[governance] Substantive discourse processes for the Brazil MSM (was Re: Meeting ... between the LOG and 1Net)

[Richard Hill]

Please see embedded replies below to your four questions.

Thanks and best,
Richard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Norbert Bollow [mailto:nb at bollow.ch]
> Sent: samedi, 18. janvier 2014 10:00
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; rhill; Daniel IGA MWESIGWA; Birgitta
> Jónsdóttir
> Subject: Re: [governance] Substantive discourse processes for the Brazil
> MSM (was Re: Meeting ... between the LOG and 1Net)
> 
> 
> Since the text below obviously wasn't provocative enough to get a
> discussion started, let me ask a few questions...
> 
> 
> These questions refer to “political tone” and “technical precision”.
> 
> 
> With “political tone” I mean that when textual contributions are
> invited from any source, some of them will express concerns about
> actions or potential actions of other stakeholders; those texts will be
> somewhere on the scale from
> 
>   unjustifiable verbal attacks and insults
> 
> over
> 
>   candid and direct expression of legitimate concerns
> 
> to
> 
>   traditional diplomatic language.
> 
> 
> With “technical precision” I mean that contributions on topics
> related tot he Internet will be somewhere on the scale from
> 
>   being based on explicit factually wrong assertions about the Internet
> 
> over
> 
>   expressions of legitimate concerns in layman terms which are not
>   exactly wrong but difficult to interpret precisely in the context of
>   how the Internet actually works
> 
> to
> 
>   precise and technically accurate problem statements and solution
>   proposals. 
> 
> 
> Now when inputs from stakeholders are intended to contribute to the
> formulation of a reasonably consistent output document, there is a
> need to apply some kind of uniform standard in regard to both of these
> dimensions.
> 
> 
> This leads to the following questions:
> 
> 1. Which standards should be adopted in regard to political tone and
> technical precision?

I think that ad hominem attacks, insults, etc. should not be allowed.  Anything else is welcome.

> 
> 2. How is it decided whether proposed text fulfills the requirements
> in regard to these two dimensions?

I don't think that you need to do that.  You ask for a concrete proposal related to the draft output text, then decide whether the proposed add/del/mod should be accepted or not.

The mechanism for deciding is whatever version of "consensus" seems appopriate to the group developing the document.

That is, use the "single text" approach: there is one document, and anybody is free to propose changes to it.  The changes are discussed and agreed or not.

> 
> 3. How to empower people to express their concerns in a way that
> conforms to the expectations in regard to political tone and
> technical precision?

Simply state the ground rules and politely remind people of them, as needed.

> 
> 4. How to prevent the standards on political tone and technical
> precision from being abused to suppress inconvenient truths?

If you only exclude insults, ad hominem attacks, etc, there should be no problem.

> 
> 
> Greetings,
> Norbert 
> 
> 
> 
> Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> 
> > In order to kick off the discussion, here's an initial, quite rough,
> > draft of one possible idea:
> > 
> > Greetings,
> > Norbert
> > 
> > --snip--------------------------------------------------------------
> > This document aims to propose a set of broadly acceptable processes
> > for handling substantive inputs to the Global Multistakeholder
> > Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance.
> > 
> > According to the website http://brmeeting.br/ the meeting will “focus
> > on crafting Internet governance principles and proposing a roadmap for
> > the further evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem.”
> > 
> > Since the time for substantive preparatory processes is so short, it
> > may be appropriate to further focus the planned meeting on gathering
> > requirements and concerns in regard to Internet governance principles
> > and the further evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem, from
> > various perspectives, and to build a shared understanding of what the
> > various perspectives on this are.
> > 
> > If this objective is adopted, appropriate processes for handling
> > substantive inputs could include the following:
> > 
> >  *  Communicate (as early as possible) an invitation to provide input
> >     documents on gathering requirements and concerns, from various
> >     perspectives.
> > 
> >  *  Assemble a working group tasked with compiling these substantive
> >     inputs into a comprehensiove report.
> > 
> >  *  After March 1, the deadline for submitting substantive
> >     contributions. the working group will draft a report on
> >     requirements and concerns, noting which points require further
> >     clarification.
> > 
> >  *  Each contributor is given the opportunity to double-check that
> >     their contribution is reflected appropriately.
> > 
> >  *  Requests for changes / corrections which contributors have
> >     submitted are processed.
> > 
> >  *  The working group for the substantive report tries to identify
> > what are the open points that need to be resolved before the report
> > can be adopted as describing a shared understanding of what the
> > various perspectives on this are.
> > 
> >  *  At the beginning of the MSM itself, the list of “open points that
> >     need to be resolved” can be added to by any participant.
> > 
> >  *  The rest of the first day of the MSM is used for breakout sessions
> >     attempting to achieve consensus resolutions for the various open
> >     points.
> > 
> >  *  The second day is used for plenary sessions in which resolution
> >     proposals are presented and hopefully consensus is achieved.
> > 
> > --snap--------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > Am Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:00:10 +0100
> > schrieb Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>:
> > 
> > > Dear all
> > > 
> > > After a bit more delay than I had hoped, I'm now ready to start
> > > woking on a proposal document on substantive discourse processes
> > > for the Brazil MSM...
> > > 
> > > I have set up a wiki as a workspace for this, please be bold in
> > > editing
> > > 
> http://digital-age.info/wiki/Brazil_2014_proposal_on_substantive_processes
> > > and pages that you create, linking them from there.
> > > 
> > > Hopefully we will be able to identify at least one reasonable way in
> > > which substantive inputs can be handled, a way that will be seen as
> > > acceptable from a broad variety of perspectives (not limited to
> > > civil society perspectives).
> > > 
> > > I think that what ways for handling substantive inputs are
> > > reasonable will depend to a significant extent on assumptions about
> > > the objectives of the MSM, which haven't been decided yet. It might
> > > be the best approach to make several proposals on the basis of
> > > several possibilities for how the objectives of the meeting can be
> > > defined.
> > > 
> > > In any case, let's get going!
> > > 
> > > The following three people (who are not subscribers to the IGC
> > > mailing list) have requested to be Cc'd:
> > >  
> > > Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch>
> > > Daniel Iga Mwesigwa <daniel.igamwesigwa2003 at gmail.com>
> > > Birgitta Jónsdóttir <birgitta at this.is>
> > > 
> > > Please keep them listed in Cc over the course of this discussion.
> > > 
> > > Greetings,
> > > Norbert
> 
> 


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