IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)

Ian Peter ian.peter at ianpeter.com
Thu May 24 17:42:29 EDT 2012 

When looking at IETF its probably also worth looking at some of its more
eccentric processes and structures and determining whether these have
ongoing value and/or scaleability. These would include

1. Lack of any formal membership structure (anyone can participate). This
also leads to accountability issues ­ wheras governments are accountable to
their citizens, and companies to their shareholders, it¹s not clear who IETF
is accountable to seeing it has no formal membership structure. Tnis lack of
accountability also leads to no formal review or performance evaluation
processes ­ which in turn can lead to other problems.
2. The unusual Irish lottery Nomcom selection process (copied to IGF from
IETF). This egalitarian process allows the Irish lottery to choose those who
choose our representatives. In the IGF experience, it has thrown up a
Jeffrey Williams to a Nomcom and more than one Nomcom where the majority of
members selected by the lottery did not participate meaningfully. I don¹t¹
know whether IETF has had any similar issues but this is another aspect I
would deal with with caution in any other organisation. I hope my country
never adopts it for selecting high court judges....
3. The RFC (Request for Comments) process. This to my knowledge is an IETF
invention, and my preliminary evaluation is that it is a good one and
perhaps scaleable to other organisations and structures. It provides a semi
formal process for evaluation of ideas and determining which are worth
pursuing.  Everyone can throw up ideas for consideration. Probably a bit
better than the suggestion box and probably useful in quite a few
organisational settings. Worth looking at anyway.

I am sure there are other operational aspects worth looking at and I am sure
we can learn from some of them. I am equally sure that there are others
which are past their use-by date.

Ian Peter

From: Andrea Glorioso <andrea at digitalpolicy.it>
Reply-To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Andrea Glorioso
<andrea at digitalpolicy.it>
Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 09:43:40 +0200
To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Avri Doria <avri at ella.com>
Subject: Re: IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality
check on economics)

Dear Avri, dear all,

On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 6:11 PM, Avri Doria <avri at ella.com> wrote:
> 
> On 23 May 2012, at 11:13, Andrea Glorioso wrote:
> 
> I found your example-ad-absurdum with acronyms to be LOL though not quite
> ROTFL.

Well, asking a eurocrat to be entertaining is a bit like asking pigs to
fly.. I do what I can. :)
 
> I think that finding reasonable ways, perhaps metrics, of analyzing the
> usefulness of a particular MPD model for a particular purpose is indeed a good
> task.  In looking at organization, and in terms of analyzing them, I know that
> I naturally apply several criteria in deciding whether various aspects of a
> model can be reasonably applied to a solution in another problem space.  This
> is, in fact a very similar process I use to decide whether a protocol can be
> repurposed* or whether components of that protocol can be 'borrowed'.
> 
> So for the IETF, I think the exercise would involve breaking down the IETF
> into some of its component parts, e.g. rough consensus, working groups,
> standard development process, types of appeal mechanism, leadership
> progression, capacity building mechanisms, methods of picking leaders and
> their term limits, forms of communication, relationship of leadership to the
> body politic  etc...  Some of these are more effective than others and some of
> these are mechanisms are useful in other organizations.  I don't think any
> thinks that the IETF, or any other organization, is the one size fits all
> pattern for all other organizations, it is just that in creating other forms
> of MPD I think it offers some good clue.
> 
> The exercise might also include a look at the mission, (In the IETF case part
> of which in my own words) is to act as  a steward to the internet by designing
> and maintaining protocols that allow the Internet to continue to grow
> according to the Internet's generative nature, and the degree to which it
> meets that mission.  Has the IETF succeeded in producing and maintaing
> protocols that have allowed the internet to thrive and grow?  Is there perhaps
> another model we can compare its success to:  how does it compare to the ITU,
> W3C, IEEE, ETSI ... and others (in some cases perhaps better/worse than
> others).  We can apply this same type of analysis to any organization from the
> EC to the local rugby or knitting society)
 
The list of critera you enumerate are certainly a good start and perhaps
someone more knowledgeable than me could borrow further insights from
political economy, institutional studies and/or business studies, which
focus a lot on the nature of organisations, what makes them "succesful",
etc. The works of Milton Mueller and Laura DeNardis is also a good reference
in my view.

I have already raised a number of questions on "rought consensus" in my
reply to Norbert Bollow. Speaking of whom, I know Norbert has been leading a
very interesting exercise on mapping the IG space in terms of organisations
etc. I admit I still have to go through the interim results of this effort,
but I wonder whether the IGC could not come up/propose some metrics/criteria
at least to "categorise" ("evaluate" is a much more complex process) IG
organisations. Perhaps this work could be based on the seminal mapping
already performed by the APC.

One drawback I find in your draft proposal, Avri, is that you seem to focus
on standards-setting organisations. On the other hand, my interest - and I
would argue, that of a number of colleagues in public service - is the
extent to which the characteristics/methods of Internet-focused
standards-setting organisations, such as W3C and IETF, can be extended to
other areas of life and political activity. This seemed to me to be the
proposition of at least Norbert Bollow.

> As for the degree for how objective these metrics can be, that would probably
> involve another spirited discussion on the epistemological balance between
> subjectivity and objectivity or human psychological ability to distinguish
> between the two. I would also bring us into discussion of well formed theories
> of  evidence, both anecdotal and statistical.
> 
> But I have some work I really should do.

I am in the position - not sure whether it's fortunate or not - that this
kind of discussions are exactly (part of) my job at the European Commission.
So, even if I speak on this list purely on a personal basis (unless I say
otherwise by prefixing emails with the golden seal of the European
Commission) I will certainly be more than interested in continuing this
exchange.

Cheers,

--
I speak only for myself. Sometimes I do not even agree with myself. Keep it
in mind.
Twitter: @andreaglorioso
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrea.glorioso
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=1749288&trk=tab_pro


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