Hi,

My personal experience is that the quickest way to get one’s bearings around ICANN (or at least the GNSO) processes and acronyms is volunteering for a GNSO Policy Decision-making Process Working Group (PDP WG). That would mean spending one hour a week on conference calls in addition to a couple more hours a week of reading emails and documents.

Even those may seem quite intimidating, but there will always be someone who understands more about what’s going on and willing to help. Joining a PDP WG also gives a newcomer insight on the approach of other stakeholder groups to policy development. Definitely worth it if you’re truly interested.

Thanks.

Amr

On Sep 17, 2014, at 3:48 PM, Clarinettet <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thank you Avri for this valuable explanation.
> 
> Being a few years old new comer, I can say I feel completely lost with acronyms and the ICANN organisation. I guess others like me could want to get more involved but are lost not really getting what's going on.
> 
> I admit I could have dogged and found by myself but as we are all volunteer here, it needs more incitement.
> 
> Tara Taubman
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On 17 Sep 2014, at 14:31, Avri Doria <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 17-Sep-14 08:41, Kathy Kleiman wrote:
>>> +1 to avoiding acronyms! Even I am having trouble following some
>>> postings - and I have been here forever...
>> 
>> 
>> I think avoiding them is impossible and asking people to do so is
>> unreasonable.  And I think that newcomers need to learn them, that is
>> the first step in becoming active.
>> 
>> I argue instead, that people, especially experienced people, should give
>> a translation on first use in an email, text or speech.  Though even
>> there, how far does one need to go? Does one need to translate all of
>> these on first use in NCSG discussions: e.g. (for example) ICANN
>> (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), GNSO (Generic
>> Names Supporting Organization), NCSG (Non Commercial Stakeholder Group),
>> SCI (Standing Committee on Improvements), IRTP-D (Inter Registrar
>> Transfer Policy - the 4th WG in the sequence of IRTP WGs (Working
>> Groups)).
>> 
>> In fact on some of these I would argue that knowing that - GNSO is the
>> name for the group the NCSG belongs to ... - is more important than
>> knowing what the letters stand for.  Also if we require newcomers to use
>> the proper names instead of the acronyms they can learn easily, I expect
>> we would actually slow down their involvement.  It is hard to remember
>> what every acronym stands for, even when you know perfectly well what it
>> is. Isn't just knowing the name of the group IRTP-D, even if you don't
>> know the exactly meaning of every letter (i had to confirm whether it
>> was policy or process) easier to remember?
>> 
>> However, until such time as we all become perfect and find the right
>> balance point, do remember to use the acronym helpers.  My favorite is:
>> 
>> http://www.andalucia.com/acronym/home.htm
>> 
>> Perhaps we can include it in the list's message footer. There is also an
>> official ICANN one, but i forget its url and as is often the case, could
>> not find it quickly on the improved web site - I would put it in the
>> message footer as well.
>> 
>> 
>>> On 17-Sep-14 08:21, Nuno Garcia wrote:
>>> 
>>> I will start tomorrow to bring new interested members to the
>>> Non-Commercial Users Constituency.
>> 
>> 
>> Why NCUC (Non-Commercial Users Constituency) instead of the NCSG
>> (Non-Commercial Stakeholder group)?  Not only is that the group they are
>> required to join first, they do not need to join a constituency, so
>> perhaps new members should be allowed to watch the constituencies in
>> action and decide on their own if and when they want to join a constituency.
>> 
>> I would also argue that while getting new members is good, more
>> important is getting more of the hundreds of members we now have,
>> involved.  We are already the biggest and most diverse group in ICANN.
>> What we are not, is sufficiently involved.
>> 
>> avri
>> 
>> 
>> Ps. another helpful aid, which i often forget, when you spin a thread
>> onto a tangent, change the subject.