[bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants for nominations to Brazil meeting committees

[michael gurstein]

Adam: I don't know what impact you hope to achieve, but suspect if adopted
some of our best would excluded.

 

Ah, but isn't that precisely what the current criteria are meant to
achieve...

 

Adam: Civil society experts often join government delegations, whether ITU
or regional organizations on ICT, development, human rights, trade, etc.

 

And at least this one would help ensure that the quite tangible risk of
covert action in support of the position of one government or another would
be in part ameliorated or at least the perception of that possibility.  

 

Surely that would strengthen the position of CS overall although perhaps
causing some mild perturbations in the current narrow ranks of those with an
active CS IG involvement.  I would have thought that we i.e. CS should be
pursuing the broadest possible involvement of CS in IG activities given the
overall significance of IG for the future of the Internet etc. and ensuring
that we came into the IG space with overtly "clean hands" would I would
think be a plus for many potential allies.

 

M

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Peake [mailto:ajp at glocom.ac.jp] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 25, 2013 8:32 PM
To: michael gurstein
Cc: bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
Subject: Re: [bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants for nominations to
Brazil meeting committees

 

Hi Michael,

 

On Dec 25, 2013, at 12:05 PM, michael gurstein wrote:

 

> I must admit that I find the criteria being bandied about here re:
selection for CS representation to be quite bizarre. (sorry I'm not exactly
sure where this particular list came from but it has been bandied about by
the various CS honchos in one form or another over the last few days.

>  

 

Snip

 

> Since we are tossing around criteria how about a few more that might
actually have a substantive impact on the effectiveness of CS in
representing CS interests.

>  

> 1.     No participation in CS representation by individuals who have been
part of government delegations for the last five years

 

 

Excluding can be problematic unless very targeted.  Civil society experts
often join government delegations, whether ITU or regional organizations on
ICT, development, human rights, trade, etc.  I don't know what impact you
hope to achieve, but suspect if adopted some of our best would excluded.

 

Adam

 

 

 

> 2.     No participation in CS except by those who actually have some
experience in the areas in which they are pontificating/err pronouncing..
I.e. if they are talking about "development" we should expect that "our"
representatives have actually gotten their boots dirty in actual development
and not just high level maundering around the issues.

> 3.     No participation from those who only represent themselves (NGO's or
whatever of 1) and have no evident links to larger CS (or other) networks
beyond the immediate cadre of their IG CS friends and allies.

>  

> The criteria that you folks have been prattling on about, point to the
fundamental flaw in IG CS which is that the way you are approaching it, the
only thing apart from lunch which can be agreed upon and thus meet your
criteria are process issues.  No substance, no content, no real policy. just
process.

>  

> So CS becomes completely pre-occupied with discussing (its own)
positioning and processes in the larger IG area.  The real issues of
policy/governance are never addressed because they don't (can't possibly)
"represent civil society as a whole".  Rather real policy/governance issues
have owners and interests and represent the potential (and in many cases the
reality) of real conflict-that's what "interests" are about. Policy is about
specific groups within (civil) society with specific interests, needs and
concerns and articulating and representing these in the context of our
engagement-just like the corporate folks of course, who also have specific
interest, needs and concerns and are, dare I say, rather less bashful about
promoting them.

>  

> FWIW, the Community Informatics Declaration was circulated to an e-list of
top (US) telecom and ICT policy wonks (not by me) and in three days it has
generated 50+ substantive contributions responding in one way or another to
the CI text.  Many critical, many supportive but all substantive and very
high level and as a whole making a (potentially) very serious contribution
to Internet Governance/Policy and justifying if anything could, the true
value and significance (and ultimately contribution) that CS can make to
these discussions. The discussion here, among our "CS" colleagues on this
document. zip.

>  

> M

>  

>  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20131226/94496806/attachment.htm>