[governance] Nomcom and conflict of interest

[George Sadowsky]

Adam,

There is a loose group of people involved in the Internet who discuss 
matters of Internet governance from time to time via e-mail and 
teleconferences.  Those of us who are attend MAG meetings are a part 
of that group.

However, with regard to any formal caucusing and submitting joint 
nominations, I am not certain that it is happening.  As you know, the 
technical community consists of a lot of individuals who are involved 
with various organizations. Some of those organizations manage 
critical Internet  resources; others do not.

As has been mentioned on the list by someone recently (Suresh? McTim? 
Karl?), the Internet technical community is not and does not see 
itself as a coherent, homogeneous body, except insofar as they have 
and share various aspects of the technical knowledge to assist in the 
Internet's proper functioning through their various professional 
roles.

If there is any group that represents the Internet community, it's 
the IETF, and then I doubt that it would claim to do so, with the 
possible exception of  matters of technical protocols.   To 
illustrate the looseness of the structure, the IETF is not even an 
organization in any formal sense; it haws no status as a legal 
entity.  Beyond that, I don't think any group claims to represent the 
Internet community in any formal sense.

No doubt there are people involved in the Internet who are 
recommending names to the IGF Secretariat for MAG slots, as well as 
for IGF speakers and possibly for other roles also.  But AFAIK there 
is not a concerted attempt to caucus together to try to select a 
slate for the MAG.

The technical community does something else that I think is much 
better.  All of the core organizations in that community have open 
meetings that anyone can attend.  Markus has participated in quite a 
few of those meetings, so he can observe certain of its organizations 
in action, thereby informing himself better of the structure of at 
least a part of that community, the actors who operate within it, and 
what and how well they do.  Through this process, Markus is better 
able to make informed judgements regarding the kind of persons, and 
perhaps some of the persons themselves, who would be effective 
members of that community to participate in the MAG.

I have generally found that the best predictor of what an individual 
will do in the future is to look at what that individual has done in 
the past.   By making the activities, processes, goals, and problems 
of Internet institutions open to Markus (and BTW to anyone else who 
wants to participate), I believe that he is better enabled to make 
good choices for the MAG.

I think I've captured reasonably well what we are doing, and I' like 
my colleagues to weigh in if they feel I have missed, misstated or 
overstated anything.

If you think this isn't transparent, then the way to fix it is to 
have the Secretariat publish a list of all names submitted, since 
other groups and individuals are also submitting names.

I would advise against this.  Rather, I feel that the caucus' 
methodology in choosing names to submit exhibits enormous overkill 
and is an attempt to be incredibly pure and correct (and time 
consuming) in the process.  Does the result really justify it?  The 
Secretariat is going to make the final choice anyway; isn't it better 
just to take actions that enable it to do a competent and informed 
job -- assuming that one trusts it to do so?

George

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 8:54 PM +0530 5/27/08, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
>  > George, McTim, Suresh: you've made a fuss over CS
>>  process (I think wrongly, it was consistent with
>>  discussion on the list that informed the nomcom),
>>  could you tell us about the tech community's
>>  process.  Please.
>
>If you can tell me just where the technical community is caucusing and
>submitting joint nominations that'd be an interesting thing. Looks like we
>have individuals standing .. and gaining nominations from people who have
>worked / interacted with them?
>
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