CS consensual statement on MSism WAS Re: [governance] Vint Verf tells us the conclusion of the complex IANA transition process

Mon Jul 28 20:54:09 EDT 2014

Interesting Deirdre.

The Oxford Dictionary gives the word both meanings, with the one you mention tied specifically to gambling instances.

But more broadly, it also defines stakeholder as 

“A person with an interest or concern in something”

which I think works well for our context.

Interestingly, the Oxford or any other dictionary does not yet define multistakeholder. 

Definitions seem to vary. According to Lawrence E. Strickling, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, and NTIA Administrator, "the multistakeholder process, ... involves the full involvement of all stakeholders, consensus-based decision-making and operating in an open, transparent and accountable manner”. So that seems to be what one product champion (US Government) seems to think it is.

I think there is plenty of room for improvement and clarification there.

Ian 

From: Deirdre Williams 
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2014 1:19 AM
To: Internet Governance ; Ian Peter 
Subject: Re: CS consensual statement on MSism WAS Re: [governance] Vint Verf tells us the conclusion of the complex IANA transition process

Dear All, 
Responding to Ian's reminder, and to the discussion generally - what is a stake? who holds one? how/why do they hold it?
Somewhere about 2004 (possibly earlier) it looks as if stakeholder and shareholder became confused (my conjecture, possibly through a shareholder being described as having a stake in a company?) Prior to that, stakeholder seems to have been seen "officially" as the neutral third party without a personal interest who holds the stakes or wagers until the matter of the bet is resolved. The term now seems to have flipped completely to mean someone with an interest of some type in the issue at hand. Perhaps the contradictory flip from "without personal interest" to "with personal interest" helps explain some of the difficulties with the term?
So is a stake an interest?
Is the holder a person or a group of people?
I was discussing the second question last month with someone from this region (LAC) and he suggested the following answer -
"Also from a practical standpoint, a group viewpoint would tend to carry more weight than an individual one so it would behove like-minded individuals to organise themselves in representing their views (e.g. individuals into civil society groups or even groups into lobbies). In addition, I also have the sense of multistakeholder as implying a  group of stakeholders of equal status. To my mind, this would work best if the substantive stakeholders are either groups or individuals, but not both together."
This is my response to that issue:
"There is an inherent inequality about this which is always overlooked. Corporations and organisations already have an existence. They are held together by existing structures. However the end users are an amorphous lot (as well as being the clear majority, all 3 billion of them) To require them to organise themselves so that they have the right to speak puts them at an extreme disadvantage, particularly considering the diversity of their opinions. An "innovative" thing about the Internet ... is that essentially it functions at the level of the individual. Perhaps we need to learn to use it at the level of the individual too. It's amazing how much prominence, within organisations, is given to physical meetings. The recent ICANN meeting in London was attended by about 3000 people: the constituency of the internet end user is 3 billion, a billion times bigger."

If we can reach some sort of agreement on who or what a stakeholder is, then I think it will become easier to find consensus on multistakeholder process, or multistakeholderism.
Sorry for the long message
Deirdre

On 27 July 2014 16:22, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

  Trying to go back to the original discussion -

  I hear all the reasons why we can’t avoid discussing equal footing. But the beginning here was the idea of a consensual statement on multistakeholderism – I think we should work on that, with as good a reference to equal footing as we can agree on at this stage, rather than divert to trying to develop a common position on what equal footing means.

  Because I think we can get somewhere on a multistakeholderism statement. 

  Ian

  From: Mawaki Chango 
  Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 4:58 AM
  To: Internet Governance ; McTim 
  Subject: Re: CS consensual statement on MSism WAS Re: [governance] Vint Verf tells us the conclusion of the complex IANA transition process

  McTim,

  You keep making this point that all the woes of MSism come from, and only from, the ITU/WSIS breed.
  First of all, I'd contend that the constituency-based approach at ICANN was and still is an instance of MSism. Don't take my word for it; as soon as the WSIS process made the term 'multistakeholder' fashionable, we've heard it a lot reclaimed in ICANN's ranks. So much so that they have now re-devised their old constituency groupings into stakeholder groupings. However, as far as I know, ICANN only dealt with its direct stakeholders as organization, that is, the domain name industry, the technical community (security and stability aspects of the net), and the business, particularly via the lenses of IPR issues. 

  Yes, I'm aware of the very early failed attempt at direct voting by end users for their reps on the board of directors, but after that it took many years for the Noncommercial user constituency to be recognized (only as part of the GNSO community) and for ICANN itself to get the ALAC structures going. (Please feel free to correct me or complete if I'm missing any major aspect of things here; I'm just summarizing on the flight.) At the end of the day, constituencies and stakeholders at ICANN have also had to be divided into separate groupings with an identity label -- and so it was before WSIS started.

  Was that then a perfect instance of MSism which ITU-WSIS came to spoil? I just once to have this clarified once for all as to what you exactly mean everything you point to ITU as having put the worm in the fruit (or whatever colloquialism I'm missing to remember correctly here) by delineating stakeholder groups as it did during the WSIS process. 

  Beyond that, I'd also appreciate if you can give references or pointers to any clear formulations (e.g, RFC or excerpt of charter, of rules and operating procedures of relevant groups, or other informal text that may have served for guidance in implementing MSism, etc.) of instances of MSism you deem successful or which should be taken as reference (such as any version of "MSism that built and developed the Internet for the last 3+ decades.") My apologies if that has been done before, as I suspect it could have.

  Thanks and cheers,

  Mawaki

  On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 4:15 PM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

    All,

    On Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
    > On Sun, 27 Jul 2014 07:44:26 -0700
    > "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
    >
    >> In other words "equal footing for foxes and hens", sounds pretty good
    >> in theory, in practice not so good (for the hens... exceptionally
    >> good for the foxes...
    >
    > Equal footing means that the hens must not use their wings to try to
    > escape?
    >
    > SCNR (=Sorry, could not resist.)
    >
    > On a more serious note, how should the following be classified?
    >
    > During the drafting process for the Paris WSIS+10 outcome document, the
    > UNESCO guy running the process essentially simply turned deaf ears to
    > the proposal to include a reference to the civil society WSIS
    > declaration alongside the governmental one.

    We have to keep in mind that the "MS" IG processes which emanate from
    Geneva are not the same sort of MSism that built and developed the
    Internet for the last 3+ decades.  Those are the models we should be
    using, NOT the ones that come from Geneva.

    --
    Cheers,

    McTim
    "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
    route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

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