[discuss] Selection of stakeholder category representatives (was Re: /1net Steering/Coordination Commitee)

Fri Dec 20 12:53:52 UTC 2013

John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:

> I do not think that we
> have any basis for claiming "legitimacy" of the representative
> multi-stakeholder approach itself, let alone any given set of
> representatives to represent the entirety of the Internet stakeholder
> community.

What we can do is make a list of ways in which the selection of
stakeholder category representatives can conceivably go seriously
wrong (for example by failing to produce --in a timely manner-- a list
with the right number of names, or by creating selections which are
outrageously imbalanced, or by being unfair to women, or by being
unfair to Caucasian men, etc.), and then design the selection processes
to be reasonably trustworthy in regard to avoiding those known
potential failure modes.

For example, the randomly selected NomCom process which I've been
advocating for in the civil society context has the big benefit that it
credibly avoids the risk of formation of a long-term cabal that
might easily end up holding way too much power.

That is not to say that the “randomly selected NomCom” process is
necessarily the only way in which this can be achieved, or that
the particular way in which IGC has been going about it is necessarily
a particularly good approach. Some of IGC's randomly selected NomComs
have worked less well than others, and I think that there are certainly
some process improvement lessons that can be learned from those
experiences that have been clearly suboptimal.

Greetings,
Norbert