[discuss] Community Informatics Nomination for the Civil Society Stakeholder Group for the 1Net Steering Committee

Thu Jan 16 06:51:56 UTC 2014

Hi Adiel,

-----Original Message-----

From: Adiel Akplogan [mailto:adiel at afrinic.net] 

Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2014 4:27 AM

To: michael gurstein

Cc: discuss at 1net.org

Subject: Re: Community Informatics Nomination for the Civil Society
Stakeholder Group for the 1Net Steering Committee

Hello Michael,

On 2014-01-15, at 08:59 AM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am resending this as I have not yet received a reply.

Sorry I have been offline since yesterday.

[MG>] tks...

> Since it is my understanding that your and 1net's role is not a
substantive or "editorial" one the absence of an indication of how you will
comply with these requests/nominations is most surprising.

The lack of reaction was not intentional. Sorry for that.

[MG>] a failure to respond to legitimate inquiries has been the preferred
tactics of the self-appointed CS:CC and I'm pleased to hear that you have
not adopted a similar tactic

> I have the honour of submitting the report of the Community Informatics
Network's NomCom process and the Community Informatics community's
nominations for appointment to the 1net Steering Committee as
representatives of the civil society stakeholder group --Michael Gurstein
(Canada). My biography and qualifications for such a status will be provided
to you on request.

Thank you for sharing this nomination with the list this sound a bit strange
to me on two accounts:

1 - The deadline for appointing representatives is past and the only
derogation request I have received was from the Technical community as they
are still running their selection process.

[MG>] I don't remember seeing any such deadline or the distribution for
comment of any process of which such a deadline was a part... please, could
you point me to these?

2 - I have mentioned several time on this list that I do not want to get
involve with stakeholder process details (I just can't and do not have that
prerogative - Of course now that the SC is crated this may be reconsidered
by the group). 

[MG>] with all due respect could you point me to the discussion and the
consensus agreement that either the CC:CS or GigaNET would be the exclusive
source of nominations from their respective stakeholder groups for the 1net
Steering Committee or as appears to be the case, for subsequent nominations
for posts in the development and management of the Brazil event. 

Whether you/1net wants to or not your actions in accepting the legitimacy of
the self-appointed CC:SC who have and continue to misrepresent themselves as
the (sole) representatives of "civil society" rather than as representing
certain and, dare I say, rather narrow and non-diverse elements of civil
society means that you have accorded yourself the adjudicator role whether
you wanted it or not.  That you didn't choose to insist that the CC:SC adopt
inclusive and transparent processes, that you didn't do due diligence (or
even best efforts) as to whether their self-representation in any sense
accorded with reality or even bother to respond to my (and other people's)
several emails to you and this list pointing out the illegitimacy of the
processes of exclusivity, self-selection and self-appointment of these CS
groupings means that de facto you have allowed this misrepresentation and
illegitimacy to prevail.  (And of course, precisely the same could be said
for GigaNET.) The question is what are you going to do about it.

What I needed was each stakeholder to organise themselves (if they need to
fight and argue among themselves they do it, preferably even not on this
list) to provide 5 names for the steering committee. The nominations are
transparently shared on this list so if anyone feel left out I will suggest
him to take it up with/within his stakeholder group.

MG>] As I and others have repeatedly pointed out we made such
representations to the CS:CC and were rebuffed and your choosing to accept
them as the sole source of CS representation (similarly for GigaNET) is a
serious breach of any form of legitimate and accountable procedures. They
were certainly at fault but you have further aggravated and legitimized
those failures by accepting, authenticating and authorizing their legitimacy
as for example, in the formation of the 1net Steering Committee inclusive of
their illegitimately derived nominations and apparently exclusive of at
least one other more legitimately derived nomination, that of the CI
network.

I have no idea how or to whom to appeal your lack of appropriate process in
this regard (which is of course, a source of considerable concern to many),
your failure to do due diligence with respect to the CS and academic
stakeholder groups, and your compounding of these errors by appearing to
authorize and authenticate their outrageous lack of open inclusive and
accountable procedures. But whatever those processes or mechanisms might be
I am, on behalf of the Community Informatics network hereby launching a
formal challenge and appeal.

We have seen how GigaNEt has reacted quickly to some concern raised on the
list and to adjust their nominations accordingly.

[MG>] I should add that you have committed precisely the same error as above
with respect to GigaNET.  I have yet to see an articulation of their
processes, nor have I seen a broader call from them for participation from
the broader academic community as for example the Community Informatics
academic community and to the best of my knowledge their internal process of
selection of nominees consists of not a great deal more than reference to
the GigaNET steering committee for selection, hardly a useful definition of
the academic community.

If you disagree with  CS nominations I will sincerely and respectfully
request that you take the matter up with them directly.

[MG>] As you well know this has been done with the results I have pointed to
repeatedly.

With all my good will I can not do more at this point. The reps from CS were
shared on the list and have formally join the SC.

[MG>] With all due respect this is completely false...these are NOT "the
reps from CS" these are the reps from some self-selected representatives of
groups purporting to "be cs" whose only evident authority and legitimacy in
this role comes specifically from your having publically acknowledged this.

Mike

Thanks.

- a.

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