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Dear All,<br>
<br>
I think this is a serious matter. Let me argue why. This group, and
perhaps much of IG civil society, has been rather focussed on
multistakeholderism as a new participatory form of democracy
(hopefully!). Now, it is easy to say that civil society, business
and technical comunity should be at the policy making table or at
least involved substantially. But the immediate question then is;
who among these groups should be allowed in? Representivity
therefore is the most key issue that participatory democracy and
multistakeholderism (MSism) must constantly deal with. Since it is
the contention of this movement that elections *do not exhaust"
public representation, and that they need to be complemented by
other forms, it must show how it adds to public representativity
and, rather, does not take away from it. <br>
<br>
This is the key legitimacy question for MSism and<b><i> I invite the
numerous theoreticians and practitioners of MSism in this group
to engage</i></b> with the episode that Michael has been
involved in as below in light of this key legitimacy question fro
MSism - how do we select representatives, when indeed the occasion
comes that not everyone can be seated at the table, not even
everyone who turns up. <br>
<br>
I think ISOC, or a specific office holder of ISOC, as the designated
focal point for technical community owes it to the public to
describe the complete process that was followed, including the
definitions of 'technical and academic community', specifically the
'academic' part, that were employed. <br>
<br>
Multistakeholderism can succeed only within a clear normative
framework (and my biggest problem with MSism as often practised is
its normlessness). We must lay down principles of inclusion and
exclusion, of selection of representatives for committees / WGs etc.
<br>
<br>
BTW, IT for Change, and also Indian government, in their submissions
to the working group has proposed some clear normative guidelines
for selection of MS representatives (for the MAG). Some of them are
in the final report, along with other good suggestions. I quote
below the relevant parts from the report of the CSTD Working Group
on Improvements to the IGF. <br>
<br>
(quote begins)<br>
<br>
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<p style="margin-left: 2cm; margin-right: 2cm" align="JUSTIFY"><font
style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">20<i>. The
proposed Selection Process for the MAG:</i></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 2.98cm; margin-right: 2cm"
align="JUSTIFY"><font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">(a)
The three non-governmental stakeholder groups should propose
lists of
candidates that should be balanced, including in terms of
gender
distribution and in reflecting the diversity of geographical
distribution. This will enable a wide range of diversity
within the
MAG, especially those groups which have been
underrepresented in the
MAG, and be sufficiently large to provide some flexibility
when
selecting MAG members.</font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 2.98cm; margin-right: 2cm"
align="JUSTIFY"><font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">(b)
Stakeholder groups should identify and publicize the process
that
works best for their own culture and methods of engagement
and which
will ensure their self-management.</font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 2.98cm; margin-right: 2cm; text-indent:
0.02cm" align="JUSTIFY">
<font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">(c) The contribution of
lists of
proposed candidates for each stakeholder group should not be
restricted to one particular body.</font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 2.98cm; margin-right: 2cm"
align="JUSTIFY"><font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">(d)The
final selection of candidates shall continue to be made by
the UN
Secretary-General.</font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 1cm; margin-right: 2cm; text-indent: 1cm"
align="JUSTIFY">
<font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">21. <i>During the
Selection
Process the following measures should be kept in mind:</i></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 2.98cm; margin-right: 2cm"
align="JUSTIFY"><font style="font-size: 11pt" size="2">(a)
The process of selection of MAG members should be inclusive,
predictable, transparent and fully documented.</font></p>
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(quote ends)<br>
<br>
Since the above is a CSTD WG rec, although specifically for MAG
selection, it is obvious that these principles should be followed
for other comparable forums and processes, and the present one is
certainly so. <br>
<br>
So, lets have the full documentation and publication of the
selection process. We will also like to know if the full
documentation of process was forwarded to the CSTD chair along with
recommended names. <br>
<br>
Since, in my view, this is a fundamental issue to and of MSism , I
propose that IGC takes a clear position on this. If needed we should
follow up with letters to where ever we need to send them. <br>
<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Thursday 14 March 2013 04:12 PM,
Jeremy Malcolm wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:5141A97F.8080309@ciroap.org" type="cite">
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 14/03/13 18:12, michael gurstein
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:11c601ce209c$67730020$36590060$@gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Having indicated how I could be deemed suitable under each of the above
categories I was then told that I did not meet the criteria of "having
contributed to the building of the Internet".
Some 20+ of my colleagues including computer scientists, International
officials, academics, researchers most from LDC's provided written
confirmation and support from the 1500 members of the Community Informatics
Research Networks, indicated how in their opinion I had in fact, through my
some 20 years of work making the Internet accessible and usable by the
widest range of possible users, "contributed to building the Internet" (if
we understand the Internet to include the "users" as well as the "wires").
At that point the criteria was further redefined as an "interpretation
(where) the technical and academic community includes individuals who have
technically built the Internet".</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
Oh, lordy lordy. This is too much. Doubtless there are many
academics on this list, holding degrees other than computer
science, who will be interested to learn that they are not
qualified to be a member of what they might reasonably have
supposed was their own stakeholder group. Thanks for bringing
this to light, Michael.<br>
<br>
Conceptually, of course, there is no justification for the
technical and academic communities to be their own stakeholder
group. WGIG considered that question, and explicitly decided they
should not be. The WSIS output documents are a bit ambiguous, but
I've put the case that they too describe only three separate
stakeholder groups.<br>
<br>
Nevertheless, the technical community have carved out a separate
stakeholder role for themselves just on the basis of their
historical (and ongoing) role in the management of critical
Internet resources and standards. Whilst that is an important
role, it is hard to see it providing a coherent conceptual basis
to constitute them as a separate stakeholder group.<br>
<br>
I've been called out for being too critical of the technical
community lately, but actually I <i>am</i> a member of the
technical community; former board member of ISOC-AU, Secretary of
Australia's first (non-profit) national ISP, an open source
software developer, have been a system administrator, and former
manager of two IT consultancies.<br>
<br>
So I'm by no means an enemy of the technical community, I'm just
calling the shots as I see them; and the treatment you have
received, Michael, seems to me another example of the wrong
approach being taken at a high level by the technical community's
self-appointed representatives.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<p style="font-size:9.0pt;color:black"><b>Dr Jeremy Malcolm<br>
Senior Policy Officer<br>
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for
consumers</b><br>
Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East<br>
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia<br>
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599</p>
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