this group. We’ll start with
> a brief review of the commons, including the newest commons, city-TLDs –
> .boston, .rome, .paris, .london, .mumbai, .nyc, etc. (Like .com and .org but
> just for these cities.)
> Then we’ll turn our attention to how we can best create an awareness of the
> foundation role the commons play in society and of the need to nurture them.
> We’ll look to how the group might fit within Occupy Wall Street structure,
> if nurturing the commons might be a stated goal of the Occupy movement, and
> if city-TLDs might provide an engine to advance the cause.
>
> The working group's portfolio is broader than city-TLDs, the commons itself,
> but the hope is that a global Occupy movement can bring some youthful heads
> and energy to the development of city-TLDs as public interest resources,
> perhaps by serving as greenfields for new governance structures. (For those
> not familiar with the many features of city-TLDs (greenfields is one of
> about a dozen), use the links below to our web resources.)
>
> Hope to see you Thursday. If you can't make the meeting, we'll be having a
> prep meeting Thursday morning at our regular Tea & TLDs Google+ Hangout, and
> we'll blog the Occupy meeting ASAP.
>
> NOTE: Thursday promises to be an active day for New York's Occupy movement.
> While the Atrium's address is 60 Wall, there's a separate entrance on Pine
> Street.
>
> Best,
>
> Tom Lowenhaupt
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Thomas Lowenhaupt, Founder & Chair
> Connecting.nyc Inc.
>
> tom at connectingnyc.org
> Jackson Hts., NYC 11372
> 718 639 4222
> Blog - Wiki - Web
>
> -------------------------------------
> My apologies to those receiving this message with zero interest in the
> topic. My email list got messed, and while I've tried to pick and choose
> from the 1,000+ names, there are surely places I've botched. If you'd like
> to be removed, email me - toml at communisphere.com - and I'll take your name
> off my .nyc list. I've included those from the ICANN community hoping they
> can help us think this through. We email about once a month.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> IRP mailing list
> IRP at lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org
> http://lists.internetrightsandprinciples.org/listinfo.cgi/irp-internetrightsandprinciples.org
>
>

-- 
Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t