[discuss] /1net Steering/Coordination Commitee

[John Curran]

On Dec 20, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

> John Curran <jcurran at arin.net> wrote:
> 
>> Much like the Internet itself, we should strive for incremental
>> improvements over time, but not let that prevent operations in the
>> present.
> 
> Yes, that's a very valid point -- provided that the shortcomings are not
> so bad that they prevent the “operations in the present” from being
> legitimate at all (which may or may not be the case in the current
> situation; I'm not currently taking a position on that).

Agreed.  I also am not trying to be overly critical of the representative
multi-stakeholder approach in general, but simply pointing out that it is 
always going to be a on-going process of trying to improve its inclusiveness;
I am unsure how one would claim that any given set of representatives lack
legitimacy without first being able to define legitimacy in terms of _all_
stakeholders, both those who happened to be involved in the process and
those who were not.  If someone claims wants to claim that a given set of
representatives could have been more inclusive of those who expressed an
interest, then that is understandable, but 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.

> The reason why I replied to Milton's posting is that I strongly believe
> that when less than perfect processes and their results are accepted,
> valid criticisms should still be acknowledged as such, and not be
> rejected out of hand with a claim about the critic being “miffed” for
> reasons of non-inclusion.

Agreed, and appreciated.  I believe that there are organizations with more
experience in these processes that can contribute significant improvements,
and have faith that the selected representatives know how to tap into those
learnings for future rounds.

Thanks!
/John

Disclaimer: My views alone.