[governance] Reforming MAG

[Milton L Mueller]

________________________________

	Number and Composition of MAG Members.  While I understand the
rationale for Milton and McTim suggesting a radical reduction in
numbers, I suspect it's a non-starter on political grounds and support
Parminder's wording on size and rotation.  
	 
	Strongly disagree, you make a much better suggestion below 
	 
	 On the other hand, it would seem that some don't contribute
much to the dialogue and that their presence has not translated into
financial and political support for IGF.  Would it be sensible to add a
sentence or so suggesting a slight reduction in the context of overall
rebalancing and that we'd hope that only governments that are prepared
to attend and actively contribute would seek to be represented?  
	 
	This would be very sensible. Just eliminate the word "slight" so
that we can agree. 
	 
	We've been through this before, but I fail to understand why so
many people decide in advance that you can't ask for what you want
because other people may block it politically. That never seems to stop
other stakeholders from asking for what they want. We have a duty to
ourselves and to the public interest to ask for the right thing. If it
gets blocked politically, then so be it. But at the very least it puts
pressure on those playing political games with the MAG composition.
	 
	There are important efficiency and accountability reasons to
reduce the size of the MAG substantially. We should and must assert
them. We lose nothing by doing so and may gain. 
	 
	On the issue of "technical community" representation, Ian noted,
and the point was basically conceded or agreed by all, that these are
representatives of current Internet administration bodies. It would be
perfectly sufficient to have a representative of ICANN, IETF, and one
RIR (not three -- they are all the same politically!!) via the NRO to
cover these. If you want 6 of them (and thus a 30-person MAG instead of
15-20) then pick two from each category, making sure that, e.g., ICANN
reps include SSAC and not just two staffers. ISPs should definitely be
represented too, but clearly they are business interests as well as
Internet administrators. But be aware that ISOC is the parent
organization of IETF and virtually every major figure in ICANN and RIRs
are members and supporters of ISOC, so don't talk as if adding ISOC to
an ICANN-IETF-RIR panel is adding anything different rather than just
padding the numbers. In many respects ISOC, as a nonprofit association,
is more akin to civil society even though it consistently refuses to
play with CS.
	 
	Note the double standards one gets into. We are told that we
"must" have 20 governments because there are regional differences among
them, and political/cultural/economic differences within the regions.
Well, that's true also of ISPs, ISOC, civil society, and so on. We can
and we must challenge this, even if the governments have the raw power
to not listen to it. 
	 
	Inter-sessional Work and Mandate. To me these are key topics.
I'm glad Parminder touched them, but I'm not sure a series of questions
on each is the most effective approach.  I wonder whether it'd be
possible for us to positively state the case for something, e.g. a
MAG-linked but more open WG (I think we once endorsed WGs, know I did,
and APC did more recently...)   
	 
	and IGP, in its early paper "Building an IG Forum" for the first
consultation. Agree with Bill's comments here. 
	 
	I think we should also insist that in creating workshops and
plenaries for the annual Forum, the Secretariat and MAG must ensure
diversity of viewpoints and air fully the real policy debates that are
going on. No more workshops full of content regulation advocates telling
each other how right they are to censor the Internet, while next door
there are a bunch of free expression advocates telling each other how
right they are to oppose it. That's useless. The critical internet
resources panel I was on in Rio was poorly balanced; that should not
happen again. 
	 
	 

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