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.