[governance] charter 1.5

Sat Jul 22 12:17:27 EDT 2006

Hi Avri

>in my understanding of the notion of intentionality, only people can have
intentions.  if an abstract entity like a caucus has an intention it is only
because its >membership has one.

I think, organizations have intentions as well, which is more than or
different from the sum of (independent) intentions of its constituents. I
think this is very basic to definition, theory etc of organizations. We can
of course speak of organizations seeking to, having the intention, working
towards etc etc without having to speak of its members having the intention
etc... In fact, often my own independent intentions may not be exactly the
same as that of the organization that I may constitute, IGC, in this case. 

I saw the 'membership' clause in the draft closely, and I agreed with this
clause as it stand, though I, and some others who have argued on this list,
do have views about how groups/ organizations/ interest groups based
stakeholder-ship (going beyond a strict construction implied in
'membership') of IGC should be emphasized. And it is emphasized in the
mission of the present draft, and in some parts of the tasks. 

And it also flows from the history of the caucus. For example, the webpage
for the IGC list serve mentions that 

     This list is for a) public discussion of Internet governance issues,
and b) coordination of the
Internet Governance Caucus (IGC).  The IGC comprises individual and
organizational civil society
actors (emphasis added) that came together in the context of the World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to
promote global public interest objectives in Internet governance policy
making. 

However, I also understand that for many process related issues, some kind
of strict definition of membership aspects is necessary. And that the
membership portion of the draft charter deals with this issue. And that
perhaps it will be too complicated to get into organizational memberships in
this respect. And to that extent, and for that strict purpose of fixing some
necessary processes, it may be necessary to describe "the members of the IGC
are individuals, acting in personal capacity".

So the issue of speaking about membership in relation to fixing some
important IGC processes, is not the same as laying out IGC's wider scope,
domain, general constitution, stakeholdership, representative-ness etc,
which I understand it is the intention of all of us to be a inclusive of
what can go in the name of civil society as possible. It is in this sense
that I have problems with mentioning 'membership' in the mission statement. 

As for secret vote for charter adoption, I have already stated that I will
go with your decision on this. However, I was just emphasizing the issues
and values involved in my appeal for open voting once more. And this
connects with the wider scope and some kind of representation-ship of the
IGC group that I speak of above. 

About 'cultural concerns' I only wondered if the language was the best that
can be used here, and if 'concerns' sound fine. Otherwise I agree altogether
with all that you say in your email about this issue. So, I am fine with it
going as it is. 

Regards

Parminder 

________________________________________________

Parminder Jeet Singh

IT for Change, Bangalore

Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 

91-80-26654134

 <http://www.itforchange.net/> www.ITforChange.net 

  _____  

From: Avri Doria [mailto:avri at acm.org] 
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 8:37 PM
To: Parminder
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] charter 1.5

Hi,

I have put my comments in-line.

On 22 jul 2006, at 08.20, Parminder wrote:

Thanks Avri, for driving the process long and hard, but hopefully now
towards a closure.

yes, i very much hope that is the case.  I will submit the names for voting
on Monday and start to build the voting directory.  once that is done we can
schedule the vote.

Can I share a few comments on the latest changes.

>the most significant

> change was to the mission where i replaced

> 

> It is intended

> with

> The membership of the caucus intends

> 

> I understand this is a slightly different meeting as it attributes

> the intention to the membership as opposed to some abstract entity.

> 

Can we just say ' the caucus intends....' because the mention of membership
in this line appears to stand out discordantly. 

in my understanding of the notion of intentionality, only people can have
intentions.  if an abstract entity like a caucus has an intention it is only
because its membership has one.

It appears to highlight the importance of enrolling as members, kind of a
exclusive ' only for members' stance. Whereas we plan to keep the forum
wider, more open, and though developing networks and other connections offer
some possibilities for non-members to participate in some ways - through
membership of individuals representing groups, HR caucus for example, or
through other outreach measures that we pledge to undertake in other parts
of the charter..

the charter includes a paragraph on membership:

Membership

The members of the IGC are individuals, acting in personal capacity, who
subscribe to the charter of the caucus. All members are equal and have the
same rights and duties.

as this shows, the IGC is composed of individuals who subscribe to the
charter.  so to say that 'the membership' of the IGC is not exclusionary in
the least.

It does, however, distinguish between those on the list because they want to
track what we are talking about, especially when it is contentful, and those
who actually see themselves as members.

I see no content difference between the two constructions, except that one
is more conceptually reasonable, i.e. the people who are the IGC have the
intention not the abstract entity called IGC.

I would be interested in hearing other opinions on this.

Another thing about the part where the option of secret versus open voting
is stated.

At all times when a case for open voting was made on this list, it was
insisted that there can and will be situations where secret voting may be
needed. So can we make the option to read

All voting will be open, though on discretion of moderators, with or without
request from member(s), it can be made into a secret vote. The reasons for
making it a secret vote will be stated, and are subject to appeal.

I can certainly substitute this for the current open voting option.  i.e.

Elections will be run by the coordinators and will be subject to the appeals
process.

Option 1: All voting will be by secret ballot with the exception noted above
for release of voters names.

Option 2: All voting will be open, though on discretion of moderators, with
or without request from member(s), it can be made into a secret vote. The
reasons for making it a secret vote will be stated, and are subject to
appeal.

As for making the vote on this charter itself a secret vote, I know that a
decision has to be taken one way or the other by the moderator, and I do not
want to raise dissent here and will agree to go with the decision. However,
this particular vote exemplifies my position on open voting very well. I
cannot find one reason why the vote should be secret in this case, and the
'competing' imperative of transparency of process and 'public-ness' of
opinion and representation (if any) remains strong in this case.

for me there are two reasons:

- it has been the assumption of this process for a while now that the vote
will be closed.  the charter proposal that came out of the drafting team
contained:

Acceptance of the Charter

After 30 days discussion and editing, the charter will be presented for a
vote. All members of the IGC mail list will be given voter accounts. In
order to qualify to vote on the charter, the prospective voter will first
need to affirm that they qualify as a member of the group as described
elsewhere in the charter. A list of those who self-affirm membership, but
not their votes, will be published after the vote.

Obviously this is not a option that can be voted on after the charter vote,
so it needs to be decided beforehand.  

Since yours is the only argument against this acceptance clause since we
began the discussion, I would prefer to leave this in place.  If the rest of
the membership desires open votes (option 2) thereafter they can decide that
way.

Since this has stood until now in the charter, I would very much appreciate
letting the acceptance process go through as written.

Third thing.

The phrase (realization of) 'cultural concerns' in the vision looks a bit
odd, can we think of a replacement that serves the purpose better. that if
any one has some bright idea, I couldn't hit upon one.

I kind of like cultural concerns because it keeps us from having to include
a long list of all the possible cultural concerns we care about.  And of
course, since no such list is ever complete, we would leave a few out as we
would not be able to agree on some and we might have no one currently in the
IGC who would argue for some.  While we could include 'inter alia' to make
up for the fact that we did not include someone's cultural concern, i think
that is a poor consolation. 

thanks for your comments

a.

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