[governance] IGC Participation

[Avri Doria]

hi,

On 22 apr 2006, at 09.56, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:

> On 21 apr 2006, at 19.42, William Drake wrote:
>
>> 1.  Charter.  I've supported this before and still do.  However, I  
>> would still
>> go beyond it, and suggest that we can't have properly functioning  
>> consensus
>> building/voting on anything procedural or substantive, or indeed  
>> democratic
>> legitimacy and accountability, if we don't have any idea who the
>> electorate/constituency is.   Hence, once a charter has been  
>> assembled, I would
>> like to see people opt in and publicly become listed members of  
>> the caucus, in
>> the same manner as the Human Rights Caucus,

I though the HRC was composed of individuals from various  
organizations and that the organizations were the members.  I don't  
really know.  i think i was on the HRC caucus list for a while based  
on CPSR membership, but seem to have fallen off.  So I am not sure  
how they are organized or how membership works.  Maybe somebody from  
the HRC can explain.

>> so we finally know who actually
>> considers themselves to be a member (a large chunk of the 300  
>> people on the
>> list probably do not), who we are talking to on caucus matters.
>
> Some months ago I proposed to keep the list as it is right now and  
> restrict voting rights to those who regard themselves as members  
> (as opposed to observers) and thus register as voting members. That  
> way nothing would change for the majority of subscribers. Does this  
> sound ok for both of you, Avri and Bill?
>

This is an idea that i think is worth considering.   I do worry,  
however, about losing people from the list.  I think one of the  
virtues of the IGC is its large size and the number of people who  
read the list and participate at least occasionally. So I wonder if  
you mean that the only criteria is that someone wishes to consider  
them self a member with no regard for other attributes they may  
have.  This could, for example, include someone who was a government  
minister - as by some definition everyone can be considered  civil  
society when they are at home acting as a citizen, parent and user of  
the Internet.  From other things I have read, I am not sure that  
everyone in the caucus can buy into this definition of member.  It  
would be good to see this idea discussed.

I am also concerned about the mechanics of voting.  I  have not found  
a good way to do it on-line.  I am still looking for the right  
software and methods that would make it practical.  In a basic way it  
looks like it might be the right thing to do, but I have trouble  
understanding how we serve the various requirements, e.g.:
  - easy access for anyone with basic web access
  - difficult to capture
  - confirm identity of voter
  - confidential voting
  - basically at no cost
  - easy to manage
The Multistakehoder Modalities Working Group (MMWG) has adopted this  
as part of their model, and while i am in favor of it (not surprising  
perhaps) we have not yet found the right way to do it, though we did  
hold successful elections for our co-chairs.  Seperate from the IGC  
discussions, I do think a small group of intersted people should work  
together to see if we can find a way to make voting feasible.  Then  
at least a group like the IGC could decide whther it wanted to use  
voting without needing to take the technical possibility into  
account.  At this point I don't think we are there yet.

I am also not sure that the IGC is a voting organization, and that it  
should not be consensus or rough consensus based instead.  But both  
of these present difficulties as well.

As I have argued elsewhere, for a rough consensus model to work,  
there needs to be a way to appeal the decision of the person who  
calls the rough consensus.  E.g in almost any decision worth making,  
there will be someone who objects strongly to the direction being  
taken by the majority.  At some point though, the coordinator would  
need to judge that rough consensus had been reached.  In some cases  
the person who disagrees would look at this and accept it, but in  
others, the person who objects might beleive that their viewpoint was  
not given a fair hearing.  If there is no way to appeal the rough  
consensus call then this person has no recourse other then anger and  
the behavior that may result from anger.  So, in order to use rough  
consensus one has to have some sort of adjudication body.  In the IGC  
we don't have a higher authority to go to.   We could create a  
council whose sole role was to adjudicate any appeal, but that is not  
an idea that we have explored yet.  Otherwise, though, I don't know  
how to do rough consensus.

There are, I believe, people on the list who also support a full  
consensus model.  For some things I certainly do, and that is why I  
am looking for full consensus on my candidacy for interim co- 
coordinator.  for other things, like statements in the heat of  
schedules, I believe it is impossible because it takes too long  
especially when there is a difference of opinion.  In this case we  
need to have a firm set of consensus positions decided in advance and  
then restrict those writing positions to the content of those pre- 
decided positions.  This, however leaves those involved in active  
discussions hamstrung when it becomes necessary to comment on  
something that the IGC has not developed a consensus position on.   
This may be ok, but the IGC needs to consider how it want to deal  
with this sort of case - as it will come up.

I think this is an important conversation for the caucus to have and  
think that it is one of the most important components of the charter  
i proposed we create, we need to figure out how we want to work.   
First I believe we need to figure out the principles by which we want  
to work, and then we need to be creative and figure out methods that  
allow us to work according to those principles as much as possible.

Thanks to both Bill and Jeanette for getting the discussion started.

a.
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