ICANN Party Hosts Feature Old Stereotypes

Plans to host a party at the ICANN meeting in San Francisco with an Irish themed night has been treated with derision by popular domain name identity and regular ICANN meeting attendee Michele Neylon, owner of Blacknight Solutions.The original poster featured a stereotypical singing leprechaun as part of a possible Irish-themed music night, with Neylon questioning if it is OK to use this sort of imagery, and at an event hosted by PIR, the registry for .ORG, and .INFO, whose registry is operated by Afilias.That two international companies should resort to such stereotypes was not appreciated, and has resulted in a redrawn poster with the offending singing Irish leprechaun missing.Commenting on his blog, Neylon wrote:
“So it’s ‘ok’ to use that kind of imagery?”And for an event at an ICANN meeting sponsored by PIR and .info?”Seriously?”Talk about idiocy.”To say that I am not impressed is to put it mildly”Just shows how much of a clue ICANN has about culture and dealing with an international audience.”The before and after posters, and a report by Kieren McCarthy, are available at news.dot-nxt.com/2011/03/09/irish-music-nightwhile Neylon’s original posting is available at www.michele.me/blog/archives/2011/03/icann-really-needs-a-clue/.