Page History
| No. | Recommendation | Recipient | Thematic Group Source | Assignees | Status | ||||||||
| 22 | Members of the general public should be able to participate in ICANN on an issue-by-issue basis. Information on the ICANN website should, where practical, be in clear and non-technical language. | ICANN GSE Staff | TG4 |
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Implementation Details The revamp of the At-Large Community website is a significant step in the right direction. It contains topic specific pages that not only explain ICANN policy issues in clear and non-technical language, but also illustrate their relevance to end users, At-Large Community’s contributions, and ways to get involved in those issues. Visitors can also access further learning materials on those pages to gain more knowledge. Beyond At-Large, ICANN’s Communications Department, Policy Development Support Team, and other departments have been making great efforts to communicate with the general public about what ICANN does and facilitate their participation. Examples include the various improvements of ICANN public comment proceedings, such as the inclusion of background information, additional reference, and translation of documents. The public comment page on icann.org will soon go through an overhaul to become more user friendly. Other examples include topic-based microsites (e.g. IANA transition and enhancing ICANN accountability, WHOIS), multimedia library (contains infographics and videos which explain complex topics in simple and enticing language and form), ICANN Learn online courses, Frequently Asked Questions / Fact Sheet about the IANA transition, and other programs and materials. These efforts have resulted in a positive trend with regard to general public’s interest in and understanding of ICANN, which is partly reflected in mainstream media coverage of ICANN. Next Step At-Large members will continue providing input to ICANN staff on improving the multimedia library, microsites, and other communications efforts targeting the general public. |
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Notes:
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- Wolf Ludwig thinks this recommendation is a wishful thinking. The general public will have difficulty to truly understand/engage in ICANN issues. Such recommendation may be counter productive and unrealistic to achieve.
- Maureen Hilyard, for example, disagrees and thinks that engaging the general public is a big part of the multistakeholder bottom-up process. Part of the ICANN ALAC/At-Large mandate is to involve end users. To use less technical languages is important to enhance that engagement and carry out the mandates.
- The At-Large website has met the requirement of communicating ICANN issues in a clear and non-technical language, but may not have met the requirement of engaging end users in ICANN on an issue-by-issue basis.
- Document production pilot project may somewhat meet the requirement in this recommendation, as policy premier on different topic issues will be produced
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- Build a storage of graphics and educational resources that accompany ICANN policy issues
- Example: http://www.commoncraft.com/
- Dev Anand Teelucksingh to show the Loomio tool
- Link this recommendation to the progress on the website
- Recognize the efforts on the IANA, Accountability, and WHOIS microsites; similar microsites of other ICANN issues need to be created
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- Build a storage of graphics and educational resources that accompany ICANN policy issues - this has been done by the outreach & engagement WG and ICANN
- ICANN should have a catalog to organize those graphics
- The new At-Large website can potentially promote and link out to those graphics and educational resources; the new site also provides beginner friendly information on policy issues
- This recommendation should be implemented on an ongoing basis by soliciting feedback from the community
- Some topic-based microsite has already been done by ICANN (e.g. WHOIS, IANA, Accountability)
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- At-Large website helps explain ICANN issues in a clear and non-technical language, but may not be sufficient to help the general public to participate in ICANN on an issue-by-issue basis.
- Simply providing information about what ICANN does without telling end users why they should care is not enough. The Document Production Pilot project which aims to produce policy premiers for RALOs and help educate endusers about ICANN issues may help bridge this gap and partially satisfy the requirement of this recommendation.
