[discuss] /1net Steering/Coordination Commitee

Sat Dec 21 10:37:52 UTC 2013

In message <52B55D43.3000109 at cs.tcd.ie>, at 09:20:03 on Sat, 21 Dec 
2013, Stephen Farrell <stephen.farrell at cs.tcd.ie> remarked:
>Work on improving how government types interact with the
>technical community is something that'd be worth trying.

Quite a few people have been doing that for some time (myself, on and 
off, since 1999 for example).

>Its not something that could possibly be solved in the
>next few months, but, if the right kinds of people were
>willing, then its possible that useful progress could be
>made.
>
>I *think* government types might be able to discuss
>that (meta-)topic on a mailing list for example.

There's another problem with governments and mailing lists, which 
revolves around the way their officials' work is spread across many 
different fora (both physical and virtual).

It tends to be done via intense bursts of activity for short time, then 
moving on and not letting it become a distraction.

"ICANN meetings" is a typical example, with almost no intersessional 
involvement from most GAC representatives, but intense periods of 
scrutinising documents two to three weeks ahead of the meeting, and 
being onsite for one week. While they are sat in the GAC meetings they 
just don't have the time and mindshare to be interacting with non-ICANN 
processes (whether on mailing lists or otherwise).

Then map that situation across to other weeks when they are fully 
occupied with the ITU, or the OECD, or the IGF, or a dozen other 
projects not all of which are even necessarily much to do with the 
Internet, and have no time or mindshare for ICANN matters.

Contrast this with a typical RIR meeting, where what you see in the 
audience is a sea of laptops, their owners tapping away at things 
unrelated to what's happening on the platform. It's an entirely 
different work paradigm.

(And here I am at home on a Saturday morning, tapping away when I really 
should be out doing last minute Christmas Shopping, just to keep up with 
yet-another-mailing-list; again a completely different way of working).
-- 
Roland Perry