[PC-NCSG] Comment on Draft Operating Plan

[Rafik Dammak]

Hi Ed,

I have no hard feeling on the topic and I never talked about the cost for
ICANN anyway . but working in MENA context to get more  people from CS
involved on IG, I learned some stuff hindering participation and language
is not necessarily the barrier .

anyway I don't want that the whole thread become focused around this issue,
I would instead encourage others to skim the operating plan
https://www.icann.org/public-comments/proposed-opplan-budget-2016-2020-2014-11-11-en
and share comments.

Rafik

ps about the ballot issue , it was probably an encoding setting problem
(the voting system actually support multilingualism
https://tally.icann.org/cgi/results?a=pr&e=ab78241734b ). I would think
working the universal acceptance for IDN gTLD would be more beneficial
instead for users of non-latin script.

2015-01-06 13:59 GMT+09:00 Edward Morris <emorris at milk.toast.net>:

>  Hi Rafik,
>
>
> - thanks for this. I sent previously a note to ICANN staff responsible for
> this public comment  regarding submitting late within next days. I would
> welcome adding some comments to the statement and updating it as a SG
> submission.
>
> - at Amr I think that will be your first call as PC chair :)
>
>
> Happy to help anyway I can.
>
>
> - As a small comment: as I am a non-english native and expressing a
> controversial position here , I am cautious about multilingualism in
> inflating number. I am worried that can end up as a trap of not real
> engagement and instead encouraging a form of ghettoization, creating a
> dependance or worse being just a PR for ICANN. as arabic speaker, I see a
> lot of material translated in arabic language but I have no evidence that
> such measure improved the number of participants beyond the usual suspects.
> another form of trap would be conflating internationalization with
> multilingualism.
>
>
> Interesting. I've had a very different experience, one rooted both in law
> and in the accession of the Nordic countries into the European Union.
>
> During the elections in the mid 90's there was no guarantee Swedish and
> Finnish were going to be used as official languages in the EU. It was felt
> that, heck, all the Finns and Swedes speak English, why bother? Well, in
> order to win the election the pro-EU folks got a commitment from the EU
> that the two Nordic languages would be made official languages. Once in the
> EU our libraries were flooded with EU materials in English, Finnish and
> Swedish (the later two being the official languages of Finland). The
> English materials would usually arrive first but I noticed my friends,
> mostly educated English speaking Finns, would wait for the materials that
> arrived later in Finnish. It was just more comfortable for them.
>
> I have a confession to make myself. Although a native English speaker I
> prefer to write in Swedish. You may notice someday that when I'm taking
> notes at an ICANN meeting it will be in Swedish. I'd certainly like some
> Swedish language materials. I can operate in both languages but the Mayor
> of Rovaniemi, a friend, does not speak English. Only Finnish. Should he not
> be able to access basic ICANN documents in his native language?
>
> Most of the world does not speak English. All of ICANN must. The most
> popular language in the world is Mandarin yet ICANN couldn't even get
> Peter's name spelled correctly in Chinese characters on the ballot in the
> recent NCUC EC election. That bothers me.
>
> I know there are cost issues involved. Yet if the EU can operate in 24
> languages is it unreasonable to ask ICANN to produce most documents in 10
> and basic documents in as many languages as possible?  Think of children
> doing research on the internet. Shouldn't ICANN strive to have a page or
> two or three online in their own language explaining what exactly this
> ICANN thing is about? Are we sure there are not people who don't get
> involved precisely because of the language issue?
>
> I'd be interested in knowing the perspectives of others.
>
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