[governance] Reforming MAG

[carlos a. afonso]

MM makes some good points regarding the kind of representation the
so-called techie community brings to the MAG. I agree with these points.
Techies (of the developer/nerd/hacker/bit-brushing kind and similar, I
am writing right now from São Paulo's Campus Party) are members of one
of the three interest groups (government, civil society, private
sector), just like veterinarians, lawyers, economists and so on. Thus,
let us drop once and for all the idea that techies constitute a fourth
interest group.

Regarding reduction in numbers, to keep the balance the number of gov
reps would have to be reduced accordingly -- and this is the major
hurdle here.

--c.a.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Milton L Mueller" <mueller at syr.edu>
To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:54:15 -0500
Subject: RE: [governance] Reforming MAG

>  
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> 
> 	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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