[governance] problem with the sessions: number of participants

Wed Oct 17 09:47:56 EDT 2007

The additional comment I have is that the group taking the decisions do 
not know who several of the people listed are, what exactly they do, 
what involvement they have in any of the main themes of the IGF. 
Decisions in some cases seem to be taken just by their formal labels 
(this is a businessperson, lets keep him/her to keep the balance etc), 
or by the people's WI index (who indicates her/him).

Also, perceptions regarding people in one region by people in another, 
as much as they might have a good view of who gets involved in the 
processes, are not enough. Thus I have been advocating a consultation 
scheme with each of the people listed. Well, at least a basic "action 
oriented" CV would be requested from each of the people in the list, but 
the MAG seems to have a different perception of what this selection 
process is, and in any case it might be too late.

To give people an idea of the scant transparency, if any, I am special 
advisor to the co-chair, so I am in the MAG's internal list, and I have 
never received any communcationn on why and how someone decided to move 
me from the CIR panel to the Access panel. One can imagine what happens 
to the ones who are not as close as I am to the "decision makers".

This whole thing needs to be revamped for the next IGFs; the disaster is 
already replayed for this one -- to the point I am suggesting the MAG be 
called MAD (multistakeholder advisory disaster).

In summary: the excessive number of people is the least of problems.

--c.a.

Milton L Mueller wrote:
> A very tough decision, Adam I do not envy you this situation. 
> Almost impossible to offer meaningful guidance without the names, and of course I perfectly understand why you can't give them. 
> 
> My only guidance would be that you should for each panel identify 3 "core" CS people who are articulate and really have something important to say and from your point of view (as a long-time observer of these discussions) must not be thrown off.  
> 
> If those "critical internet human resources" are on any given panel, then work hard to throw as many others off as you can. If they are not, work to get them on. 
> 
> As someone who has put together many programs of this sort in an academic and policy context, I understand that there is an inherent bias toward expansion. It always happens. And people always regret it, afterwards, so work hard to limit the size and go for _quality_ -- not quantity and token representation. 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Adam Peake [mailto:ajp at glocom.ac.jp]
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 11:48 AM
>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
>> Subject: [governance] problem with the sessions: number of participants
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Not good news about the selection of speakers for the IGF.
>>
>> The sessions are now 2 not 3 hours, but at the moment we have not
>> found a way to reduce the number of participants, like Athens still
>> around 12-16 per session.  Still draft, which I why I am writing for
>> advice. There's time to cut the numbers, if only we knew how...
>>
>> The process so far.  My understanding is the secretariat took all
>> names received from different stakeholders (including
>> self-nominations). Collated the names by session they had been
>> recommended for, tried to find out if people were actually attending,
>> and sent a list of all these names to the advisory group for
>> comments.  Advisory group members then sent their recommendations
>> from that list back to the secretariat, there was some discussion,
>> but not much.  Recommendations were sent blind to the secretariat, in
>> most cases members didn't know who others were recommending.
>> Recommendations included moving people from sessions they had
>> originally been suggested for.
>>
>> Last Thursday the secretariat sent list which they had divided up as
>> people who had support from among the advisory group being named as
>> panelists and discussants, and people lacking support being dropped.
>> Those with most support from among the advisory group were listed as
>> panelists, suggested they will be able to make an initial comment of
>> about 5 minutes (no powerpoint.)  Next level of support have been
>> suggested as discussants.
>>
>> There's not been much discussion about the distinction between
>> panelists and discussants. I think discussants will be brought in
>> after a round of questions and comments from the floor.  They'll be a
>> kind of second wave, with shorter statements, perhaps give specific
>> examples to highlight some topic, or ask questions for the panel, or
>> try to move the discussion along if it becomes bogged down on one
>> issue or looses track, etc. (only my guess as to what they might do.)
>> I am not sure where the idea for "discussants" came from originally.
>>
>> The numbers from last Thursday's list are:
>>
>> Critical Internet Resources:  14 participants (8 speakers, 6 discussants)
>> Access: 15 participants (6 speakers, 9 discussants)
>> Diversity: 12 participants (8 speakers, 4 discussants)
>> Openness: 15 participants (9 speakers, 6 discussants)
>> Security: 16 participants (7 speakers, 9 discussants)
>> Emerging issues: 9 participants (4 speakers, 5 discussants)
>>
>> It's not clear if all of these are actually attending, but seems most
>> will be (probably all.)
>>
>> The list of panelists and discussants doesn't look too bad from a
>> civil society perspective (some holes, but not too bad.)
>>
>> Some AG members are still suggesting moving people from the discard
>> list (of course there are good people in that group) back as
>> panelists or discussants.  So we are tending to see names being added
>> rather than cut.
>>
>> What do we do?
>>
>> I think there should be no more than 9 on any session, perhaps 5
>> panelists and 4 discussants (5 & 3 better of course.)  But that would
>> mean dropping a lot of good people.  There is no agreement among any
>> stakeholder group on who to select.
>>
>> Very clear message from Athens that large panels are not acceptable,
>> they don't work.
>>
>> Going for the smaller number means less CS on the sessions.  Some of
>> us won't be happy.
>>
>> So what do we do and how do we do it. (Note the lack of time, less
>> than four weeks to the start of the meeting.)
>>
>> We should not make the list of names public.  We've no right to do that.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Adam
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-- 

Carlos A. Afonso
Rio       Brasil
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