[governance] IGC statement REVISION 2.0: any further comments?

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Jeremy,

Le 15/01/2010 17:46, Jeremy Malcolm a écrit :
> *Submission of the IGC in taking stock of the Sharm el Sheikh meeting 
> of the IGF*
>
>
> We thank you for the opportunity to present you with these thoughts, 
> which reflect a "rough consensus" of our several hundred members from 
> civil society, with a wide spread of geographic and gender 
> representation.  We look forward to continuing to constructively 
> engage with and participate in the IGF over the course of its renewed 
> term.
>
> *About the IGC*
>
> The IGC is an association of individuals in civil society who are 
> actively engaged in internet governance and the IGF. Formed during the 
> lead up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), our 
> mission is to promote global public interest objectives in Internet 
> governance policy making. It now comprises more than 400 individual 
> subscribers to its mailing list, who have subscribed to its Charter. 
>  More about our coalition can be found at http://www.igcaucus.org 
> <http://www.igcaucus.org/>.
>
>

Thank you for writing this statement but I am really sorry - I 
*strongly* object to the statement as it is currently phrased.

Okay - I'm not sure whether I am "allowed" to be saying this, but whilst 
I think that your writing style and ability is impeccable, and whilst I 
agree with some of the points developed, I also need to point out that 
the statements which make up this submission are seriously misleading 
about the amount of support this statement has behind it.

In a previous message, you said:
"There were 36 responses to the survey; 26 full, and 10 partial (since 
no questions were compulsory).  This amounts to about a quarter of our 
membership, which isn't bad at all in my opinion. "

Am I correct to assume that the IGC statement is based on these responses?

In the IGC statement, you now mention "400 individuals" in mailing lists 
- so as far as I understand, you're got responses from less than 10% of 
the coalition's individuals.
You therefore *cannot* have sentences in the release saying:
"We thank you for the opportunity to present you with these thoughts, 
which reflect a "rough consensus" of our several hundred members from 
civil society" or comments such as: "it is widely accepted" or "Many 
also believe" because the opinions you are describing, are from an 
absolute minority of IGC members. Either that, or you should not use the 
figure of "400 individuals" in the statement and should mention 
somewhere that only 36 responses were received.

I'm sorry Jeremy, for having to write such an email. I am not 
criticising you in person: I think you did a great job of trying to pull 
some text together in such a short length of time, but I am concerned 
about the IGC's actual *legitimacy* in the face of such a statement. The 
fault for a "failure to have a consensus document written in time" falls 
onto our collective shoulders - and I will stand out there and say "yes 
I have failed to take the time to help this year, I am sorry, and I'll 
try to do better next time", and I hope that others will too. But in 
times of doubt, wisdom directs that strong statements are not made for 
the sake of making strong statements. If you are in doubt about what the 
IGC really wishes to say, then, please do not include ambiguities that 
make consensus appear where it is not, or crowds appear where there's 
just a handful of people.
A "strong" statement can just end up being a "wrong" statement, and 
that's not good for anybody.

Warmest regards,

-- 
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html

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