Journalism

Wordpress and Thesis: your upgrades are driving me mad

July 12, 2010

I love Wordpress – the software that this blog runs on. And I love Thesis – a clever piece of software that works with Wordpress to provide all sorts of clever customisations.
But the combination of them is driving me nuts at the moment. In particular, the fact that they keep bloody updating both too frequently, [...]

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ICANN’s two missing accountability clauses

June 25, 2010

Earlier this year, the organization that oversees the domain name system, ICANN, saw the first use of its Independent Review Process – its highest level of review for decisions that affect billions.
The IRP decided conclusively against ICANN. The issue was whether the organization had been right to deny the application for dot-xxx as a new [...]

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ICANN Day 3: Good news all around

June 24, 2010

I’ll be honest: I didn’t go to many Wednesday sessions at ICANN Brussels. At least not physically. The remote participation tools mean that, unless you want to actually raise a point at the microphone, you can settle yourself down somewhere more comfortable and follow events on your laptop (and even your iPhone with the Adobe [...]

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Why ICANN doesn’t need to go back to the GAC over dot-xxx

June 23, 2010

This Friday, it looks as though the ICANN Board will follow the clear conclusions drawn by its independent review and approve dot-xxx.
Given the importance of the first use of the review process, the importance of the Board being seen to be accountable and the fact that the community was pretty unanimous in recent public [...]

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ICANN Day 2: The bells! The bells!

June 22, 2010

Nothing aids careful discussion and debate more than loud repetitive ringing. So thank you the Square Meeting Centre in Brussels for introducing not one but two ringing systems that go off every 30 minutes: a fire alarm and the bells from the nearby cathedral.
Despite this auditory assistance, the second (third) day of the ICANN meeting [...]

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ICANN Day 1: Was it – dare we say it – actually fun?

June 21, 2010

After a slumbering, almost tedious, first day, the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) came alive today for its official opening.
Gone were the musical extravaganzas of the previous two meetings (a shame?), but CEO Rod Beckstrom made sure there were fireworks by giving a defiant speech to his organization’s critics. [...]

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Beckstrom: You are not a pipe

June 21, 2010

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom gave a defiant opening speech at the opening of the organization’s meeting in Brussels.
Answering accusations that the organization is ignoring its own accountability processes, that the staff and Board have insufficient checks on their work, and that he himself had overstepped the mark in comments he made to governments at [...]

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ICANN Day 0: A lot of yakking, a little movement

June 20, 2010

Strolling through Parc de Bruxelles at 8.30am, with barely a soul in sight, and only the occasional car on the road, I couldn’t help but wonder whether to go back to the hotel and have a lie-in. It’s a Sunday after all. Even the outside of the giant see-through jigsaw that is the Mont des [...]

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The ICANN Board by the ICANN Board

June 2, 2010

Self-evaluation paints picture of Board at odds with itself
A self-appraisal of the ICANN Board has just been posted on the organization’s website.
In it, Board members rate 89 different measures of their own performance according to a seven-measure rating from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Unfortunately, despite plenty of figures in the documents, there is [...]

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Press attack on LibDem leader: the last gasp of 20th century media

April 22, 2010

It is with some inevitability that the British press this morning launched into a huge anti-Nick Clegg attack – but all the same it is sobering to see it in reality.

As leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg has set the UK election on fire following the first ever televised debate of political leaders, where [...]

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