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ICANN board tries to redefine mediocrity — literally
Kevin Murphy,
June 9, 2020, 18:56:52 (UTC),
Domain Policy
After 21 years of covering this stuff, the volume and extent of ICANN’s navel-gazing no longer amazes me, but every now and then I stumble upon something that forces a little angry smile from my lips.
It appears the ICANN board of directors is seeking to redefine mediocrity itself, in a very literal way, and it may well cost your money to do so.
I’ll explain.
Every two years, the board conducts a self-evaluation via a survey put together by ICANN staff. That survey recently came up for review by the board’s seven-person Board Governance Committee.
According to the meeting’s minutes, the BGC decided it was unhappy with the word “neutral” to describe a score of #3 on what I’m guessing is a five-point scale used for rating directors’ performances.
The word “seems somewhat vague”, the BGC noted, asking staff to “consult with external resources and suggest replacement for the term ‘neutral’ on the rating scale”.
I really hope “consult with external resources” means “google it” rather than “piss away registrants’ money on pricey consultants”, but I’m not confident.
The word I’d use is “mediocre”. If you have a better suggestion there’s a comments section below.
“Useless” usually works. Also pointless, hopeless, hapless. Just less, generally.
When it comes to rating the ICANN board from 1 to 5, I’d say:
1 — Evil
2 — Useless
3 — Merely annoying
4 — Ineffective
5 — Mostly harmless
Brill. I may steal this 🙂
In education I believe that’s a “C”, indicating “average.” Perhaps ICANN should use A-B-C-D-F for its five-point scale.