[Mmwg] Combining models

[Vittorio Bertola]

Il giorno mar, 17/01/2006 alle 14.14 -0500, David Allen ha scritto:
> Vittorio's entirely intriguing proposal brings together in a concrete 
> way two opposites we need.  Can we build from that foundation?  A 
> bureau?  My impression - pls correct if in error - is that the 
> present bureau is more for facilitation.  Facilitation is vital, but 
> Vittorio's would also I think vitally look to leadership in its 
> functions.  As with any group worth its salt, many of those leaders 
> emerge from the larger group.

You are right, that's my idea. In any case, the forum needs some
leadership, and civil society is (I think) well placed to provide a part
of it, and thus to ensure that the forum deals with the issues that we
want.

I think that not having a formalized leadership mechanism would be
worse, it would in fact leave things completely open to lobbying efforts
and closed governmental negotiations, I think it's a development in
which we could only lose.

An example - sooner or later, the IGF might have to decide whether to
establish a working group on, say, privacy, or IPR; and also, to release
results and recommendations coming out of these working groups. This
kind of crucial decisions needs to be taken in accountable ways.

Working groups should be open, much like the IETF WGs or any online
working group... but again, even if you can hope to have a smart and
facilitating Chair that can honestly call consensus rather than tamper
with it, we did see how hard it is to reach and measure consensus on
substantial issues without any kind of formal structure. Just imagine
when you put the other stakeholders in the same box.

But of course - and Milton is right about this - the details of how this
leadership is selected can dramatically change the result.

I do not have clear solutions to that. Every mechanism that has been
tried did not work fully - neither global online elections, nor the
two-level system based on accredited organizations, nor nominating
committees. Initially, I think we should trust Kofi Annan to pick a good
mix; in any case, there's possibly the time for civil society to make
suggestions, but certainly not to build a formal structure to select
representatives. Then... I think that the ball will be in our field.

I'm not sure about how the selection of IESG members works; I guess
there's a NomCom, but then the issue becomes, who selects the NomCom
members? In the end, I'm starting to wonder whether trusting a few well
respected people to make a choice isn't better than trying to
incapsulate a hugely fragmented and diverse world, such as civil
society, into complex formal structures.

Otherwise, we could try again with online elections, or mixed mechanisms
(more on this later).
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...