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Great site (and I agree with the cause), but it's pretty light on the actual info and analysis side of things. You need a good, clear hook to get people investe
by magicalist 14y ago
Great site (and I agree with the cause), but it's pretty light on the actual info and analysis side of things. You need a good, clear hook to get people invested enough to stick around the site, granted, but there should be a page on the site with a lot more information for people that want it. Otherwise it's (partly) reducing an attempt to educate the public to asking people to sign a petition that says "evil shadowy government conspiracies to censor the web are bad".
That's super, but it's pretty obvious (I hope...) to most people that there has to be more subtlety to the situation than that, which risks alienating potential supporters, or at least gets some people saying, "well I want to find out more before I sign" and then they never come back.
On the "what's at stake" page, at the very bottom, there is a link to this related site:
https://www.whatistheitu.org/ https://www.whatistheitu.org/
which seems good to my eyes and has a little more information, but, more importantly, offers a list of links to major publications that have covered the issue. With those, you can pick one you might trust and learn more, if you want to. I'm not sure how closely related that site is to Google, but one obvious thing that could be added to this site is a "What is the ITU" tab in the site navigation, which could consist of that exact page.
(I'm not saying the link should be replaced. It's notable on HN that google is doing this, I just wish google's site had more information, or at least more prominent sources for more information, for those who are curious)
- magicalist 14y agoFor other commenters that really haven't heard about what's going on with the ITU, Timothy Lee at Ars Technica covered it (Google's side, at least) pretty well a few days ago: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/google-rallies-opposition-to-un-takeover-of-internet-governance/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/google-rallies-op... ICANN is in no way ideal, but shady ACTA-style agreements that would increase the ITU's power is not an acceptable solution.
- irahul 14y agoI think Google is going for something which a vast majority can relate to. Making it detail oriented might give the perception that whatever this is, it only affects the techies. That said, it should have still have details for those who fall in the category "I would like to know, but if it's not mentioned here, I am not going to do my own research". When it says YouTube can be tolled, a detail page explaining that currently YouTube doesn't have to pay anything to the providers as consumer pays for it, and this is how it always has been, and how tolling will affect the overall web can help put things in perspective. I doubt many people know how the internet works, and how putting barriers will affect them. Light details on how the internet works, with some scenarios on how it will affect a normal consumer will be the right mix.