[governance] COMMENTS SOUGHT: draft letter to ISOC on selection of T&A nominees for CSTD WG on EC

[parminder]

On Saturday 16 March 2013 03:36 PM, William Drake wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Mar 16, 2013, at 6:37 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh at hserus.net> wrote:
>
>> That brings up an interesting question.
>>
>> How many technical people in civil society do we currently have here? [never mind wider and narrower ranges of experience]
>>
>> Nick Ashton-Hart, McTim, Jeremy, me .. I can think of maybe a handful more.  Add people with a dual technical / policy background (Bill Drake, George Sadowsky ..).
> FWIW I've contributed nothing to 'technically building the net', and my having been an ISOC member since the 90s or being involved in ICANN now probably translates into a 0% likelihood that I'd ever be considered for a TC 'slot' either.  On the other hand, the former is true of many folks that'd be considered TC for this and other purposes.

So you seem to agree that ISOC is using a wrong definition for 
'technical community', what to say of 'technical and academic' 
community. How can we allow a group to use a wrong definition to 
determine the composition of an important public body. If it is not 
about such things that a civil society group will raise question about, 
what else?

>
> It'd be great if each SG had clear and principles-based definitions and boundaries,

Yes, it will be great. And WG on IGF improvement clearly asks for it. 
And MAG should be helping WG IGF recs implementing it.

>   but instead we're dealing with self-defined tribes.  Conflating the 'technical' and the 'academic' communities into one category just triples down on the problem.  This is utter nonsense

I dont see it as nonsense. Both groups represent some kind of 
'expertise' and not constituency representation, and thus it is very 
logical to put them together. BTW remember, para 35 of Tunis Agenda is 
clear that if it is ICANN etc reps that you are talking about here, they 
are covered in International organisations doing tech standards and 
policy (TA, sec 35 e).

> and and inevitably a bit insulting to academics who are deemed (usually by non-academics, as it happens) to be not worthy.  If we wanted to write a letter to someone, I'd send it to the UN and ask them to kindly cease and desist from using the fabricated term, "technical and academic community," anywhere.

As said, I dont consider it fabricated.
>
> In contrast, I agree with those who don't see what is to be gained by sending this particular letter.   Constance and other ISOCers are on this list and will have already seen it, so spending cycles tweaking the words seems a bit pointless.  Dialogue that starts on an adversarial note is unlikely to go far.  Potentially more useful would be cross-SG discussion on baseline coordination/information sharing expectations in those situations where we have to work together.  Right now inter-species communication tends to be based on personal relationships and trust among subsets of each group.  Years of people chatting at dinners and saying 'gee, we really ought to work together more effectively' have never led to real efforts to make that happen.  I don't know if this can change, but I doubt that this letter would put us on that path.

Does the logic to keep low so that good relations can be kept extend 
also to dealing say with developing country govs. As to who is an ally 
and with whom to work together varies greatly depending on the issues 
involved, right. ISOC resisted creation of the IGF, cil society (CS) and 
developing countries wanted it. ISOC resisted discussion of CIRs at the 
IGF, CS and developing countires wanted it. And as late as last May at 
the CSTD, ISOC was against creating any kind (yes any kind, even WGIG 
kind) of WG on Enhanced Cooperation, while much of the civil society and 
developing countries wanted it.

So, should then CS refrain from saying anything about or to the 
governments, the ICANN plus community, ISOC, and the private sector. 
Then what is the work we are left with - to fight among ourselves?

If we cannot send a simple transparency seeking query to ISOC, and seek 
clarifications about how they include or exclude nominations to be sent 
on behalf 'tech/acad community' - -  which is a public role entrusted to 
them my a public authority - simply becuase we need to be friendly with 
ISOC, it is really very problematic.

parminder


> Best,
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>


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