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

[michael gurstein]

Thanks for the below Avri, and the reason I was so persistent in this was because while you and others have been equally persistent in promoting the IETF as a model for `policy making`, from my experience with policy making processes in governments and elsewhere, the specifics of the IETF process, at least as you (and the other folks) have described them have seemed to me to be quite unworkable in practice (a discussion at a theoretical level is another story...

As for the NTIA example you point to below, I would very much like a reference (I`ll check it out on the web in any case), but I`m sure we will both agree that what you have described as the IETF process (as I quote below) goes rather beyond a simple `multistakeholder process` which of course could take many different forms and is not unknown currently in many jurisdictions.  

However, I am aware of no jurisdiction which comes anywhere close to implementing the ``IETF practice of taking three steps before deeming something a standard is part of their accountability story. First they code and prove that something works before making it a proposed standard, then they test in the real world on the real Internet and fix it and call it a draft standard, and only when it becomes fully functional and mainstream in the world does it become a full standard.`` ignoring as this approach seems to do, the very extensive negotiation, politiking, lobbying, constituency consulting that goes on in the first phase then suggesting that something could be put into practice as a policy in the real world and if it didn`t work it could be summarily withdrawn (really--and what about the folks who suffered as a result of the half formed policy, and had their lawyers at the ready or who benefited outrageously and inappropriately by an ill-conceived policy--would the government be able to say whoops sorry we made a mistake we want our (or rather the taxpayers) money back; or those who adapted their practices, policies, programmes based on the policy only to find the government or whoever saying whoops sorry that one didn`t work let`s try another one; and so on and so on.

Governments have enough problems formulating and implementing policy so as to accomplish what they are attempting to accomplish without subjecting the public to half baked ideas as a matter of principle.

Quite honestly I can`t imagine how what you are suggesting would work in the real (non-technical) world, which is the reason I was so interested in how you envisaged this being actually practically implemented in an existing world of governmental or more specifically inter-governmental (or inter-governmental/multistakeholder) policy making.

Best,

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 9:46 PM
To: IGC
Subject: Re: IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)


Dear Michael,

Well, I normally don't take homework assignments form people on the IGC list.  This thought experiment of your sounds like a lovely exercise, but one that I have not had time to tackle.  

It would also be a work of fiction.  The way a multistakeholder participatory democratic process works is that many people with may different points of view (e.g a working group) work together to understand the problem, discover and suggest possible solutions (perhaps they write a multitude of documents offering possible solutions), test those idea in a variety of ways (including thought experiments an limited on the ground live test if you insist), discuss those issues with their affinity  groups (could be fellow stakeholders, the league of gay voters, or the corporate team), and then return to work together through a set of recurring processes to come out with a solution that has rough consensus that can be commented on, reworked and then tested in some subset problem.   

In fact, having written that it occurs to me that NTIA is actually working on a Multistakeholder Process To Develop Consumer Data Privacy Codes of 
Conduct.  Perhaps reviewing their work would be a good enough thought experiment for you.  It is really quite a piece of of work and an interesting process proposal - which although I am not sure I buy into 100% (surprise surprise), I am impressed by.  Also I would not root an international process in an IGO, but rather in the IGF.  But hopefully you get the gist.

But asking a single person to spin a yarn about how this might work out in the end, is just asking them to build a straw house you can huff and puff and blow down.  A wonderful rhetorical device but hardly helpful in the current circumstance.

As for the wikipedia article you point to, it seems to agree in a large way with what i had to say: "is a concept in ethics and governance with several meanings.", "As a term related to governance, accountability has been difficult to define"  Thank you and wikipedia for the backup, i guess my periodic contribution to the Wikimedia Foundation paid off once again.

It also says: "Accountability cannot exist without proper accounting practices; in other words, an absence of accounting means an absence of accountability." In this case you are talking about financial corruption.  Sure people everywhere who handle other people's money are accountable, including in IETF.  Is that what we are talking about?

It ends with "Frankl stated: "Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness."  And that, much more clearly said is my point accountability in in the responsibility we take for what we do.  And the watchdog is the only possible watchdog, the users of the Internet.  If it stops working those who work on the technology and the IETF will hear about it and have to take responsibility for fixing whatever it is that broke.

avri


On 24 May 2012, at 23:51, michael gurstein wrote:

> Avri,
> 
> I`m not sure why this below wouldn`t be a reasonable place to start in 
> defining ``accountabiliy`` ... perhaps not as colourful or as 
> tendentious as yours but not unreasonable I think...
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountability
> 
> 
> And
> 
> In my earlier note which you don`t seem to want to address I asked you 
> to conduct a thought experiment for us where you would take an issue 
> of interest from an EC perspective -- say Net Neutrality -- and work 
> through how you would actually implement an IETF approach in practice 
> for a specific policy issue in a real world environment.  Having 
> worked in and with various governments at various levels (including a 
> major stint at UNHQ working on one of the innumerable UN Reform 
> exercises) I`m very curious to see how you would suggest actually 
> doing as you are suggesting be done...
> 
> If accountability means taking responsibility for what has been done, 
> I think that the IETF practice of taking three steps before deeming 
> something a standard is part of their accountability story.  First 
> they code and prove that something works before making it a proposed 
> standard, then they test in the real world on the real Internet and 
> fix it and call it a draft standard, and only when it becomes fully 
> functional and mainstream in the world does it become a full standard.  
> There are only 66 or so full standards.  They stand by their work, 
> publish fixes, take responsibility for problems that occur in the 
> network with their standards, improve, republish and monitor.  They 
> take responsibly in a very public way, certainly  large part of 
> accountability.  If their stuff was not worth using, now one would use 
> it and we would have a world full of 7 layer OSI protocol based 
> equipment.
> 
> Tks,
>  
> M
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org 
> [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
> Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:25 PM
> To: IGC
> Subject: Re: IETF WAS Re: [governance] Enhanced Cooperation (was Re: reality check on economics)
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The issue of accountability is a complicated one and I do not expect 
> to get too far on one message.
> 
> First accountability has more definitions that I know how to handle.  
> In fact, in general more than anyone seems to handle real well.
> 
> When you say accountability, are you looking for liability?  Are you 
> looking for whom to blame? Whom to fire? Whom to imprison? Whom to 
> defeat in the next election? Whom not to trust anymore?
> 
> Are you looking for people to take responsibility for their actions?  
> For organizations to take responsibility for their actions?
> 
> What does accountability mean to you and how do you want to enforce 
> it?
> 
> While accountability is always important in governance, it is a word 
> people use without really defining it. Or having much to a way to 
> enforce it. A few years ago the favorite stumper questions was "does 
> it scale", these days its "who is accountable"  It is a question that 
> is stumping the world as far as I can tell.
> 
> Who is accountable for all of the world's starvations, the death from 
> was or the spread of diseases that should have been curtailed by now.  
> And how do we hold them accountable?  Anyone answer these critical 
> questions for me in an email?
> 
> In government, we think that accountability means voting out of office 
> and maybe ending up in jail for corruption if we are lucky.  Yet that 
> happen rarely for the thing politicians do wrong and usually only 
> happens when they do something stupid or their opponents have lots and 
> lots of money for propaganda.  And when it comes to the bureaucrats 
> that run our governments and the international governance 
> organizations it is only in rare cases of malfeasance, or perhaps 
> lying on their resumes that they become accountable to anyone other 
> than the boss they have to please.
> 
> No, you should not be happy about the slow rate of decline of the 
> Indian maternal mortality.  I don't remember even saying you should be 
> happy with the failure of a system.  I would be curious as to how you 
> hold them accountable.  Please tell me what works for this?  Tell how 
> you would want it work.  how do you want to hold people accountable? 
> Fire them? Imprison them?  I suppose you can protest and be activist 
> and things may improve., a lot of people cetainly do stand and shout 
> and try to make people take responsibility.  And sometime it works.
> 
> In terms of Standard Development Organizations, if their standards no 
> longer contributed to a growing, stable Internet, people would not use 
> those standards.  Unfortunately when the government tells you what 
> standards you must use, you have not choice of walking away and 
> finding another set of standards. How can you argue for government 
> mandated standards, when you know they don't work and that there is no 
> way, other than being sad, that you can react to them.
> 
> Sometime with IETF standards, I think that we are seeing 
> accountability in action these days with IPv6.  They did not follow 
> their own practices and produced something that users don"t seem to 
> have a real use for and are having to pull teeth to get it to really 
> happen this time.  This is accountability, or perhaps it is just 
> karma.
> 
> If accountability means taking responsibility for what has been done, 
> I think that the IETF practice of taking three steps before deeming 
> something a standard is part of their accountability story.  First 
> they code and prove that something works before making it a proposed 
> standard, then they test in the real world on the real Internet and 
> fix it and call it a draft standard, and only when it becomes fully 
> functional and mainstream in the world does it become a full standard.  
> There are only 66 or so full standards.  They stand by their work, 
> publish fixes, take responsibility for problems that occur in the 
> network with their standards, improve, republish and monitor.  They 
> take responsibly in a very public way, certainly  large part of 
> accountability.  If their stuff was not worth using, now one would use 
> it and we would have a world full of 7 layer OSI protocol based 
> equipment.
> 
> Tell me, other than oversight by government bureaucrats who really are 
> responsible to no one except perhaps their bureaucracy, what else do 
> you want from them in terms of accountability? Please be specific.
> 
> As for the IGC nomcom person you consider incompetent a slacker or 
> downright irresponsible, don't ever appoint them as coordinator of the 
> IGC or for any other office anywhere.  A lot of individual 
> accountability, when it is not criminal or civilly liable, is found in 
> our reputations.  People who do not work hard and do not do their best 
> for the organizations that appoint or elected them, get bad 
> reputations.  In corrupt system, like many governments this won't 
> matter for in these systems all that matters is that one butter the 
> right person's bread.  In stakeholder organizations like the IGC, or 
> multistakeholder organizations like the IETF, reputation is a lot of 
> what matters.
> 
> avri
> 
> On 24 May 2012, at 21:26, Guru गुरु wrote:
> 
> >
> > On Friday 25 May 2012 04:00 AM, Avri Doria wrote:
> >>
> >> On 24 May 2012, at 17:42, Ian Peter wrote:
> >>
> >>> 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
> >>>
> >>>     • 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, it’s 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.
> >> People do not need to be members of something to participate. The 
> >> leadership is accountable to the participants
> >>
> >> I have been a participant since the late 80's, sometime just via 
> >> email and sometimes with the ability to attend the meetings.  I 
> >> have always felt that the requirement of stewardship for the Internet was the most serious thing the IETF did.  And they are most definitely accountable to the world for the fact that the Internet continues to grow and thrive, despite all the barriers that need to be routed around.
> > This is a very inadequate, and may i say, a poor measure of 
> > accountability.
> >
> > The maternal mortality rate in India has been declining over last 
> > six decades, does this mean I can feel happy about the performance 
> > of the Indian public health system?? (India has one of the highest 
> > mmr in the world even today and several deaths are 
> > avoidable/inexcusable).
> >
> > Accountability is a critical necessity for any system which impacts 
> > the public ... and as the Interent has deeper, wider impact on our 
> > lives in numerous ways, we need governance structures that are 
> > transparent, accountable and support wide participation (not just 
> > who can afford to be there) ... and if we agree democracy is the 
> > best way to go about this, ask ourselves how we can make the current 
> > IG more democratic.
> >
> >> As for the IGC, which is indeed modeled on the IETF process, we 
> >> require that people be members.  I am not going to accuse any of 
> >> our members, especially those who pay enough attention to volunteer 
> >> when asked, of not participating in a meaningful way.
> >>
> > Avri,
> >
> > The issue is not of 'accusing members'.... the issue is - if members 
> > who voluntarily pick up a responsibility do not then actually put in 
> > the required effort (and having been in Nomcoms, I agree with Ian 
> > that there are serious participation issues), then who pays the 
> > price??? does IGC not get the best selection of nominees after 
> > required deliberations because of this. And what is the 
> > accountability process
> > - of the person to nomcom, of nomcom to igc, and of igc to IG....?
> > Processes with such poor accountability make me very uncomfortable...
> >
> > The larger question to ponder therefore is - Who pays the price for 
> > the current IG regimes and lack of its accountability to the "global 
> > society"? Conversely, who does it benefit disproportionately?
> >
> > Andrea also more than once raised this issue of accountability for 
> > decisions taken... I look forward to your response to him and to 
> > Mike Gurstein's specific questions as well...
> >
> > thanks and regards,
> > Guru ____________________________________________________________
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