[bestbits] Logistical note for Best Bits meeting participants

[joy]

Hi all - since Parminder and I are facilitating this opening session and
the definitions discussion, I think it would be useful to collate some
of these ideas, with your permission :-)
If others have ideas or suggestions they would like to share beforehand,
please do so,  I have started a pirate pad for this purpose:
http://piratepad.net/rLCbNUxTtZ

Kind regards

Joy Liddicoat




On 17/10/2013 8:01 a.m., John Curran wrote:
> On Oct 16, 2013, at 10:25 AM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com
> <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> Very good start John but could I add a comment…
>
> Oops... I had no intention to propose a "strawman" - that was just my
> offhand 
> thoughts and I highly recommend that better minds consider this topic.  
>
> I actually do believe that civil society and the Internet technical
> community
> have some significant common ground in terms of belief in
> multi-stakeholder 
> principles, and there would be benefit in establishing a common
> definition (if 
> that is achievable.)
>
>>  I think in most of these discussions both in attempts to define
>> MSism and even in those contexts where the term is being used to
>> describe a process there is an implicit assumption of trustworthiness
>> of the various parties.  That is, there seems to be a belief
>> in/acceptance of the good faith of the various parties -- no hidden
>> motives, no hidden agendas, no hidden loyalties or financial (or
>> other) relationships. Thus there seems to be an expectation that
>> people/"stakeholders" are who and what they say they are and that
>> their involvement is transparent and their only specific
>> accountability is what they are presenting through their contribution
>> to the MS process itself.
>
> <chuckle>
>
> I'd have to presume that every party sitting in a discussion has an
> agenda; it may or may be 
> "hidden" depending the circumstances and awareness of each other, but
> presumably there is 
> still enough common ground among the declared common goals to make
> progress, yes?   
> For example, if you invite me as ARIN's executive to attend a meeting,
> I've pretty much got to 
> carry the objectives given to me by the members and the Board; these
> may be 'hidden' to anyone
> who hasn't read our online Internet Governance materials, the
> Montevideo Statement on Future of
> Internet Cooperation, etc.  That doesn't mean bad intent, simply lack
> of understanding of common
> goals that might already exist.
>
> The point is that if parties get together to work on a collective goal
> or common purpose, that 
> should suffice to allow to rational discussion to take place,
> particularly if the time is taken to
> find common assumptions/principles early in the discussion, which
> reduces the possibility of
> working to different ends because of different underlying beliefs.
>
>>  Without going into it I think if we are going to attempt to
>> define/articulate a realistic and robust "MS process" or definition
>> of MSism we have to take into account the possibility, even the
>> likelihood, that the above set of beliefs does not hold true;
>> thatvarious of the stakeholders for example might not, in John's
>> terms below, be "work(ing) to collective goal or common purpose" but
>> may rather be working to (non-revealed) purposes of individual,
>> group, corporate, ideological or national self-interest. In fact it
>> may be that the assumption by some of the existance of a "common
>> purpose" could be self-destructively "naïve" and that in some
>> circumstance at least no common goal or purpose does or even could
>>  exist among those who are defininng themselves (and being accepted)
>> as "stakeholders".
>
> I have very few ideas on how to address this latter problem (which is
> not a situation of unknown
> motivations but actual intentional misrepresentation and/or subterfuge
> by a participant); my only 
> advice is maximal transparency of process and actively soliciting
> views and positions so that 
> such discrepancies hopefully reveal themselves over time.
>
> For example, as the CEO of ARIN, I can state that fees and services
> offered by ARIN are set by
> proceses based in our membership and elected Board, which is not the
> greater Internet community 
> but a more defined subset.  Compare this with the development of IP
> address policy, which we believe 
> should be open to all and whose processes should subject to widespread
> accountability/oversight
> to Internet community at large.  While it might be favorable in a
> discussion with civil society for me 
> to try and conflate these two topics to the beneficial inference that
> ARIN is wonderful and completely 
> guided  by the Internet community at large, it would eventually be
> shown to be disingenuous given 
> existing documentation and other public statements showing that we
> strongly feel that our members 
> (who pay our fees) have first and primary say in the services that we
> offer and fees that we charge.
> My apologies for the long example, but it is intended to show that
> getting participants to speak up 
> and "go on record" with their beliefs and assumptions might
> (over time) provide some protection 
> against actual bad actors in the process.  That's all I have as a
> suggestion on this; I'm afraid that
> defining an MS process that can thrive in the presence of numerous
> intentionally bad actors may 
> not be readily achievable.
>
> /John
>
> Disclaimer:  My thoughts alone.  No warranty applies; use at your own
> risk. 
>
>
>
>
>

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