[governance] [bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants for nominations to Brazil meeting committees

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Fri Dec 27 03:54:18 EST 2013 

David, 

The sequence of activities as I understand them has been
1. the creation of the CS "coordinating committee"--which was drawn from
certain CS groupings but not others... I have two problems with this, first
that the Best Bits coordinating group, a founding member of the CS CC,
itself is self-selected without due procedures or transparency;  secondly
the CS coordinating committee did not appear to have any criteria for who
should be included in this grouping, and one moreover where I have made
several approaches on behalf of the Community Informatics network to be
included with no useful response (see my correspondence with Ian Peter and
Jeremy Malcolm in this regard. 

2. this "coordinating committee" without any evident larger consultation
pulled some criteria out of the air for making its nominations for various
CS positions within the Brazil committee structure evidently designed
specifically to exclude the Community Informatics network.

3. without any evident transparent or accountable process it proceeded to
make nominations in these regards and forward them to responsible parties.

I'm not sure what happens when you pile an illegitimate process onto an
illegitimate process on top of a further illegitimate process but to my mind
the result is not one that any reasonable person should find acceptable
under any circumstances.

I know nothing about NCSG and can't comment on that... I'm quite familiar
with the IGC which, though it had significant faults, the lack of legitimate
processes was not one of them... I know little about the internal activities
of either Diplo or APC although I have had very significant respect for
Diplo (and am surprised to see them continue to be engaged in this charade),
and am a recently arrived "Associate" with APC which would seem on the
surface to have some significant similarities and common interests with the
Community Informatics network and thus I'm rather surprised to see them not
acting in consistency with these.

(and honestly I'm a bit tired of all this and will withdraw from future
discussion on these matters as the CI network works towards making its own
nomination process and ultimately nominations.  However, as I said at the
very beginning of these discussions, the CS Coordinating Committee process,
procedures and outcomes lack any legitimacy and any process that allows
these illegitimate processes to proceed as part of its own processes will
itself lack legitimacy.

Best,

M  

-----Original Message-----
From: David Cake [mailto:dave at difference.com.au] 
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2013 12:41 PM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Subject: Re: [governance] [bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants for
nominations to Brazil meeting committees


On 26 Dec 2013, at 3:27 pm, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> David,
> 
> I think there are two separate issues at play here and I may be at 
> fault in conflating them (or perhaps you are...
> 
> Anyway, the first issue is whether the CI network should be allowed to 
> join the CS "club" as represented by the CS "Coordinating Committee" 
> -- the significance of which is the CC's establishment of "criteria" 
> and selection of CS representatives for various representative 
> positions... My note below on "clubbableness" was addressed, I believe 
> quite correctly (and most certainly not by analogy)  to this matter.

	Well, the thread is clearly labelled as being about the Brazil
meeting committees, and no one has mentioned the CI list but you, and then
only as an addendum rather than in your main argument, so yes, I am
wondering why you are conflating these two discussions. 
FWIW, I have no issue with the CI list being part of the CS group, but you
seemed to be arguing for rather more than membership in various recent
emails. 

> The second issue (or rather set of issues) is the manner of selection 
> of those representatives including the (lack of a) transparent and 
> accountable process for those selections (following directly from the 
> illegitimacy of the processes referred to in #1 above), the magical 
> creation (pulling out of thin air) of selection "criteria",

	Oh, I'm all in favour of transparency and accountability. But I was
not disagreeing with the need for transparency and accountability, only
suggesting that some of the suggested criteria were poorly designed if their
goal is to strengthen CS involvement.. Active critique of poorly designed
proposals is surely why we have accountability. If you want open discussion
of the selection criteria, surely that includes critical comments? 

> the evident ad hominem-ness of those
> criteria and so on.

	Well, there certainly do seem to have been some ad hominem arguments
made, certainly. 

> And as a matter of fact, it seems to me that given the current small 
> clique nature of CS "governance" processes and participation--and its 
> internal processes of self-selection and self-promotion, those doing 
> the selecting at least are in fact
> "represent(ing) no more than their own small clique"... 

	That is not, in fact, clear to me at all. I know that from my active
involvement in NCSG, while there are certainly a core group that know each
other fairly well due to spending three ICANN meetings a year together (plus
phone meetings, email lists, etc), that group is not unified in its policy
positions by any means, and that there are many more participants in NCSG
beyond that core group - and that is just one of the several groups
represented in current civil society processes. Civil society groups such as
the IGC and NCSG certainly appear to me to represent a broad network rather
than a unified clique. 
	Perhaps your experience is different. 

> And you keep referring to minorities and small groups etc.  -- my 
> point overall is that probably a majority of the global population 
> would be included in what you are referring to as "their small
fraction"...

	Many of the groups involved in CS work on issues of global
relevance, such as human rights, free expression, or development. That those
issues are of global relevance does not mean that their representatives
constitute a global majority. This seems obvious, so I'm not sure what point
you are trying to make here. 
	
	
> Providing
> a means to give voice (or of course hopefully voices) to those 
> interests is hardly something that should "not be listened to by 
> anyone" except of course, for those who are directly benefiting from 
> current circumstances and conditions.

	I was not suggesting that those issues are not of value - only that
if you were appointed to a committee as a representative of cilvil society,
and then declared that you had no interest in representing the majority of
civil society groups, but only one specific group, that would seem to me to
be handing other stakeholder groups an excuse for marginalisation. 
	Cheers
		David
	
> 
> M
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Cake [mailto:dave at difference.com.au]
> Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 1:24 PM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
> Subject: Re: [governance] [bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants 
> for nominations to Brazil meeting committees
> 
> MIchael, this is a deeply faulty analogy. 
> No one is arguing that minority views should not be part of the 'civil 
> society' club. Only that those selected as representatives of civil 
> society are willing to act as representatives of the various diverging 
> views of civil society - to use your analogy, that those selected to 
> represent the club are willing to represent more than their own small 
> clique among its members.
> 
> If you honestly believe that we should select representatives of civil 
> society who intend only to represent their small fraction - not only 
> does this baffle me as a strategy, but I am quite baffled as to why 
> those representatives would be listened to by anyone.
> 	
> Regards
> 
> David
> 
> On 25 Dec 2013, at 6:42 am, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> And since others from the "Civil Society Coordinating Committee" have
> peddling this line in this venue as well...
>> 
>> M
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: michael gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 25, 2013 5:36 AM
>> To: 'Avri Doria'; 'Bits bestbits at lists.bestbits.net'
>> Subject: RE: [bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants for 
>> nominations to
> Brazil meeting committees
>> 
>> In England, where I spent some idle years pursuing an education they 
>> had a
> term--"clubbable"--what it meant was, whether you were suitable to be 
> asked to "join the club"...
>> 
>> Now among the overt criteria for being "clubbable" was of course, 
>> whether
> you were "nice" enough, whether you would fit in with the existing 
> members, make them feel comfortable and all warm and cozy at and in your
presence.
>> 
>> Of course what that really meant was whether you were sufficiently 
>> "like
> us" for them to let you into the club... whether you were the right 
> colour, or the right gender, had gone to the right schools, were of an 
> appropriate religion, and of course, overall whether your 
> "politics/value system" would be such as to support the "club's" 
> status quo--their perq's and privileges, folkways and prejudices...
>> 
>> Needless to say I was never "invited".
>> 
>> But I have to ask here, are you folks really serious about 
>> this--having as
> a criteria for joining a "Coordinating Committee" of "Civil Society" 
> whether someone adheres to kindergarten rules of playing "nice"...
>> 
>> If that is so then surely any right minded person would treat this
> self-selected grouping and this process with the contempt and derision 
> it deserves.
>> 
>> M
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
> [mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2013 7:24 PM
>> To: Bits bestbits at lists.bestbits.net
>> Subject: Re: [bestbits] Call to Best Bits participants for 
>> nominations to
> Brazil meeting committees
>> 
>> [MG>] snipped...
>> 
>> So sure put in the criterion of including minority viewpoints, but 
>> also
> put in the criterion of "plays well with others."
>> 
>> avri
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
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