[governance] Muti-stakeholder Group structure (some ideas)

veni markovski veni at veni.com
Fri Jun 1 12:17:29 EDT 2007


At 08:49 6/1/2007  -0700, Karl Auerbach wrote:
>I have much the same concern as you do about "consensus" - I do not 
>see it as a stable or viable approach.  It is a mechanism that is 
>both too subjective, open to manipulation by the one who measures 
>consensus, and can result with the losers feeling unfairly treated 
>and resentful.

Karl,
consensus, in some cases, has been that whoever has the loudest 
voice, will be able to enforce the consensus.

>Can you imagine the kind of political instability that what could 
>have happened in the US had the 2000 or 2004 elections been measured 
>by "consensus" rather than counted votes?

However, this example is not quite good, because these elections can 
not be implemented on the Internet.

There's one very good explanation about why the models which we are 
all used to do not work on the Internet: the online users are 
different from the offline users. They build their own culture, which 
is quite different from the offline culture. Take as an example 
today's NYT article about the Google Street View 
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/technology/01private.html?ref=business 
and you will be able to find out on your own what's this different 
culture. I already wrote a little about it at http://blog.veni.com/?p=236 .
Being strong proponent of privacy and defending my right not to be 
photographed, recorded, videotaped, etc. without my prior consence, 
the oline culture is also changing me. The sooner we realize, and 
accept, that the majority of the online users do not care about 
Internet governance, the better.

Best,
Veni


Disclaimer: I've always been interested in hearing what people think, 
and discuss possible solutions for problems that we all face. I've 
stated that publicly, I've asked people to come and talk to me, when 
they see me, on issues related to ISOC, ICANN, (etc. - a number of 
other mainly business topics, which are not relevant for this mailing 
list). However, some people misunderstand that as a sign that I am 
not interested in their opinion, but I'd like to endorse it, and 
accept it as mine. I am sure that many people here would not give up 
their opinion, and esp. the one about Internet; the difference is, 
that in the last eight (8) years I've been actually changing the 
national policy of the Republic of Bulgaria in a Internet-friendly 
way. That gives me enough confidence that what I've done, and what I 
do, is right.  

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