[governance] Reconstituting MAG

[Adam Peake]

At 7:52 AM +0300 2/12/08, McTim wrote:
>hi,
>
>kudos for the draft.  Comments inline:


agree: Parminder, thanks.

snip

>
>>
>>
>>  -         Its membership should be divided equally between governments,
>>  civil society, and business sector.
>>
>>
>
>and the technical community
>


I agree -- more below

>  >
>>  -         On the issue of representation of technical community it is
>>  important to appreciate that the above three way division is as per
>>  political representation based on interests of, or representation of
>>  different interests through, these three sectors. Technical community's
>>  presence on the other hand is based on the requirement of necessary
>>  expertise, and therefore is of a different nature. This is also clear from
>>  the language of relevant paragraphs of TA. This may not be construed as
>>  undermining the importance of the technical community. The expertise
>>  provided by this community should be appropriately divided between all the
>>  three sectors, and the expertise criteria should be given due importance at
>>  the time of final selection.
>>
>
>I think this might backfire in re; getting the kind of CS folk that
>you (and some others on the list) seek.  To get adequate
>representation on the MAG for the technical community, most of those
>"slots" would need to come from CS side, so at a minimum, I would say
>that we (as CS seeking expertise) would want;
>
>1 ICANN staff (currently T. Swinehart)
>1 ISOC staff (representing users) (currently Matt Shears)
>1 (non-profit) gTLD person (.org?, no rep as of now IIRC)
>1 (non-profit) ccTLD person (currently Emily Taylor/Chris Disspain)
>1 NRO/numbering community person (currently AA)
>1 IETF person (IETF) (currently Pat Fältström)
>1 W3C person (currently Daniel Dardailler)
>
>This would give adequate "clue", but take up about half of the CS
>"slots", leaving 6 or 7 (if divided equally) for academics and other
>NGOs working in this space.  Is that enough for the "human rights,
>ICT4D, intellectual property, international trade and global
>electronic commerce, access to knowledge, and security" (quote from
>our charter).
>
>Business interests may appoint one or two Inet community folk, but I
>don't think Gov'ts will (perhaps ITU persons already in Geneva, but
>they probably don't think of themselves as internet technical
>community folk).


I don't want to get into an argument about where 
members of the technical community might drag 
members from (FWIW I think most are private 
sector oriented not civil society, being non 
profit isn't relevant, however not easy to pigeon 
hole), but for sure it will be from civil society 
and private sector in some measure.  So we likely 
loose out.

The advisory group isn't a creation of the Tunis 
Agenda and referring to the early paragraphs as 
strict rules for its design doesn't make sense. 
The MAG, it's design, came from contributions to 
the first series of consultations 2 years ago, 
the multistakeholder advisory group + chair and 
secretariat is the interpretation those 
consultations put on the instruction to 
"establish an effective and cost-efficient bureau 
to support the IGF, ensuring multistakeholder 
participation."

My problem with the technical community isn't 
that they are represented, but there are too 
many.  11 or 12 I think, with only 6 or 7 from 
private sector and civil society respectively. 
And I think people generally recognize a close 
alignment between the private sector and 
technical community (it is certainly apparent 
inside the MAG.)  So I would rather see a 
rebalancing, for example with perhaps the tech 
community dropped to 5 or 6 of the roles McTim 
mentions represented (ISOC is to all intent and 
purposes .ORG, why two standards community... 
though a personal preference would be a couple of 
RIRs...)  With civil society increased by 3 or 4 
and private sector by 2 or 3.

About the overall number, I think it will be 
difficult to get below 40. And 40 is not ideal 
but workable.

Adam
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