[discuss] /1net Steering/Coordination Commitee

Fri Dec 20 03:35:10 UTC 2013

Dear colleagues,

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 09:09:25PM +0000, Shatan, Gregory S. wrote:

>  I enjoyed the semi-public back-and-forth regarding selection of
> Civil Society representatives, which seemed to involve folks from a
> number of different backgrounds, sectors, "home groups" and
> geographic areas,

Me too.

> That is certainly a good basis (so to speak) for such representation
> to be determined.

Why is it not an equally good basis for not bothering with
"representation", and instead with embracing rough consensus combined
with them-what-does-the-work-wins?  That is, why do we need some sort
of boss-of-activity to lead?  Why isn't "bottom up" good enough when
it's time to decide what to do?  Those who've already done get to keep
doing!

I am concerned that the default here seems to be "create structure
then do" rather than "do stuff; structure later."  The former is
consistent with a view in which action needs to be governed before we
have any actions.  But that's not (at least in the small) how the
Internet was started, and I'm pretty doubtful that we'd have any
Internet without the support the pioneers got.

Best regards,

A

> 
> Greg Shatan
> (my opinions are my own and not of those of any body or anybody else.)
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-bounces at 1net.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at 1net.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
> Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 3:53 PM
> To: discuss at 1net.org
> Subject: Re: [discuss] /1net Steering/Coordination Commitee
> 
> On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 09:22:51PM +0100, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
> >
> > I am actually *disturbed* by the naivety with which this is all being
> > set-up. This line-up is the *best* way to have the multi-stakeholder
> > model ridiculed & shot down -- as in, the "multi-stakeholder model" is
> > nothing but window dressing for US multi-nationals to keep their
> > control over the Internet.
> 
> Why?  It just turns out that we've named that "stakeholder" group incorrectly.  It's not the business stakeholder group.  It's the large US business interest group.  They're a stakeholder.  We just need a different set to represent other kinds of stake, such as small businesses or non-US businesses or whatever.
> 
> This is, in fact, the very reason I have been uncomfortable with the representative-of-group model that's being pursued, and part of why I have refused to volunteer as any sort of representative of "the Technical Community".  I have no idea what the boundary of that community is, I am pretty sure that I can't represent all of it, and I have no idea how I could legitimately claim to.
> 
> In my opinion, the constitution of the steering/co-ordinating/whatever we call it committee is just illegitmate.  There's no way for anyone to tell who represents any constituency, and the chance that the representation is somehow wrong approaches 1.
> 
> I'm aware that we need to bootstrap this effort.  My claim is that it would be more legitimate if we did that _ad hoc_ until such time as we have some things running.  That way, we don't drown the effort in early wrangling over committee structure, internal governance, legitimacy of participants to represent anyone, and so on.  Instead, by trying to build the org structure first, we have wandered into those topics without any way to declare disputes legitimately resolved.
> 
> John Curran already provided a rebuttal to my argument, and I'm not willing to wrangle over it.  But I think we have set things up precisely to yield these sorts of results.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Andrew
> (as ever, for myself only)
> 

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com