[governance] My blog on the Tuesday consultation

[Lee W McKnight]

Raul,

It may be helpful to observe the facts that sparked this conversation.

Namely, from the record of written statements and interventions in this open discussion, as well as Milton's subjective veew as reported in his blog, it appears/looks like ITAA & ISOC & ICC & USG  (& ETNO?) coordinated to try to stifle 'debate' at IGF III.

At IGF, not in their own fora. 

Or should I say excuse me, because I should have said they tried to promote 'dialogue' and education instead of debate?

This is not a knock on IETF or LACNIC or anyone else including USG, it is just an observation of what looks like a coordinated effort to limit 'debate' at IGF. In which technical community representatives were one but not the only players trying this tactic.

So the question perhaps should be more nuanced, why is debate a good thing in some fora but not in IGF? 

Frankly it is frustrating to me that folks representing a few of the various stakeholder 'technical' communities at the global level still try to pull this silliness in 2008. 

For example, I believe many would agree that perhaps the best shot at sorting through the complexities and inter-dependencies to really make the IPv4  to v6 transition happen, if it ever will, is multistakeholder debate and discussion - including at IGF. Since if IPv4 to v6 was just a technical issue for the technical community to handle itself we might guess it would have been done long ago. 

So in my opinion the odds are the very best shot at sorting out the holdups is a very lively debate or 2 or 3, at IGF.  A technical lecture educating the policy masses on how the bits line up would be a waste of time and space at a policy/governance form. As an example of why 'debate' at IGF is a good thing, and not something to be feared. Remember IGF can't make anyone do anything, so I really don;t see what people are afraid of.  

Lee


-----Original Message-----
From: raul at lacnic.net [mailto:raul at lacnic.net]
Sent: Thu 9/18/2008 3:45 PM
To: Jeanette Hofmann
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] My blog on the Tuesday consultation
 
> Hi Raul,
> I guess there are a few misunderstandings...
>
> Raul Echeberria wrote:
>> Jeanette:
>>
>> i completely disagree with your assertion and I have to confess that I
>> am very surprised to see you saying that.
>> The Technical community doesn't exist in the sense that you try to
>> describe. There are not a lot of closed and secret lists
>
> I didn't speak of closed or secret lists. I am subscribed to several
> technical lists myself.

It is implied in what you said. You say that technical community members
among themselves speak in some way and in a different way when speak with
other people. It implieas a vision according which technical community
people only speak for technical community in their lists, and it is not
true since all the forums are open and transparents.

the controversies, debates, discussions and different view expressed,
simply could not be hidden.

..........

>
>> It is also very unfair what you said regarding the "educational"
>> attitude.
>
> Milton referred to the discussion we had about the structure and
> direction of the main session on IPv4/IPv6 at the next IGF meeting. It
> wasn't easy to come to an agreement. Different ideas about the focus and
> the purpose of the session played a role here, as you know.

It was not so difficult. It was the first Main session Workshop in being
ready and perhaps we should think that the different ideas expressed are
based in legitimate different views that anybody involved in that
discussion  had. I think that there was good faith in frank and open
discussion. Is it bad?

>
> You have had a lot of opporuntities to partcipate in deep
>> frank and open discussions with many "technical community" people.
>
> Yes, this is true. And I wouldn't say that all engineers hide
> controversies. Yet, without wanting to be unfair, it is still true that
> I am puzzled by the differences of the ways issues are presented within
> engineering communities and outside of it.

Different forums have different characteristics and some things that are
proposed in the IGF for example are not proposed in other given forums and
viceversa.
Speaking about the small part of the techical community world that
corresponds to LACNIC, we spent a lot of energies and resources in
engaging other stakeholders in the discussions with big success
fortunately trying to be everytime more open and have more participation
(using always a single speech, not changing it according our convenience).
Many people in this list is witness of that.
And without trying to speak on behalf of others, I know that this is not
that only LACNIC does.

So, it is very frustrating for me when I see the way in which you describe
the behavior of the technical community because some people that read that
and ignore how do we work and the efforts we make, can get a very wrong
impression.


Raùl


____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20080918/5e164583/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance