[governance] outreach

Wed Apr 26 14:30:06 EDT 2006

I was about to make some more unhelpful comments on individuality,  
but they've been derailed by people taking the conversation in a  
constructive direction ;). Just note the bitten tongue and baleful  
glares :).

Avri, I was just writing yesterday that I believe that the morphing  
of the IETF-style culture of consensus from the technical to the  
political (not that hard distinctions can be drawn, but you know what  
I mean) is responsible for the most pressing governance problems  
faced by the Internet. So I just wanted to acknowledge, given your  
extensive background in that culture, your willingness to put those  
methods on the table for discussion without pre-judgement. It's rare  
that any of us can do that with our habitual methods and I really  
appreciate it.

Here's what I think I know about mailing lists and organisation:

* A mailing list is narrow bandwidth for productive conversation.  
Even though it is slightly asynchronous, it is time-based and can  
only hold a couple of productive conversations at once (sometimes,  
not even that ;). I agree with Vittorio's comment that multivocality  
is desirable. The pressure needs to be taken off this list as the  
means by which issue contributions to the IGC take place. The list is  
very important for all the cross-cutting organisational issues like  
timelines, opportunities, etc.

* Specialisation is required given the vast range of topics,  
expertise and orientations that could be considered "civil society".  
Having each of us process and agree to every statement is inefficient  
and doesn't scale. And forced into the narrow bandwidth of the  
mailing list, disagreements and contests over framing crowd out the  
content (e.g. "right to development"). The specialisation should be  
among expertise/interest rather than people - I don't know how formal  
it needs to be to begin. But I think a coordinator-editor role on  
each of various issues could be useful as a loose structure.

* Consensus can work when the scope is clear and there is broad  
agreement on what success might look like. That is true for some  
technical protocols, but it is almost never true for political  
issues. Again, given the scope of CS, I think we must have a process  
that can accept tension, conflict, and mutually incompatible  
positions. These should be resolved only when they are show-stoppers,  
rather than as part of the process of developing positions.

* From my POV, the Wiki is the most promising issue-development  
platform I've used in that respect, because you can include a range  
of positions without necessarily having a direct discussion about it.  
The tendency in reading email messages is to treat text as an  
utterance, and to hold a person accountable to it. Email lists are  
intimidating to many. There will be useful contributions to shared  
texts that would be made by people who for whatever reason don't  
share our desire to say "Here is what I think".

There's more but this is more than enough for now.

Danny

On 27/04/2006, at 12:35 AM, Avri Doria wrote:

>
>
> I personally agree that outreach is a critical function, but argue
> that it is not something that is ever fully achieved, i.e. we can
> never do enough.  but I think this caucus does do outreach.  e.g.
> without arguing that the IGC was the one true voice of CS, the caucus
> did do  outreach when selecting its nominees for the IGF
> multistakeholder advisory group.  And while not assuming that sending
> notification to the plenary was enough we sent to many other lists
> and asked people to pass it on (the network model - i.e. use of
> broadcast and epidemic routing mechanism).  We need to do more and
> need to do it all the time.  I personally think that this
> conversation on the list on our identity is another form of outreach
> to the silent members of the list.  In my mind it is an attempt to
> find out what we need to do to be more open to those who had enough
> interest in the subject to sign up for the list yet who haven't found
> the way open for their participation - for whatever reasons.
>
> but as I said i agree we need to do more outreach, and i think need
> to have some members who think enough of outreach to put some focus
> into the ways in which it can be done effectively.   having been
> brought up in the open list world where an open list was considered
> to be the best way to openness and for reaching out, i have learned
> since becoming invovled in civil society that this is not adequate.
> i still don't know what it take to achieve sufficient opennes and
> outreach and am hoing these conversations brings that out.  other
> then multiple language capability - which is still difficult (either
> we all learn multiple languages or we need automatic translators),
> what is needed?
>
> a.
> On 27/04/2006, at 4:57 AM, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
>> but at the same time come up in advance with a proposal for a new
>> structure and a set of requirements that can collect broad support by
>> all civil society participants in the process.
>>
>> However, nothing prevents us from going on with the present, multiple
>> voice model - it might even prove better: maybe less compelling  
>> towards
>> other stakeholders, but more open and less controversial.  
>> Actually, the
>> only part of the story where you might really need "the" civil  
>> society
>> entity is when you have to appoint representatives for the entire
>> stakeholder group, while you might still work by ad-hoc coalitions on
>> substance matters.
>
>
>
>
> On 26 apr 2006, at 07.27, Gurstein, Michael wrote:
>
>> To get a bit theoretical here, I think there are 3 separate models at
>> play...
>> 	1. the "representational" model which is inherently
>> centralizing, and top down i.e. top-down institutions set up rules
>> that
>> require others to similarly produce top-down
>> "representatives" (however
>> they are selected) to "speak on behalf" of others i.e.  
>> constituencies.
>
>>
>> 	2. the "market" model which is inherently competitive and
>> individualistic i.e. where individuals (or collectivities  
>> operating as
>> pseudo individuals) compete in some sort of marketplace for some
>> sort of
>> set of rewards (in this case influence on global public policy) and
>> where "success" in this marketplace depends on access to unequally
>> distributed resources -- e.g. time, travel money, the appropriate
>> language for discourse, "air time", or as folks here seem to be
>> suggesting the inherent value/significance of the ideas or
>> expertise of
>> individuals.
>>
>> 	3. the "network" model which is I think the appropriate one here
>> as it allows for (and even enables) cooperation/collaboration/
>> coalition
>> building and is in itself neutral as to whether the participating
>> elements (nodes) are individuals or institutions or collectivities of
>> some other variety...
>>
>> It seems to me that CS must necessarily operate by means of the
>> "network" model as a collectivity of links and nodes sharing some
>> minimal set of common positions and working as the need arises  
>> towards
>> some common goals.
>>
>> The problem as I see it is that for whatever reason, CS in this
>> instance
>> is operating on the basis of the second (market) model where
>> "access to
>> influence" i.e. participation in the IGF/designation as THE CS-IGC
>> is a
>> direct product of one's access to the above mentioned resources  
>> (time,
>> travel money, ideas etc.).  In fact IMHO CS should necessarily be
>> operating on the basis of the third model since this is the means by
>> which a true measure of inclusion and broad based consensus
>> building can
>> be achieved, particularly because as everyone apparently agrees, the
>> first (representational model) is too expensive and cumbersome to  
>> work
>> in this context.
>
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-- 
Danny Butt
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