[governance] RE: [bestbits] Call for Transparency Process for 1Net

Fri Feb 14 01:26:10 EST 2014

Dear all,

Following up on my earlier email, I also wanted to share with you Adiel's
response to my additional queries regarding who wrote the summary. Please
find our exchange below this message.

Best,
Anja

On 13 February 2014 15:01, Adiel Akplogan <adiel at afrinic.net> wrote:

On 2014-02-13, at 24:27 AM, Anja Kovacs <anja at internetdemocracy.in> wrote:

> The second summary was a collaboration of a number of us, most of whom
had helped with previous /1net efforts.
>
> [AK]: As this was one of the questions specifically asked, could you
please clarify who the "number of us" were? In particular, was this a
subgroup from the SC or were there others also involved?

Hello Anja, there was staff from our various organisations including
myself, they don't want to be listed so label all on just me if the "Who"
here matter that much. I'm taking the full responsibility of it.

Thanks and hope that will help.

- a.

On 13 February 2014 02:15, Anja Kovacs <anja at internetdemocracy.in> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> As I had promised, I asked Adiel to shed further light on the financing of
> the website/forum and the summary. Please find my email, and Adiel's
> detailed reply below. I have asked him to further clarify who the "some of
> us" are who wrote the second summary he refers to, but in the interest of
> time thought I'll share the below response with you already. I hope this
> answers many of the questions that were raised.
>
> Best wishes,
> Anja
>
> On 12 February 2014 02:21, Adiel Akplogan <adiel at afrinic.net> wrote:
>
>> Hello Anja,
>>
>> On 2014-02-11, at 01:59 AM, Anja Kovacs <anja at internetdemocracy.in>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Thanks for all the ongoing work on the website and the transformation
>> of the summaries on the forum. These are important and positive steps in
>> responding to some of the questions and criticisms that have been raised.
>> >
>> > Within civil society, some people have been wondering, though, how the
>> work for both is being funded, and also who exactly is doing it. I think
>> these are fair enough questions, and that it would be important to provide
>> an answer to them as part of our efforts to improve transparency.
>> >
>> > Adiel, could you therefore clarify who exactly prepared the summary (I
>> had presumed it was you but my apologies if I was wrong!), and how this was
>> supported financially, if at all? Similarly for the website, who designed
>> and developed it, and where did the idea for a forum come from? And how
>> was/is the website funded?
>> >
>> > I think it is valuable for the members of the SC as well to have a bit
>> more of a sense of these issues. My apologies if you already clarified this
>> in the first part of the call last week, but if not, it would be great if
>> you could do so here.
>>
>>
>> Thanks for your email which has some fair and reasonable questions.
>>
>> To start, I would like to reinsure you and all form the Civil Society
>> that this is and has always been a collective effort to move /1net from
>> just a mailing list into something more coherent and structured.
>>
>> The goal of course is to have the participants organise themselves and
>> make /1net what it should be by identifying issues and work together to
>> collectively find solutions and/or ideas. But as with anything in life, and
>> particularly in self organised environment there is always work to be done
>> behind the scenes to ensure that the momentum is kept, and it is perfectly
>> reasonable for people to request who is doing that. But at the same time
>> people should remember where the whole initiative started from (and it
>> seems to me like people suddenly decide to forget it).
>>
>> The short answer is that there have been two main contributions: that of
>> time and of finances. Time has of course come from a wide range of
>> participants but in terms of organisational effort much of it has come from
>> individuals within some of the I* organisations that signed the Montevideo
>> Declaration (particularly AFRINIC, ARIN, APNIC, RIPE-NCC and ICANN).
>>
>> The unseen work of /1net to date such as organising meetings, setting up
>> mailing lists, registering domains, setting up the website have been done
>> by a range of different staff in those organisations. For example, AFRINIC
>> as NRO secretariat ran the first mailing list, and we use AFRINIC's web
>> conferencing facilities to have calls and coordinate that, RIPE-NCC staff
>> work with the hosting company on the transfer of the mailing list from
>> nor.net to 1net.org, AFRINIC staff has developed the mailing list
>> statistic tools and currently helping with some of the logistic of the
>> steering committee all of that voluntarily as part of their job in our
>> different organisations. If you look at the Whois for 1net.org you will
>> see that AFRINIC took over the domain after the first launch of the web
>> site (I am the individual officially named as the registrant) and ICANN is
>> the tech administrator. I have been using my time to coordinate the web
>> site evolution with a team made of staff of a web hosting company and
>> ICANN's communication staff, but they don't do anything that has not been
>> approved by myself. They have also implemented the new forum which, some
>> within the volunteers I* organisations and others in the broader Internet
>> community offered to help road-test before it was officially launched. I
>> have been having a weekly coordination meeting with them after the first
>> launch (where there was some technical IPv6 and DNSSEC and other issues
>> which I and others worked on with them to fix). The cost of hosting the web
>> site and its development is currently provided by ICANN.
>>
>> Gradually coordinating the work behind the scene on these aspects is
>> being transitioned to the Steering Committee whose representatives have
>> been chosen by different stakeholder groups themselves. For example, the
>> Steering Committee also was provided with a link to test out the forum and
>> the new web site a few days before it went live so they could provide
>> feedback. That will be the systematic approach going forward.
>>
>> In terms of the summaries produced, there have been two. Staff at APNIC
>> produced the first, giving a statistical analysis of discussions on the
>> mailing list. That was well received and at the same time many participants
>> made it clear they were having troubling following events so consensus was
>> quickly reached that a summary of content would be useful. The Steering
>> Committee agreed so we moved ahead. The second summary was a collaboration
>> of a number of us, most of whom had helped with previous /1net efforts. But
>> I had the final sign-off (and I shared a version with the SC). As I
>> mentioned  on the mailing list this is an attempt to help, and nothing in
>> the summary is to be considered conclusive so can be challenged by anyone
>> if the find it inaccurate. I have also heard the suggestion on the list to
>> have a collaborative editing platform to produce the summary. My idea is
>> still to have a draft that people will play around with. I'm not sure just
>> letting the group as I see it developing every summary from scratch will
>> work effectively (my personal view).
>>
>> Going forward, we will continue to have have the automated mailing list
>> reports and possibly weekly summaries, depending on whether the lists
>> themselves show the ability to self-summarise.
>>
>> As proposed last week and discussed during the last conference call, I
>> think the Steering Committee need to organise itself to take over these
>> tasks starting with the Communications and Community engagement group. The
>> idea seems to have the support of the Steering Committee last week. So that
>> is a positive and important step. The team is expected to be comprised of a
>> number of professional communicators and Steering Committee members. The
>> members aren't decided yet but we'll announce them once they are.
>>
>> My expectation is that the communications team will make recommendations
>> to the Steering Committee about the things you reference: summaries,
>> website and so on. And it will be up to the Steering Committee to decide
>> how to proceed.
>>
>> While here, there are two other things I would like to bring your
>> attention. Firstly, all efforts behind the scenes are focused on how to
>> assist participants in arriving at solutions to issues that are identified
>> by participants themselves. It is a true support role in that respect.
>> Nothing else. As you may have noticed I ahve refrain myself posting
>> directly on some of the issues being discussed not to be seen as directing
>> the debate or having any particular hidden agenda. I have heard enough!
>>
>> Secondly, while some of us from the I* organisations have shouldered much
>> of the cost in terms of both time and money of /1net so far, the intention
>> going forward is for many other organisations to contribute to get this
>> running. The initiative can not sustain itself without all these
>> contributions.
>>
>> At the moment we are focussed on preparations for the Brazil meeting but
>> soon after that, we hope that /1net will have provided sufficient value and
>> worth that others are keen to support this initiative going forward.
>>
>> I hope that answers all your questions. If you or others have ideas,
>> suggestions, offers of help and so on I would be happy to hear them.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> - a.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Steercom mailing list
>> Steercom at 1net.org
>> http://1net-mail.1net.org/mailman/listinfo/steercom
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Anja Kovacs
> The Internet Democracy Project
>
>
>
>
>
> On 11 February 2014 18:35, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Tks Anja... I'll look forward to hearing back concerning the set of
>> questions that I posed either from you or directly from responsible others
>> in 1Net.
>>
>>
>>
>> It would be good to put this matter to rest sooner rather than later.
>>
>>
>>
>> M
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Anja Kovacs [mailto:anja at internetdemocracy.in]
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3:31 AM
>> *To:* michael gurstein
>> *Cc:* David Cake; Ian Peter; Gene Kimmelman; IGC; &lt,
>> bestbits at lists.bestbits.net&gt,
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [governance] RE: [bestbits] Call for Transparency Process
>> for 1Net
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Michael and all,
>>
>> Regarding the summary and forum/website, I am happy to find out more
>> about how they were financed. I can share with you already that both were
>> shared with the 1net SC before they were shared with the larger list. To my
>> knowledge there was little involvement of the SC in their conceptualisation
>> until after their launch. The SC has since been making suggestions on how
>> to improve both, and this is being worked on now (for example, there have
>> been requests by many to try and provide functionality that would allow a
>> user to interact with the forum completely through email, in which case for
>> that particular user the experience would actually not be very different
>> than it is now). I foresee that these will continue to evolve over the
>> weeks to come.
>>
>> Hope this is helpful, and I'll get back to you as soon as I find out more.
>>
>> Best,
>> Anja
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10 February 2014 13:51, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> A simple detailed reply (1-2 hours max) to my initial request would be
>> more than sufficient to stem any further debate on the internal functioning
>> of 1Net (certainly by myself).
>>
>>
>>
>> My question is why those who have wasted far more of their (and my time)
>> in arguing that such is unnecessary are not directing their efforts toward
>> 1Net to have them stop this discussion immediately through a useful
>> response.
>>
>>
>>
>> M
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* David Cake [mailto:dave at difference.com.au]
>> *Sent:* Monday, February 10, 2014 6:54 AM
>> *To:* michael gurstein
>> *Cc:* Ian Peter; genekimmelman at gmail.com; governance at lists.igcaucus.org;
>> bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
>>
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [governance] RE: [bestbits] Call for Transparency Process
>> for 1Net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10 Feb 2014, at 6:16 am, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Precisely what are people afraid of in insisting that 1Net, a formation
>> that was interposed and interposed itself between "CS" and the Brazil
>> meeting, make transparent its decision making processes including in the
>> crucial areas of financial supports and expenditures and decisions as to
>> inclusions and exclusions.
>>
>>
>>
>>             I am not afraid at all of 1Net increasing its transparency
>> and accountability mechanisms - on the contrary, that would clearly be a
>> positive outcome. But I am quite afraid that we will spend a much larger
>> amount of time debating the internal functioning of 1net, which at this
>> point is largely a mechanism for dealing with administrative issues to do
>> with a single event, rather than focussing on the substantive policy
>> outcomes of that, and future, events.
>>
>>             Regards
>>
>>
>>
>>                         David
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________________
>> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>>      bestbits at lists.bestbits.net.
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Anja Kovacs
>> The Internet Democracy Project
>>
>> +91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs
>> www.internetdemocracy.in
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Anja Kovacs
> The Internet Democracy Project
>
> +91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs
> www.internetdemocracy.in
>

-- 
Dr. Anja Kovacs
The Internet Democracy Project

+91 9899028053 | @anjakovacs
www.internetdemocracy.in
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