[Chapter-delegates] OneWebDay 2009 - tomorrow 22 September

Mon Sep 21 11:08:30 PDT 2009

Hello,

I am particularly concerned that Joly MacFie's press release was discarded.
Joly has been instrumental in building up OneWebDay during the first two
years and he has strived to devote as much time as he could to support the
new management.

The approach of the new OneWebDay management is rather corporatist - the
style is that of the Board room of an emerging corporation, out of touch
with OWD's early history and out of tune with the early volunteers.

OWD is growing, but a bit off track. As a celebration, OWD was universally
appealing. No one could have differed with what OneWebDay wanted to do:
celebrate. But as a political activist movement, OWD would have supporters
and opposers. This causes OWD to lose its universal appeal.

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:

> Hi Alejandro,
>
> This is something that I have discussed with Siva from ISOC Chennai
> just yesterday. Both us are active in OneWebDay and share your
> concern.
>
> Last year the theme was 'online political participation' and this had
> attracted to the cause some political activists including, as
> organizer in Washington DC, Nathaniel James.
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanieljames
>
> James was a coherent and effective voice as indicated by this
> Huffington Post article:
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-james/onewebday-is-the-new-eart_b_127568.html
>
> When, at the start of the year, founder Susan Crawford was co-opted
> into the Obama administration, she was forced to step down from her
> role at OneWebDay at short notice. She reached out to James to take
> over the day-to-day reins, with the possibility that funding could be
> found to make him fulltime Executive Director.
>
> After some delay, in May, a small grant was secured from the Ford
> Foundation, and Mitch Kapor agreed to serve as Chairman.
> http://mkapor.posterous.com/new-leadership-for-onewebday
>
> It took until July for James to really get going, leaving only two
> months to organize this year's event.The theme was decided as digital
> inclusion with "OneWeb. For All".    A ning site was set up for
> networking and Kapor's people took over as webmasters.
>
> It was understood that this year would be makeshift, but that the Ford
> Foundation would monitor and consider major funding next year. James,
> an admitted novice when it comes to Internet affairs has done his best
> to run a coherent outreach campaign. As an activist - he used activist
> language, this includes the boilerplate demagoguery to which you
> rightly draw attention.
>
> I myself protested last week when the OneWebDay PR template was
> released containing the phrase:
>
> "Originally imagined as a celebration of the World Wide Web – the
> services and content the Internet carries – OneWebDay has grown into a
> movement of organizations, citizens and consumers who are committed to
> universal and equal access to the Internet."
>
> I pointed out that this was an exclusionary phrase- directly opposed
> to Crawford's concept that OneWebDay was a day when common people
> could celebrate the Internet. "This is YOUR day" I have repeatedly
> heard her say  in speeches.
>
> I wrote a seperate Press Release for NYC, and was told it was
> unnacceptable because an integrated approach to journalist was
> required (I'll admit my piece was probably too long and rambling - I
> retitled it 'more info')
> See http://onewebday.org/nyc for both.
>
> The point I made to SIva in our conversation was that while the
> current regime was practically Stalinist in contrast to Crawford's
> wide-open approach - that it's to some extent necessary to help
> OneWebDay get a firmer footing. I think that things will swing the
> other way, and it's up to us, particularly in ISOC, to engage and see
> that it does. Also, Susan Crawford won't be locked up in the White
> House for ever.
>
> joly
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Alejandro Pisanty
> <apisan at servidor.unam.mx> wrote:
> > Dear Sabrina,
> >
> > thanks for this reminder.
> >
> > Can someone among the Chapter Delegates kindly explain to me why we
> support
> > OneWebDay while it circulates a "pledge against the digital divide" that
> > contains wording which is directly hostile to ISOC, the IETF, and other
> > organizations ISOC supports?
> >
> > I quote: "Right now, governments, corporate entities and technical elites
> > decide the fate of the most powerful, inclusive communications platform
> ever
> > created. They're making decisions about who will have access, at what
> > speeds, and at what price. They're deciding how to invest in training and
> > education in 21st century communications."
> >
> > What end is served by this conspiracy-theory-like language? Do we agree
> to
> > have "technical elites" conflated with "governments and corporate
> entities"
> > and lumped into one?
> >
> > Words of enlightenment will be welcome, as I am sure they will free my
> > limited understanding.
> >
> > Yours,
> >
> > Alejandro Pisanty
> >
> >
> > .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .
>  .
> >     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
> > UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
> >
> > Tels. +52-(1)-55-5105-6044, +52-(1)-55-5418-3732
> >
> > * Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
> > * LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
> > * Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
> > * Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn,
> > http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
> >
> > * Ven a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org.mx, ISOC http://www.isoc.org
> > *Participa en ICANN, http://www.icann.org
> > .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>  .
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 21 Sep 2009, Sabrina Wilmot wrote:
> >
> >> Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:34:01 +0100
> >> From: Sabrina Wilmot <wilmot at isoc.org>
> >> Reply-To: chapter-support at isoc.org
> >> To: Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> >> Subject: [Chapter-delegates] OneWebDay 2009 - tomorrow 22 September
> >>
> >> Dear Colleagues,
> >>
> >> This is a reminder that tomorrow is the fourth annual OneWebDay
> >> (http://onewebday.org/). Many Chapters have work hard to coordinate
> events
> >> and activities for this day. We would like to encourage all
> participating
> >> ISOC Chapters to share their OWD stories with us.
> >>
> >> Let the Chapter delegates know about our successful OneWebDay 2009 and
> >> post details here or submit a contribution for the ISOC newsletter. You
> can
> >> include links to webpages and photos of your events.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Sabrina Wilmot
> >> ISOC
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Chapter-delegates mailing list
> >> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> >> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Chapter-delegates mailing list
> > Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> > http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
> >
>
>
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Joly MacFie  917 442 8665 Skype:punkcast
> WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com
> http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Chapter-delegates mailing list
> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20090921/bf124629/attachment.htm>