[Mmwg] working group formation

[William Drake]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mmwg-bounces+drake=hei.unige.ch at wsis-cs.org
> [mailto:mmwg-bounces+drake=hei.unige.ch at wsis-cs.org]On Behalf Of Max
> Senges
> Sent: Friday, January 27, 2006 12:04 AM

> Hi, I only have some short comments
>
> 1) I do see Bill's point about the gov's not being used to work online.
> However this was my first reaction before I read luc's and his
> post (and it
> is still my *probably unrealistic* opinion)why do working groups meet
> physically? It has obvious advantages to meet physically, but given the
> money and time constrains, a physical meeting excludes people and
> gives the
> ones who show up more power.

My point was you can't *require* it as a standing principle.  But WGs should
be able to select their own modalities based on the propensities of the
people involved.  If a group of people says look the only way we can do this
is online, the government and business folks either join in or they don't.
Most likely they'd list lurk a lot, but some would play.
>
> 3)
> - Plenary votes on working group creation.
> - Plenary votes on WG leaders.
>
> I think I don't get it, does this mean WG's are created only once
> a year at
> the physical level? I would not like that idea. But anyways, I am not in
> favour of having the plenary vote on WG's and WG leaders. I think the WG's
> form themselves under 'to be defined' criteria (e.g. balance of
> stakeholders, clearly defined IGF format terms of reference), the
> secretariat publishes the application and only when there is 'protest' the
> plenary votes. In any case I think the WG's should agree on their leaders
> themselves.

Strongly agree with Max, it would be a mistake to overly bureaucratize or
politicize the formation of WGs, including via Plenary approval.  That's the
traditional IO model that even ITU has opted to modify in the standards
environment by empowering study group members flexibly form ad hoc focus
groups etc to tackle particular tasks that come up for as long as they're
needed, then they go away.

I'd rather see the forum as an umbrella under which people can freely launch
bottom up initiatives.  Fifteen people want to get together and talk about
xxx online and perhaps in a physical meeting sometime if they can find
funding, they do it.  This need not wait for a once a year meeting to get
plenary approval and be started, and it need not conclude at the next year's
meeting.  If they fail to generate product by the time of the next annual
fete, they can still have it posted on the IGP website whenever and have the
secretariat send out an email pointer.  If their work points toward a
recommendation they'd like the plenary to consider, they'd get it considered
at the next fete.

The *only* requirement I would put on working groups is that they must be
open to anyone to join.  Beyond that, they work out their own modalities,
perhaps informed by a suggested good practices template.

Worst case scenarios:

1) You get nutty off topic stuff, or ugly cabal behavior (the dicatorships
for surveillance working group).  So they meet, generate a report, and the
plenary says thanks for your work and moves on, because their outputs cannot
possibly serve as a basis for multistakeholder consensus.

2)  You get two competing groupings working on the same or closely related
topics.  Ideally they work it out like adults.  If they don't, so what, you
get two processes and two reports on the same topics.  Not the end of the
world, could even be healthy for the plenary debate.

Best,

BD