[governance] Fwd: IGC Membership list

[William Drake]

Hi Avri,

Nice seeing you in Paris.  Now time for some friendly online
disagreement, oh joy.

On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 6:23 PM, Avri Doria <avri at psg.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I think the problem we are having is 2 (or probably more) different ideas of
> membership.
>
> One is that that for all intents and purpose all those on the list are full
> members in everything but voting.  For voting one must hold to charter in
> order to vote.    I..e they can particpate in consensus discussions and
> everything else - except a vote.

I wasn't aware that anyone has ever had this idea or had seriously
advanced it over the past 5 + years.  Maybe I've failed to read
between someone's lines and into their heads.

The caucus was set up during WSIS as part of a larger CS coalition
with the explicit intent of promoting public interest positions on IG.
 We negotiated texts and made interventions in the governments'
debates that reflected shared values, and we were small enough to know
who each other was. During WSIS I the list membership and caucus were
largely coterminous, but from early 04 the former grew rapidly to
constitute an overwhelming majority of subscribers that had no
interest in collaboratively promoting public interest positions on IG
in international forums and, inter alia, did not sign the charter when
invited to.  They (includes staff folks from international business
groups, ICANN, UN agencies, governments, etc) are here because they're
interested in IG issues or at least have reason to keep an eye on the
discussions, not because they believe themselves to be in the caucus.
Since they're not confused on the point, I don't see how anyone else
could be.  This is the first I've heard of it.

> Another is that there are two type of list members, those who are Caucus
> members and those who are not.  And that at any moment in time we should be
> able to distinguish real members from list members.

Maybe not at any given moment, but perhaps once, for a first time
since the charter was floated years ago, especially since we don't
even seem to have a list of people who subscribed to it then.

> The charter currently defines membership in the first way.  Some seem to
> want some version of the second definition.  If there is a majority who want
> to change the charter it can be changed. And there are subtle changes or
> major change we could make if that is what we are into.

Huh?  The charter doesn't say join the listserv and you're in the
caucus except for voting.  It says, "The members of the IGC are
individuals, acting in personal capacity, who subscribe to the charter
of the caucus."  Full stop.  The charter would only need to be changed
if we wanted to adopt your first position, that anyone who simply
signs onto a listserv is hence a caucus member.

> My issue is with living up to the charter we have and changing it explicitly
> if that is what we want to do.

Parminder is simply asking who considers themselves to be in the
caucus. I can't fathom how that violates the charter.   And if we
cannot bring ourselves to say who is in a group, I don't think we
should pretend that the group exists.

> As for trolls, I would think that netiquette is netiquette and all list
> members are the same in that respect.  Or do you suggest that a voting
> member of the caucus should have more permission to engage in bad netiquette
> then a non voting member?

No, I did not suggest this.  On an open list one obviously could not
have a rule allowing one group to behave more badly than another.  But
at a personal level I'm more prepared to endure diatribes etc from
someone who is committed to promoting public interest positions and
trying to make the caucus function to that end than I am from someone
who's here to promote other agendas or even disrupt caucus efforts.
That's just my choice, and knowing who's in the caucus would
facilitate this bottom up, self-governing perception management.
Others of course make other choices and if they don't care about the
sources and objectives of bad netiquette and even trollism, that's up
to them.

Best,

Bill

>
>
> On 27 Jun 2008, at 18:06, William Drake wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Jun 27, 2008 at 9:47 AM, Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>> now that Avri explained the problem to me, I support Avri's objection.
>>> Through the act of voting, people acknowledge the charter and agree to be
>>> members of this caucus - not the other way around.
>>
>> But we never vote.  So we have no idea which of the 360 list
>> subscribers are caucus members, which affects how one deals with
>> consensus building, troll disruptions, etc.
>>
>> BD
>> _
***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Director, Project on the Information
 Revolution and Global Governance/PSIO
 Graduate Institute for International Studies
 Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
http://tinyurl.com/38dcxf
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