I attended ICANN/LA last week.(posted 8877 days ago)The most striking thing about it was the self-organization displayed by the registrars in voicing their demads for changes in the NSI/DOC/ICANN agreement. Entities who were not a direct party to the agreement, but nevertheless subject to it, successfully pressed for changes. ICANN's structure was open enough to facilitate this, its Board and staff responsive enough to push for the change, and NSI was smart enough to avoid further blockage of the stated will of the community. It was the first time I heard so many diverse voices in the Internet community saying, essentially, "You're our ICANN. Do this for us."
The greatest shortcoming involves outreach (shortage of GA membership, press coverage, webcast interest, etc.), but undertandable, since the DNS controversy is tedious and turgid, and only going to get worse.