[governance] Remote participation at Vilnius IGF 2010

Wed Sep 29 08:00:18 EDT 2010

Hi, just out of inquisitiveness, were any WebEx people available from
the company itself at the IGF meeting that may have seen this acid
test in action and observed the technical issues and problems so that
they could take that feedback to their company for improvements. These
one of those very few global examples for testing such a system and
improving it after such a large scale live test?

I also this to be one of the key evolutions in the field of remote
participation and the need to invest in one system by many parties. By
investment I mean the need to provide development,
technical/documentation and continued support to a Free and Open
Source Software based e-video conference system that can emerge to
support all such meetings world wide.

A single company never receives the commitment of volunteers and
developers around the world to mature into a globally usable product.
For example, VLC live stream was being test during the IGF open
consultations in June 2010 in Geneva from a group of European
volunteers that were also improving the system directly by
participating in its development and upon my discussion with them they
shared that they were contributing modules and testing issues of
latency etc.

This is a very important moment that some sort of effort be
established where the Internet Governance community can identify and
build upon and support one system that can then become a continued
practice so that maturity can be achieved.  to a greater extent.

-- 
Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa

On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 12:42 PM, Ginger Paque <gpaque at gmail.com> wrote:
> 'Having been the remote moderator of many sessions this year, I'm afraid
> that this is a little premature yet. I have encountered more than a fair
> share of technical problems, which I am planning on writing a report on, as
> a part of my ISOC Ambassador project.'
>
> Thanks for continuing the discussion. These ideas are indeed hypothetical
> future possibilities, not actual proposals for the next IGF.  Part of our
> discussions and strategy is envisioning future scenarios. Although, as you
> note, some meetings are already held with only a small in situ core, with
> most participants in their home offices, joining the discussion online, we
> do have to build a practical strategy for the IGF.
>
> We appreciate and will study your comments, and I invite you (Olivier) and
> others to continue the discussion here, or in the forum we will open online
> using the WS 126 transcript as a foundation. I will post a link here as soon
> as the transcript is uploaded to the DISCUSS site. I hope you will send the
> Remote Participation Working Group (and me) a copy of your report.
>
> Thanks! Best, Ginger
>
>
> Ginger (Virginia) Paque
> IGCBP Online Coordinator
> DiploFoundation
> www.diplomacy.edu/ig
>
> The latest from Diplo...
> http://DISCUSS.diplomacy.edu is a space for discussing ideas and concepts
> from Diplo’s teaching and research activities. Our activities focus on three
> main areas: Internet governance, diplomacy, and global governance. In
> September, we DISCUSS: a) network neutrality: hype and reality, b) the IGF
> experience: what can policy makers learn from the IGF, and c) the history of
> the Internet. Let us know if you have suggestions about ideas and concepts
> that should be discussed.
> On 9/28/2010 8:46 AM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
>
> Dear Ginger,
>
> thank you for your message regarding remote participation at the IGF Vilnius
> 2010. It was indeed a great success, and thanks to all of the hard work by
> all concerned.
>
> In his recent reply to your message, Izumi Aizu made a particularly
> interesting suggestion:
>
>>How about, making things "upside-down"?
>>I mean at physical meeting of the IGF, how about making the
>>main speakers and participants all remote? So far, the remote
>>participation and participants are regarded as supplementary,
>>but not given a front-seat status. But think of online chat or
>>conference call where no one is physically present and taking
>>floors as main participants. Everyone is remote. At IGF, we can
>>have the physical participants there, but making most speakers
>>and interactions online, webcast, chat etc.
>
> Having been the remote moderator of many sessions this year, I'm afraid that
> this is a little premature yet. I have encountered more than a fair share of
> technical problems, which I am planning on writing a report on, as a part of
> my ISOC Ambassador project.
>
> In short, I believe that the technology is not mature enough yet. The
> difficulty does not stem from a single system; it is the inter-connection of
> the variety of technologies used, which hinders a smooth flow of
> information.
> Conducting work in a timely manner using 100% teleconferencing and a virtual
> room has been demonstrated on many an occasion at ICANN. I recently found
> out in two large working teams, the "Special Trademark Issues team", and the
> "Community Working Group on New gTLD Rec-6", that, provided with an
> excellent and experienced leadership (Dave Maher for the first group, and
> Chuck Gomez for the second), it is possible to work on some of the most
> controversial subject and reach consensus, even without a face to face
> meeting.
>
> However, the moment you introduce a segment of the conference participants
> to attend physically, serious technical problems hinder progress.
>
> The first problem is that of the reliability of the Internet connection. In
> my interactions, I noticed remote participants and hubs timing out due to
> network problems somewhere along the line. Text chatting is usually most
> resilient to this, because it does not require much bandwidth, but in order
> to fully engage remote participants in discussions, you need to give them
> the ability to speak, rather than only type.
>
> And this is where the main problem lies: the interfacing of many different
> systems (a public address system in the physical location, a Webex session,
> a telephone bridge etc.), you end up with problems like feedback loops,
> distorsion, unaudible speech and seriously distorted speech which breaks the
> concentration of participants and hinders their ability to devote 100% of
> their mind to elaborate a constructive argument.
> Public address systems are designed to automatically suppress instantaneous
> feedback, either by digital or analogue analysis of the speech. Webex
> performs the same thing too. Ditto for telephone bridges. But when you
> interface all three, unquantified delays outside the tolerance of these
> suppression systems start appearing, and you end up with loops - sometimes
> several seconds long. The equipment used to broadcast the sessions
> automatically introduces delays. In some sessions, for example, we ended up
> with infinite echoes, sometimes 6 seconds long - and a dialogue with a
> remote participant became confusing - bordering on the impossible. We tried
> so many different ways to remove this, and it appeared to be impossible with
> the current set-up.
>
> A lot of work and testing will therefore need to be done, if we ultimately
> wish to make things "upside down". The fact that we're already engaged in
> testing this, is very good news indeed, but I don't think that we're there
> yet.
>
> Finally, let me also mention that the IETF's "VMEET" group is also looking
> at this problematic. Like many other organisations relying on a
> multi-stakeholder input, the subject of remote public participation has been
> a concern for some time. Thomas Narten has drafted an interesting Internet
> Draft document (sadly now expired, so I encourage Thomas to follow-up on
> this), which can still be found on:
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-narten-ietf-remote-participation
>
> In some way, the IGF's remote participation this year appears to have
> surpassed this stage already, and has been the first wide scale, global
> experiment of such kind. I really hope that this will encourage everyone to
> continue testing new technologies. I hope it will encourage remote
> conferencing software manufacturers, and not only Webex, to capitalise on
> this experience and improve their products. You and your team have reached
> "proof of concept". Let's hope, for the sake of the millions of people out
> there who would like to participate, and not only for the lucky few of us
> who are funded to attend physically, that in some years to come, technology
> will allow us to participate fully from the four corners of our planet.
>
> Last but not least, I hope that there will be cross-linking of knowledge and
> experience in this area, whether ISOC, IETF, IGF or ICANN... or any other
> group for that matter. We, the privileged few, have a duty to work overtime
> to promote this digital inclusion. Without it, we're just a déjà-vu
> pot-pourri of "The usual suspects".
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
>
> Le 25/09/2010 12:56, Ginger Paque a écrit :
>
> Remote participation at the IGF Vilnius 2010 raised the bar for remote
> participation in international public policy meetings. Not in sheer volume,
> although 600+ individuals is a good number, but in actual inclusion and
> participation, with 33 registered remote hubs and dozens of remote
> panelists, this IGF was indeed a global success. While there was successful
> remote observation with excellent webcast, audiocast and captioning, there
> was also the possibility of real remote participation for those who wanted
> to comment, ask questions and respond, with the same privileges and
> priorities as those who attended in person.
>
> The next step will be to ensure that remote participants take advantage of
> this possibility, and that remote moderators learn to transmit the interest
> and personal power of the comments so that their impact is tangibly felt in
> the meeting room.
>
> An interesting (unforeseen) development was chat exchanges between remote
> hubs on the WebEx platform, as remote hubs gave feedback to presentations or
> comments by other remote hubs.
>
> Pre-IGF preparations were better than ever, with strategy, planning,
> training and information from the first 2010 OC in Geneva.
>
> I would like to thank the volunteer remote moderators from the panels,
> DiploFoundation fellows and the ISOC ambassadors program for their
> engagement and precious time and energy; the Lithuania host for their
> support and their tech teams; the IGF Secretariat for their support and
> follow-up, DiploFoundation for constant backup, and my fellow RPWG members
> for their year-round worry, work and dynamic involvement.
>
> Thanks to all of the hub organizers for their work to include people from
> all over the world in this meeting too.
>
> The RPWG will publish a report later this year. We look forward to your
> comments and suggestions.
>
> Warm regards,
> Ginger
> --
>
> --
> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
> http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
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