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Dear Ginger,<br>
<br>
thank you for your message regarding remote participation at the IGF
Vilnius 2010. It was indeed a great success, and thanks to all of
the hard work by all concerned.<br>
<br>
In his recent reply to your message, Izumi Aizu made a particularly
interesting suggestion:<br>
<br>
<pre>>How about, making things "upside-down"?
>I mean at physical meeting of the IGF, how about making the
>main speakers and participants all remote? So far, the remote
>participation and participants are regarded as supplementary,
>but not given a front-seat status. But think of online chat or
>conference call where no one is physically present and taking
>floors as main participants. Everyone is remote. At IGF, we can
>have the physical participants there, but making most speakers
>and interactions online, webcast, chat etc.
</pre>
Having been the remote moderator of many sessions this year, I'm
afraid that this is a little premature yet. I have encountered more
than a fair share of technical problems, which I am planning on
writing a report on, as a part of my ISOC Ambassador project. <br>
<br>
In short, I believe that the technology is not mature enough yet.
The difficulty does not stem from a single system; it is the
inter-connection of the variety of technologies used, which hinders
a smooth flow of information. <br>
Conducting work in a timely manner using 100% teleconferencing and a
virtual room has been demonstrated on many an occasion at ICANN. I
recently found out in two large working teams, the "Special
Trademark Issues team", and the "Community Working Group on New gTLD
Rec-6", that, provided with an excellent and experienced leadership
(Dave Maher for the first group, and Chuck Gomez for the second), it
is possible to work on some of the most controversial subject and
reach consensus, even without a face to face meeting.<br>
<br>
However, the moment you introduce a segment of the conference
participants to attend physically, serious technical problems hinder
progress. <br>
<br>
The first problem is that of the reliability of the Internet
connection. In my interactions, I noticed remote participants and
hubs timing out due to network problems somewhere along the line.
Text chatting is usually most resilient to this, because it does not
require much bandwidth, but in order to fully engage remote
participants in discussions, you need to give them the ability to
speak, rather than only type.<br>
<br>
And this is where the main problem lies: the interfacing of many
different systems (a public address system in the physical location,
a Webex session, a telephone bridge etc.), you end up with problems
like feedback loops, distorsion, unaudible speech and seriously
distorted speech which breaks the concentration of participants and
hinders their ability to devote 100% of their mind to elaborate a
constructive argument.<br>
Public address systems are designed to automatically suppress
instantaneous feedback, either by digital or analogue analysis of
the speech. Webex performs the same thing too. Ditto for telephone
bridges. But when you interface all three, unquantified delays
outside the tolerance of these suppression systems start appearing,
and you end up with loops - sometimes several seconds long. The
equipment used to broadcast the sessions automatically introduces
delays. In some sessions, for example, we ended up with infinite
echoes, sometimes 6 seconds long - and a dialogue with a remote
participant became confusing - bordering on the impossible. We tried
so many different ways to remove this, and it appeared to be
impossible with the current set-up.<br>
<br>
A lot of work and testing will therefore need to be done, if we
ultimately wish to make things "upside down". The fact that we're
already engaged in testing this, is very good news indeed, but I
don't think that we're there yet.<br>
<br>
Finally, let me also mention that the IETF's "VMEET" group is also
looking at this problematic. Like many other organisations relying
on a multi-stakeholder input, the subject of remote public
participation has been a concern for some time. Thomas Narten has
drafted an interesting Internet Draft document (sadly now expired,
so I encourage Thomas to follow-up on this), which can still be
found on: <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-narten-ietf-remote-participation">http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-narten-ietf-remote-participation</a><br>
<br>
In some way, the IGF's remote participation this year appears to
have surpassed this stage already, and has been the first wide
scale, global experiment of such kind. I really hope that this will
encourage everyone to continue testing new technologies. I hope it
will encourage remote conferencing software manufacturers, and not
only Webex, to capitalise on this experience and improve their
products. You and your team have reached "proof of concept". Let's
hope, for the sake of the millions of people out there who would
like to participate, and not only for the lucky few of us who are
funded to attend physically, that in some years to come, technology
will allow us to participate fully from the four corners of our
planet.<br>
<br>
Last but not least, I hope that there will be cross-linking of
knowledge and experience in this area, whether ISOC, IETF, IGF or
ICANN... or any other group for that matter. We, the privileged few,
have a duty to work overtime to promote this digital inclusion.
Without it, we're just a déjà-vu pot-pourri of "The usual suspects".<br>
<br>
Kindest regards,<br>
<br>
Olivier<br>
<br>
Le 25/09/2010 12:56, Ginger Paque a écrit :
<blockquote cite="mid:4C9DE370.9040108@gmail.com" type="cite">
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<font face="Verdana">Remote participation at the IGF Vilnius 2010
raised the bar for remote participation in international public
policy meetings. Not in sheer volume, although 600+ individuals
is a good number, but in actual inclusion and participation,
with 33 registered remote hubs and dozens of remote panelists,
this IGF was indeed a global success.</font> While there was
successful remote observation with excellent webcast, audiocast
and captioning, there was also the possibility of real remote <i>participation</i>
for those who wanted to comment, ask questions and respond, with
the same privileges and priorities as those who attended in
person. <br>
<br>
The next step will be to ensure that remote participants take
advantage of this possibility, and that remote moderators learn to
transmit the interest and personal power of the comments so that
their impact is tangibly felt in the meeting room.<br>
<br>
An interesting (unforeseen) development was chat exchanges between
remote hubs on the WebEx platform, as remote hubs gave feedback to
presentations or comments by other remote hubs. <br>
<br>
Pre-IGF preparations were better than ever, with strategy,
planning, training and information from the first 2010 OC in
Geneva.<br>
<br>
I would like to thank the volunteer remote moderators from the
panels, DiploFoundation fellows and the ISOC ambassadors program
for their engagement and precious time and energy; the Lithuania
host for their support and their tech teams; the IGF Secretariat
for their support and follow-up, DiploFoundation for constant
backup, and my fellow RPWG members for their year-round worry,
work and dynamic involvement.<br>
<br>
Thanks to all of the hub organizers for their work to include
people from all over the world in this meeting too.<br>
<br>
The RPWG will publish a report later this year. We look forward to
your comments and suggestions. <br>
<br>
Warm regards,<br>
Ginger
<div class="moz-signature">-- </div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.gih.com/ocl.html">http://www.gih.com/ocl.html</a>
</pre>
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