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<P>Avri,</P>
<P>I`m not sure why this below wouldn`t be a reasonable place to start
in defining ``accountabiliy`` ... perhaps not as colourful or as
tendentious as yours but not unreasonable I think...</P>
<P><FONT size=2><A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountability"><FONT
size=3>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountability</FONT></A><BR><BR><BR></FONT><FONT
size=3>And </FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2><FONT size=3>In my earlier note which you don`t seem to want to
address I asked you to conduct a thought experiment for us where you would take
an issue of interest from an EC perspective -- say Net Neutrality -- and work
through how you would actually implement an IETF approach in
practice for a specific policy issue in a real world
environment. Having worked in and with various governments at various
levels (including a major stint at UNHQ working on one of the innumerable UN
Reform exercises) I`m very curious to see how you would suggest actually doing
as you are suggesting be done...<BR><BR><EM>If accountability means taking
responsibility for what has been done, I think that the IETF practice of taking
three steps before deeming something a standard is part of their accountability
story. First they code and prove that something works before making it a
proposed standard, then they test in the real world on the real Internet and fix
it and call it a draft standard, and only when it becomes fully functional and
mainstream in the world does it become a full standard. There are only 66
or so full standards. They stand by their work, publish fixes, take
responsibility for problems that occur in the network with their standards,
improve, republish and monitor. They take responsibly in a very public
way, certainly large part of accountability. If their stuff was not
worth using, now one would use it and we would have a world full of 7 layer OSI
protocol based equipment.</EM></FONT></FONT></P>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial>Tks,</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial>M</FONT></DIV>
<P><BR><BR><BR>-----Original Message-----<BR>From:
governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org [<A
href="mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org">mailto:governance-request@lists.igcaucus.org</A>]
On Behalf Of Avri Doria<BR>Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:25 PM<BR>To:
IGC<BR>Subject: Re: IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re:
reality check on economics)<BR><BR><BR>Hi,<BR><BR>The issue of accountability is
a complicated one and I do not expect to get too far on one
message. <BR><BR>First accountability has more definitions that I know how
to handle. In fact, in general more than anyone seems to handle real
well.<BR><BR>When you say accountability, are you looking for liability?
Are you looking for whom to blame? Whom to fire? Whom to imprison? Whom to
defeat in the next election? Whom not to trust anymore?<BR><BR>Are you looking
for people to take responsibility for their actions? For organizations to
take responsibility for their actions?<BR><BR>What does accountability mean to
you and how do you want to enforce it?<BR><BR>While accountability is always
important in governance, it is a word people use without really defining it. Or
having much to a way to enforce it. A few years ago the favorite stumper
questions was "does it scale", these days its "who is accountable" It is a
question that is stumping the world as far as I can tell.<BR><BR>Who is
accountable for all of the world's starvations, the death from was or the spread
of diseases that should have been curtailed by now. And how do we hold
them accountable? Anyone answer these critical questions for me in an
email?<BR><BR>In government, we think that accountability means voting out of
office and maybe ending up in jail for corruption if we are lucky. Yet
that happen rarely for the thing politicians do wrong and usually only happens
when they do something stupid or their opponents have lots and lots of money for
propaganda. And when it comes to the bureaucrats that run our governments
and the international governance organizations it is only in rare cases of
malfeasance, or perhaps lying on their resumes that they become accountable to
anyone other than the boss they have to please.<BR><BR>No, you should not be
happy about the slow rate of decline of the Indian maternal mortality. I
don't remember even saying you should be happy with the failure of a
system. I would be curious as to how you hold them accountable.
Please tell me what works for this? Tell how you would want it work.
how do you want to hold people accountable? Fire them? Imprison them? I
suppose you can protest and be activist and things may improve., a lot of people
cetainly do stand and shout and try to make people take responsibility.
And sometime it works.<BR><BR>In terms of Standard Development Organizations, if
their standards no longer contributed to a growing, stable Internet, people
would not use those standards. Unfortunately when the government tells you
what standards you must use, you have not choice of walking away and finding
another set of standards. How can you argue for government mandated standards,
when you know they don't work and that there is no way, other than being sad,
that you can react to them.<BR><BR>Sometime with IETF standards, I think that we
are seeing accountability in action these days with IPv6. They did not
follow their own practices and produced something that users don"t seem to have
a real use for and are having to pull teeth to get it to really happen this
time. This is accountability, or perhaps it is just karma.<BR><BR>If
accountability means taking responsibility for what has been done, I think that
the IETF practice of taking three steps before deeming something a standard is
part of their accountability story. First they code and prove that
something works before making it a proposed standard, then they test in the real
world on the real Internet and fix it and call it a draft standard, and only
when it becomes fully functional and mainstream in the world does it become a
full standard. There are only 66 or so full standards. They stand by
their work, publish fixes, take responsibility for problems that occur in the
network with their standards, improve, republish and monitor. They take
responsibly in a very public way, certainly large part of
accountability. If their stuff was not worth using, now one would use it
and we would have a world full of 7 layer OSI protocol based
equipment.<BR><BR>Tell me, other than oversight by government bureaucrats who
really are responsible to no one except perhaps their bureaucracy, what else do
you want from them in terms of accountability? Please be specific.<BR><BR>As for
the IGC nomcom person you consider incompetent a slacker or downright
irresponsible, don't ever appoint them as coordinator of the IGC or for any
other office anywhere. A lot of individual accountability, when it is not
criminal or civilly liable, is found in our reputations. People who do not
work hard and do not do their best for the organizations that appoint or elected
them, get bad reputations. In corrupt system, like many governments this
won't matter for in these systems all that matters is that one butter the right
person's bread. In stakeholder organizations like the IGC, or
multistakeholder organizations like the IETF, reputation is a lot of what
matters.<BR><BR>avri<BR><BR>On 24 May 2012, at 21:26, Guru गुरु
wrote:<BR><BR>><BR>> On Friday 25 May 2012 04:00 AM, Avri Doria
wrote:<BR>>><BR>>> On 24 May 2012, at 17:42, Ian Peter
wrote:<BR>>><BR>>>> When looking at IETF its probably also worth
looking at some of its<BR>>>> more eccentric processes and structures
and determining whether<BR>>>> these have ongoing value and/or
scaleability. These would include<BR>>>><BR>>>>
• Lack of any formal membership structure (anyone can
participate).<BR>>>> This also leads to accountability issues – wheras
governments are accountable to their citizens, and companies to their
shareholders, it’s not clear who IETF is accountable to seeing it has no formal
membership structure. Tnis lack of accountability also leads to no formal review
or performance evaluation processes – which in turn can lead to other
problems.<BR>>> People do not need to be members of something to
participate. The<BR>>> leadership is accountable to the
participants<BR>>><BR>>> I have been a participant since the late
80's, sometime just via<BR>>> email and sometimes with the ability to
attend the meetings. I have always felt that the requirement of
stewardship for the Internet was the most serious thing the IETF did. And
they are most definitely accountable to the world for the fact that the Internet
continues to grow and thrive, despite all the barriers that need to be routed
around.<BR>> This is a very inadequate, and may i say, a poor measure
of<BR>> accountability.<BR>><BR>> The maternal mortality rate in India
has been declining over last six<BR>> decades, does this mean I can feel
happy about the performance of the Indian public health system?? (India has one
of the highest mmr in the world even today and several deaths are
avoidable/inexcusable).<BR>><BR>> Accountability is a critical necessity
for any system which impacts<BR>> the public ... and as the Interent has
deeper, wider impact on our<BR>> lives in numerous ways, we need governance
structures that are<BR>> transparent, accountable and support wide
participation (not just who<BR>> can afford to be there) ... and if we agree
democracy is the best way<BR>> to go about this, ask ourselves how we can
make the current IG more<BR>> democratic.<BR>><BR>>> As for the IGC,
which is indeed modeled on the IETF process, we<BR>>> require that people
be members. I am not going to accuse any of our<BR>>> members,
especially those who pay enough attention to volunteer when<BR>>> asked,
of not participating in a meaningful way.<BR>>><BR>>
Avri,<BR>><BR>> The issue is not of 'accusing members'.... the issue is -
if members<BR>> who voluntarily pick up a responsibility do not then actually
put in<BR>> the required effort (and having been in Nomcoms, I agree with Ian
that<BR>> there are serious participation issues), then who pays the
price???<BR>> does IGC not get the best selection of nominees after
required<BR>> deliberations because of this. And what is the accountability
process<BR>> - of the person to nomcom, of nomcom to igc, and of igc to
IG....?<BR>> Processes with such poor accountability make me very
uncomfortable...<BR>><BR>> The larger question to ponder therefore is -
Who pays the price for<BR>> the current IG regimes and lack of its
accountability to the "global<BR>> society"? Conversely, who does it benefit
disproportionately?<BR>><BR>> Andrea also more than once raised this issue
of accountability for<BR>> decisions taken... I look forward to your response
to him and to Mike Gurstein's specific questions as well...<BR>><BR>>
thanks and regards,<BR>> Guru
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