[governance] A process suggestion for IGF nominations

Wed Mar 22 05:51:36 EST 2006

Dear all,

I fully support Avri's proposal and her comments in response to Milton's and
thank her very much for bringing her expertise in this field and accepting
the responsibility of kickstarting this.

Establishing a nomcom in the transparent way she proposes and extending
invitations to participate in the nomcom to the plenary list is a very good
way to :
- formalize further a process that could be repeated elsewhere (what a
direct selection of MAG members could not do)
- involve the broader CS community, thus suppressing the accusation of
monopoly by a group of "insiders"
- clarify the role of the IGC

Two additional comments below :

*1) Consensus on process*

Avri wrote :

"i suggest that anyone who objects says so publicly on the list by the end
of Thursday (AnyTZ).  if anyone objects after 2 days of discussion, then the
group needs to find another path.  I.e. i am suggesting we need full
consensus (signified by lack of dissent in the next 2 days) to start this."

It is very important that potential objections to this process should be
argumented and that concrete improvements or alternatives be explicitely
suggested. The methodology proposed here is a clear improvement on previous
procedures and it would be bad if it were not implemented only
because people raised objections without proposing anything better.

*2) Composition of the MAG*

I understand that the MAG is likely to have about 40 people, half of which
are governments. Although the balance is not what it should be
(over-representation of governments) this is what we have to deal with at
this stage and the key element was to make sure that the group is
effectively multi-stakeholder. We might tend to underestimate the importance
of the agreement on that point by the Group of 77 because we believe the
principle of multi-stakeholderism is now well established but this is an
important milestone in every respect.

This leaves about 20 people for other actors (civil society, business sector
and Internet Technical Community). Keeping civil society and internet
technical community as two groups for the designation in the MAG might be
tactically useful in order to get 12-13 people for both (6-7 people per
group). Even if we all know it is often hard to make a difference.

I suppose the process we are establishing here applies mostly to civil
society selection. Would there be a separate one for the Internet Technical
Community ? and where should Academia stand ? (I suppose in both). This is
an open question, but do not minimize the tactical interest.

I send a separate mail on possible roles for the MAG.

Best

Bertrand

On 3/21/06, Avri Doria <avri at psg.com> wrote:
>
> hi,
>
>
> On 21 mar 2006, at 05.01, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>
> > Since Avri has a lot of organizational experience in the area of
> > nomcom
> > structures, I would like to nominate her as chair of the nomcom
> > (perhaps
> > as non-voting chair so that process issues won't be mixed up with
> > selecting candidates).
>
> since i have no intention of putting myself forward for a MAG slot, i
> am willing to serve as a non-voting chair of a nomcom if that is what
> the IGC 'wants'.
>
> i have a few suggestions about how we could go about this:
>
> i would suggest that we have 5 voting members and that all of us on
> the nomcom - both voting and non voting be disqualified from serving
> on this year's MAG.
>
> i would also suggest that for selection of 5 names to be random, we
> must have at least 5-10 times as many volunteers (25-50) for the pool
> as we want members.  but there are enough people on this list that
> getting that many names should not be a problem as long as people
> volunteer.  i would also suggest that volunteering for the pool does
> _not_ disqualify one from selection for the MAG, only serving on the
> nomcom does.  the more people who volunteer the better chance we have
> to get a representative selection in the nomcom.  and i would go so
> far as to say that even people who might be willing to serve on the
> MAG _should_ volunteer for the nomcom pool and trust that fate, or
> chance, will put you in the job can you do the most good in.
>
> i also would suggest that if it is agreeable that i organize such a
> nomcom process, people who want to volunteer could send me a private
> message volunteering and giving me a phone number (better still a
> Skype contact to keep things inexpensive).  before running the random
> selection process, i would publish the ordered list of names of the
> volunteers so that people could see that their name was on the list,
> or not, as they intended.
>
> i also suggest that it is up to the IGC at large, as well as the
> plenary and any other groups who wish to participate in this process
> to set the number, qualities, and level of diversity etc, that the
> candidates should represent.  the nomcom should then use these
> criteria to make their selections.  if i organize the process, i am
> willing to send a message to the plenary explaining the process we
> are following and inviting input.
>
> the question becomes, how does this group decide they:
>
> a - want such a nomcom process to pick MAG candidates
> b - want me to serve as the non voting chair
>
> i suggest that anyone who objects says so publicly on the list by the
> end of Thursday (AnyTZ).  if anyone objects after 2 days of
> discussion, then the group needs to find another path.  I.e. i am
> suggesting we need full consensus (signified by lack of dissent in
> the next 2 days) to start this.
>
> if there is agreement (lack of disagreement), then i will send out
> other email after Thursday covering more on how to organize the
> nomcom, including the random seeds that i would use to run the
> RFC3797 algorithm.  i would also send out the message to plenary
> explaining the process.  i suggest the schedule would look something
> like (working backwards):
>
> Recommendation ready to be sent to IGF secretariat - 16 April (18
> april is IGF deadline)
> Deadline for candidate name submission -             10 April
> Nomcom Selection complete -                           4 April - this
> gives nomcom 2 weeks
> IGC completes discussion of criteria for candidate selection - 3 April
> Publish of Nomcom volunteers -                       31 March
> Deadline for volunteering for Nomcom -          Noon 30 March AnyTZ
> Seeds picked and published for RFC3797 selection -   27 March
> Procedures published on IGC and Plenary list -       27 March
> Reach consensus decision on using Nomcom selection process - 23 March
> AnyTZ
>
> i also suggest that if we don't get at least 25 volunteers for the 5
> person nomcom, then the process is aborted, i.e.  we interpret the
> lack of volunteers as a lack of consensus in the process.
>
> so if you think this is a bad idea or i am not the person to handle
> it, please speak up.
>
> a.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> governance at lists.cpsr.org
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>
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