[governance] oversight, & the need for netizen feedback processes

[Ronda Hauben]

I gave the IP numbers as an example that was raised in 1998. I don't
know how much one has to pay if one wants an IP number these days.

Do you?

And it seemed that one only goes to the regional registries if one
wanted a block of IP numbers. Otherwise one had to deal with an individual
vendors.

I have heard that there is some concern that IP numbers are available 
to some regions but less so to others. So I don't know if the IP 
registries are free of problems.

I don't want to get into the particulars of IP numbers, but I do know
that ICANN was supposed to be the oversight for them. Obviously ICANN
is a problem and so can't be a means of oversight for anything.

More specifically I haven't seen any thought being given to online means 
for participating in the forum, in the wsis processes etc. If one knows
of the mailing lists for wsis one can try to join one. If one didn't
know of them, one is locked out of any way to know what is happening
except for what is posted on the web site.

And mailing lists are often hard for people to participate in, as
they can easily get their mailboxes swamped.

An online forum is sometimes a better form, but the one that WSIS had
a while ago was hard to participate in and when one did, one's views
were generally ignored anyway.

Even this governance mailing list has very few people able to participate
regularly in it.

When the views of someone who isn't a regular don't get a welcome, then
that that can serve to deter others who aren't it 'regulars' from
making the effort to contribute.

How to encourage a broader set of participation would be a useful question 
for this mailing list to consider as part of its effort to contribute to 
the civil society and wsis process.

cheers

ronda

On Wed, 26 Oct 2005, McTim wrote:

> Hello,
>
> On 10/25/05, Ronda Hauben <ronda at panix.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>> One of the criticisms we heard at the 1998 meeting in Geneva leading
>> to the creation of ICANN was that self management means that the vendor
>> is being asked to manage himself. (I think there were service providers
>> complaining that if they had a problem with those who were in charge
>> of distributing IP numbers, they had to go to the entity who was causing
>> the problem for redress. That is there was no system of oversight to
>> go to outside of the entity that was in charge of the function itself.)
>
> But it hasn't worked out that way at all.
>
> If any user, netizen, ISP, corporation, university, etc has a problem
> with "those .. in charge of distributing IP numbers"
> all they have to do is join the (mostly online) fora set up for the
> purpose of discussing policy changes in IP addressing policy.
>
> Every Regional Internet Registry Service area has a community of folk
> who decide these policies. The RIRs (the entity) carry out the wishes
> of it's community as expressed in policy documents.  Netizens should
> be more active in these fora.  They are completely open to all.  If
> Netizens leave it to industry (which is pretty much the situation
> now), they only have themselves to blame if they don't like smt.  Same
> goes for ISPs who don't participate.
>
> In fact, there is a f2f meeting going on 2moro in LA of the ARIN
> region community.  If you listen to the webcast, you can actually see
> (and hear) the "sausage" being made.
>
> http://www.arin.net/ARIN-XVI/webcast.html
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> McTim
> nic-hdl:      TMCG
>
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