[Freedombox-discuss] Fwd: assigned numbers without ICANN

[Thomas Lord]

First, nice suggestion that "admin" might be
a bad choice of word there.   I'll think on replacing it.
I also think I'm going to keep it for the very short
term in these initial discussions just to keep things
simple.

Second:


> IIUC, the point is that one group takes on an additional responsibility
> -- interacting with other members of the group, committing to publish
> allocated names in a timely fashion, being responsive to the members of
> the other group, etc.

That's a nice description.


Lastly: 

> I'm curious about what happens to an "admin" who fails to keep up with
> their additional responsibilities -- is there a way that other admins
> can censure or reject them?  can their dependent users tell that the
> admin has been censured or rejected?

Very good question.  The main acts of (curable) censure
are the individual decisions by admins to:

  * speak up civilly but clearly in public about 
    apparently badly behaved admins 
  * disregard the signatures of troubled admins
  * decline to accept or forward administrative
    messages from troubled admins

Note that if most admins see no problem with an accused
admin, such censure by a minority has little effect.
If many admins agree to a censure, they can pretty much 
put an admin out of business.

In between there is a big grey area.

-t





On Sun, 2011-05-01 at 11:58 -0400, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> On 04/30/2011 03:41 PM, Thomas Lord wrote:
> > Admins don't exactly have extra "privilege" in name
> > allocation.   Successful admins have widely well regarded
> > cryptographic signatures, is all.
> > 
> > The system is also decentralized in that no user is 
> > "captive" to any one admin.   Users can always change 
> > admins, sign up with multiple admins, invest time and 
> > effort to be their own admin, etc.
> 
> I think framing it with the (already well-known terms) "Users" and
> "Admins" puts people in the mind of the traditional (often antagonistic)
> relationship between these groups, as well as all the associated
> privileged/unprivileged historical conflict.
> 
> I haven't thought through the proposal enough to say i agree or disagree
> with it, but i think it would be better served with a term other than
> "Admin" for the role with extra public-facing responsibility.
> 
> IIUC, the point is that one group takes on an additional responsibility
> -- interacting with other members of the group, committing to publish
> allocated names in a timely fashion, being responsive to the members of
> the other group, etc.
> 
> I'm curious about what happens to an "admin" who fails to keep up with
> their additional responsibilities -- is there a way that other admins
> can censure or reject them?  can their dependent users tell that the
> admin has been censured or rejected?
> 
> 	--dkg
>