[governance] Should the IGF be reformed?

Thu Mar 22 00:13:55 EDT 2018

Hi,

Just a point to add here:

"Remote participants aren't given the same recognition as on-site participants, added to the situation identified by Alex that only a few persons participate remotely. The low statistics of remote participation might be a result of the non-recognition..."

I just want to add that remote participation has always BEEN an option but the problem for the lack of participation (that needs to be realized) has something to do with the time zone difference and personal obligations. This has to be accounted for. If an IGF meeting is somewhere in Europe or North America, people from the Asia Pacific region might have to spend their evenings trying to listen/participate to a session. People who are not attending the IGF on site can benefit attending remotely if an IGF is held on the same continent.  We had remote hubs and were coordinated by organizations such as ISOC chapters. But the time zone difference has been a huge factor. I know this for a fact because I participated in a remote hub. Plus, if I have a day job, I cannot be glued to a computer all day. Maybe if sessions with RP capabilities are held during weekends, some folks might stay up late or organized remote hub "parties" when it also does not interfere with anyone's day job.  A remote hub is not just merely connecting to the Internet - it also involves prior discussions with the local remote group so attendees can have a real understanding of the sessions they are attending. After the session, the local group should also have their own internal discussion based on the discussions/practices that transpired at the IGF meeting. RP attendees are also encouraged to ask questions and talk during real time. That's why there is a moderator for these things. I guess what I am trying to drive at is -there must be a framework to align RP with the IGF meetings.

Maybe if someone (or a group) can take on a research undertaking to exactly find out why RP hubs are waning down, we may be able to discover the exact reasons.  We need evidence-based findings, not just mere assumptions.

Thank you,

Charity Gamboa Embley

[1505329837626_coe_header1.jpg]

________________________________
From: governance-request at lists.riseup.net <governance-request at lists.riseup.net> on behalf of Chris Prince Udochukwu Njoku <udochukwu.njoku at unn.edu.ng>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 10:27:02 PM
To: alex.comninos at gmail.com
Cc: Arsène Tungali; governance at lists.riseup.net
Subject: Re: [governance] Should the IGF be reformed?

I like the submissions here so far. Although some of us have opposing views regarding reforming the forum, I noticed that no person had objected to Raul's assertion that the world was much better with the IGF than without it!  This means that none is saying "To hell with IGF."

Also to me, the IGF is a good thing for many reasons, including Raul's, Anriette's and Raoul's. I understand Ayden wants IGF reformed but he doesn't believe reformation is possible. Before anyone can say whether Ayden is right or wrong, and to help us answer Arsene's questions, let's look at certain features of the IGF we have now.

1. There are too many movements and too much good sounding talk that translates to only a few actions. It's a discussion forum; yes, but what are or should be the aims of the discussions? It seems to me that many participants are focused on either having a large retinue of travels or enjoying travel funding.  Some others are satisfied with just organizing sessions to display oratorial skills or to show they can organize sessions in a high-level meeting.  What should be the outcomes of such sessions is not a consideration. This links naturally to No. 2.

2. There are too many sessions. Raul mentioned this. This obscures the priority attention and general participation some sessions deserve. It's worse when an essential subject/topic have duplicate to quintiplicate or more sessions. For example, over 5 Internet shutdowns sessions and about 6 sessions on fake news were held in IGF 2017. In most cases, what actually separates one session's topic from another is the wording. As Raul suggested, sessions should be limited to a number that allows somewhat exhaustive discussions of subjects. In this way, participants can return home with convictions for concrete actions.

3. Remote participants aren't given the same recognition as on-site participants, added to the situation identified by Alex that only a few persons participate remotely. The low statistics of remote participation might be a result of the non-recognition. I had remote-participated in sessions where my chat questions and/or submissions weren't replied to.  Yet, such international discussion meetings as IGF about Internet are an excellent opportunity to authoritatively showcase and guarantee the virtual property of the Internet which is central to its working and to any myriad of benefits it can give.

4. So many important stakeholders are left out: a) populations that speak only mother tongues; b) rural folks; c) low income people; d) the physically challenged (which are often a mix of the other groups); e) students; f) the uneducated / illiterate population; etc.  Most IGF participants who claim or think they represent any of these people are not true representatives. Mechanisms should be in place to make the forum more inclusive.

5. Government delegates / participants in many cases are people who have no authority to make recommendations or take decisions and don't even give reports when they return to their countries after meeting.

6. Stakeholders who should be central in certain sessions are often absent in the sessions. Is it proper that no African governments rep was present in a session on Internet shutdowns taking a toll on Africa's economy? That's just one example of sessions not having the appropriate participants for productive discussions. Do we leave things that way?

7. IGF, regional IGFs and national IGFs appear to be operating in isolation, independent of one another in practice. Themes of meetings are often unrelated, neglecting the truth that one forum ought to be feeder node to the next. This needs a remedy.

I strongly think CS reps in MAG have a duty to present these and other shortcomings to MAG's discussions table. Depending on the strength of their business cases and way any recommendations in those lines will be made, since MAG doesn't take decisions for IGF, changes in favour are likely to take place.

Contrary or more views needed.

CPU

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, Alex Comninos <governance at lists.riseup.net<mailto:governance at lists.riseup.net>> wrote:
> Remote participation needs to become a real and appealing thing for the IGF to become relevant.
> I have not taken part in IGFs since Bali due to geographical and financial constraints.
> RP is always far in the background with almost no participants. It's also really hard to actually get that terrible Cisco software working on anything but a windows PC.
> I did do some serious RP for the Mexico IGF. It could be a very powerful tool. One can easily monitor many sessions. Also one tends to be less distracted by schmoozing and travel fatigue.
> The IGF has failed to communicate to the average netizen that it exists, what it is, and that we are all stakeholders.
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2018, 20:40 Arsène Tungali, <governance at lists.riseup.net<mailto:governance at lists.riseup.net>> wrote:
>>
>> https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2018/03/lets-reform-igf-ensure-healthy-future/<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.internetsociety.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F03%2Flets-reform-igf-ensure-healthy-future%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ccharity.g.embley%40ttu.edu%7C657ad03218ff48ff856808d58fa4d720%7C178a51bf8b2049ffb65556245d5c173c%7C0%7C0%7C636572860517929736&sdata=gnxqgCpvuC4G8suG1Ko3zz87bTt5ZLyPMhV4Q3hz7%2B8%3D&reserved=0>
>>
>> A blog from Raul (ISOC) about the need to reform the IGF. I know this is what so many other people believe we should do. Let’s talk about it!
>>
>> Can we discuss what are the changes that we would like to see happen to make the IGF as strong and powerful as it used to be? As of now, no one know where the IGF 2018 will take place and we are in March! All i know and heard from Chengetai is that they have 3 countries in mind but are yet to decide!
>>
>> Now that the new MAG was announced, what are our expectations of its members? What do you think of new and past members? What can we expect from our CS representatives there?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Arsene
>>
>> -----------------
>> Arsène Tungali,
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--
CPU
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