Remote participation plans Re: [OCDC] Re: [governance] Do we

[Milton L Mueller]

Ken, Ginger, Jeremy:
This is an important discussion. I think by emphasizing the lack of
participation under existing mechanisms, Ken may be missing the main
point that Jeremy and Ginger are making with respect to online
participation in IGF. The primary issue is the development of an ongoing
virtual community, and the opening up of the Secretariat in ways that
sustain, grow, and feed upon that community. 

Remote participation in the physical forum is, at least to me, a
significant but secondary issue, because the meeting is, after all, a
physical meeting, and it is almost impossible for non-physical
participants to have anything but secondary or even marginal status in
those events. 

Of  much greater concern is the cool or uncomprehending reception
afforded Jeremy's call for "a new platform ... which allows
administration and editing functions to be distributed between the
Secretariat and volunteers from the stakeholder groups, who may be
delegated responsibility for maintaining particular functions or
resources..." There is a burgeoning literature on how open,
peer-production processes can sustain organizations, and while the
application of these ideas to IGF would not be simple, it is a challenge
that should be embraced if the Forum wants to realize its promise of
innovative governance.

I don't think it would be controversial or out of place to say that the
IGF website could hardly get any worse than it is now, so I am not sure
what values are threatened by accepting some innovation along those
lines, or what values are preserved by sticking with the status quo. 

Milton Mueller
Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
------------------------------
Internet Governance Project:
http://internetgovernance.org
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Lohento [mailto:klohento at panos-ao.org] 
> Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 8:47 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: Remote participation plans Re: [OCDC] Re: 
> [governance] Do we
> 
> 
> > And yet, as I pointed out in Rio, there were 325 messages 
> on Slashdot 
> > about the IGF in the space of a day.  So it's not that 
> people aren't 
> > interested in contributing, it's that:
> >
> Certainly it might (also?) be because Slashdot has already 
> (before the 
> IGF) a community of people who use to exchange/community. IGF and 
> discussions about IGF was/is new. However it would be interesting to 
> analyse what those who exchanged on Slashdot discussed.
> 
> > (a) the forms in which their input is taken are too limited 
> (eg. new 
> > main topics cannot be created in the IGF's Discussion Space, and 
> > emails usually disappear into a black hole);
> 
> I really think most, if not all, emails that were sent to email 
> addresses provided for IGF 1 and 2 were processed and some people did 
> have their comments read in public.
> 
> > (b) they do not feel that their input is valued (eg. I was 
> told, "We 
> > did not put your submission up initially because we thought 
> the speed 
> > dialogue issue was already extensively covered in the paper you 
> > submitted for the second IGF. Moreover, it has been 
> addressed during 
> > the open consultation in May"); 
> 
> 
> Yes this might happen unfortunately. Even not all those who attend 
> physically sessions and want the floor are given the 
> opportunity to talk 
> (maybe because what they want to say was already discussed or 
> for other 
> reasons). We can insist that greater consideration is paid to remote 
> participants inputs so that they contributions are 
> communicated to the 
> public, in order to encourage those contributions.
> 
> However, what really appears very clearly for people who 
> monitored the 
> email accounts is that facility is not really used. Maybe 
> people don't 
> trust that facility as you said, but it's an adequate 
> facility for most 
> people and so far people have been very inclined to 
> adequately process 
> contributions sent. The reality is that mails (apart from 
> spams) are so 
> rare in these accounts that when you see them, you are very happy and 
> convey them to the session chair.
> 
> KL
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