[discuss] List announcement "robust governance in the digital age"

Mon Feb 10 10:20:06 UTC 2014

David Cake <dave at difference.com.au> wrote:

> I have absolutely no idea why this topic was
> considered apparently off-topic for this (or other IG focussed)
> list(s), and I think the idea of narrowly focussed mailing lists for
> particular policy issues to be an extremely poor choice of strategy
> for facilitating effective and inclusive policy discussion. At best
> it runs the danger of limiting discussion to a small number of
> particularly engaged participants, removing the participation of
> those who might have significant contributions to make but are not
> sufficiently focussed on that issue to join a new mailing list. At
> worst, it focusses discussion on a self-selected group of
> participants who agree with the initial framing on the issue.

I don't view the topic as off-topic on any of the various mailing lists
where discussion of Internet governance topics is sought broadly, and I
certainly do not wish to discourage discussion of this in my view
absolutely central topic area on any of those lists.

However I think that a more in-depth and more focused discussion is
needed in addition to what is likely to happen on any of the broader
lists.

Furthermore, in regard to the criticism about not simply pursuing the
discussion here on this list, let me emphasize that the particular
discussion that motivated me to try to “pull out” a discourse on the
“robustness in view of particular interests” set of topics emerged not
on this list, but in a discussion which was crossposted across the IGC
and BestBits lists. It might have been possible to add this list, and a
few more lists for good measure, to that discussion. I wouldn't view
such rampant crossposting as a good way of handling things though. Nor
would it have in my opinion been a good approach to tell everyone who
is interested in the “robustness in view of particular interests” topic
that they should join the IGC's mailing list, or the BestBits mailing
list, or this one, each of which tends to generate quite a lot of
traffic on other topics. I think that a new, specialized list with a
narrow topical focus is a better solution.

Greetings,
Norbert
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