[governance] Do we need a MAG?

[George Sadowsky]

The OCDC need not have been reduced to a shell.  There were competent 
people working and starting to do things that could have been useful. 
Kieren's group was really starting to make progress  I don't know 
what happened to stop it.

AFAIK the MAG Secretariat does not have the power, or would want to, 
weaken of harm an operational dynamic community.  I think that 
blaming them for any lack of progress of the OCDC is wrong.   If a 
group of people really decide to do something useful together and 
stay with the task, there is little to stop them.

I don't think that the lack of money is an issue; it can't be blamed 
on someone else giving money to the effort.  There are enormous 
numbers of projects in the world done by volunteers, many in ICT and 
in the Internet community, either on their own time or under a 
liberal interpretation of the goals of their day jobs.  In fact, I 
think that the majority of this people on this list have paying day 
jobs in "the civil society sector" (if I can call it that) and might 
be willing to contribute to group efforts such as the OCDC.  Surely 
such expenditures of time would be consistent with the mandates of 
their organizations, if not necessarily perfectly aligned.

So why doesn't that happen?  Perhaps these people don't see the value 
of of such a dynamic coalition, or perhaps they're just preoccupied 
with other things (i.e. other things have a higher priority).  Or 
perhaps they just can't seem to get organized in a cooperative 
manner.  Talking is always easier than doing.

George

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

At 10:57 AM +0800 5/28/08, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>On 28/05/2008, at 12:13 AM, George Sadowsky wrote:
>
>>I'm glad Adam raised this point.  There was a set of people, 
>>working in collaboration with Kieren and Avri and others (sorry, i 
>>don't remember the exact names), on tools for remote participation. 
>>we had identified tools, and had an implementation and testing 
>>plan, and then because of conflicts in a larger group, the entire 
>>effort was dropped.
>>
>>The group continued under jeremy's leadership.  Jeremy, what has 
>>happened to that dynamic coalition?  Have you made any progress?  
>>The goal is an important one.
>
>I had written a reply before seeing Ginger's, which is a good 
>summary so I'll start again and limit myself to a few additional 
>points.
>
>First, she is spot on in her remarks that efforts on this front are 
>fragmented and that the Secretariat has declined to usefully 
>participate in them.  I think this bears out my comments to Adam in 
>my last mail.  I had previously sought to have Ginger's group and 
>the OCDC merge, which seemed the only sensible course to me, but 
>there was resistance to this suggestion so I dropped it.
>
>There is actually little to report from the OCDC; I think it's fair 
>to say that it has been reduced to a shell waiting for other people 
>to step up and contribute.  To be frank, when Kieren and I led it, 
>90% of the work was done by two people, and since he left there's 
>been only me.  I've been disinclined to be very active myself due to 
>the personal attacks this draws (hello George).
>
>Having said that, there are a few ongoing avenues of work that don't 
>overlap with what Ginger's group is doing (others that did overlap, 
>eg. discussions with the Indian hosts, have been dropped).  The most 
>significant of these is that a tender has been delivered to ECOSOC 
>for the development of a portal for online communities for the WSIS 
>follow-up process that could also be used by the IGF.
>
>The most important thing about this initiative is that it would be 
>*funded*.  Given that the IGF Secretariat will not fund 
>community-developed online resources for the IGF, and that volunteer 
>resources are limited, this is a vital factor.  ECOSOC planned to 
>have made a decision by May, but due to internal factors this has 
>been pushed back, and I'm not sure when it will now happen.
>
>--
>Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
>Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
>host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'
>
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