[governance] Remote participation at Vilnius IGF 2010

Wed Sep 29 08:28:44 EDT 2010

Olivier's well documented challenges here are quite real.

Not wanting to simplify the problem too much ... but it might be useful to
break this down to its most fundamental. To me, from both a technical and
business view, it appears to be a matter of perspective and priority.

For this to really work and for the technicians to fully "get" what the
objectives are, each IGF Workshop or Event should, in fact,
be philosophically treated as an old school "Webinar", in a manner of
speaking, as opposed to a dealing with it as an in situ event/workshop with
Remote Participants being seen as the "outsiders".

I expect that if we adopt this perspective then the most basic issues of how
to best wire the PA systems, how remote participants engage with the Event
as equals (for eg. simple things as whether the presentation being viewed in
situ is the identical to and moves at the same speed as the one in the
possession of the Remote Moderation "hat") will actually be resolved
relatively easily ... putting the more logistical issues of bandwidth,
delays, acoustics etc. aside for the moment.

Of course, having the actual architects/engineers of the Remote
Participation technology engaged at all stages (including in situ) will also
be more than useful.

Best,

Tracy

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 9:16 AM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>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, PhDhttp://www.gih.com/ocl.html
>
>
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