[governance] Public interest and multi-stakeholder participation, was Re: [bestbits] Call for Participation: Global Congress ..

[Barry Shein]

On May 21, 2015 at 02:58 nashton at consensus.pro (Nick Ashton-Hart) wrote:
 > 
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 > May I make a suggestion?
 > 
 > Perhaps a dedicated list where those interested in the definitions of these=
 >  key terms which have caused so much strife could be created, and those int=
 > erested in that discussion could pursue it there; this list could refer all=
 >  such discussions to the =E2=80=98other place=E2=80=99.
 > 
 > That would give everyone what they want, it seems to me.

With all due respect: That idea, though reasonable on the surface,
never or very rarely works unless the topics are largely disjoint.

How can one expect people interested in the goals and who believe
terms are ill-defined or undefined to sit still while castles are
being built in the air upon those terms? How does siphoning off
discussion to a different venue help that? I think it's a real
problem.

The easiest and most effective way to squelch a discussion of
definitions of terms is to define them!

Preferably in some substantive way beyond "multistakeholderism (e.g.)
is the belief in broad participation in decision making and processes"
which I daresay has been repeated about a dozen times just in the past
few days and, to me, is not a definition at all, it's just a vague
hand wave.

P.S. We are now sinking into meta-discussion which IMHO is worse than
actual fear of loss of focus because it really takes no insight into
any topic whatsoever to simply debate whether a topic is appropriate.

AND: This note now opens a meta-meta-discussion, shall we or shall we
not engage in meta-discussion?

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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