[governance] Going forward - Role of the governance caucus [3 options]

[William Drake]

Hi Milton,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Milton Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2006 3:39 AM
>
> I wonder whether a "Status Quo Plus Minus" is possible: in which we
> give the caucus a capacity to elect/select chairs, and delegate decision
> making responsibility to them, but do not develop a common set of
> positions on
> policy issues but simply attempt to be a vehicle for the
> representations of CS
> in IGF-related activities. E.g., we elect chairs who develop democratic
> procedures  to nominate people to serve on IGF-related program committees,
> councils, etc.

Understand your concern about the need for procedures to handle nominations
for IGF etc, and noted that this is a problem with the SQ.  A procedural
rather than substantive focus could be viable.  But for your solution to
work we'd need to address a number of challenges, e.g.: 1) Nobody appears to
want to want to chair; Jeanette's prior call for nominations met a stony
silence.  And preferably we'd have multiple candidates, and competitive
choice, or else we're in politburo mode. They'd have to be dedicated
procedural mavens to achieve what you ask, too (maybe they could work with
the MMWG on that).   2)  Even if some folks were to step forward now, it's a
hard to have a really proper election without an identifiable electorate.
In the absence of any affirmative opting-in, who knows how many of the 300
people on the list consider themselves to be CS and members of the caucus?
I suppose we could continue with the 'whoever bothers to speak by a certain
time' model, but it's a bit lame and open to controversy.  3) How would we
conduct it?  Use a private voting site, per MMWG, or try the list?  Who'd
count, decide on voter eligibility based on what criteria, etc?

Suggestions?

Bill



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