On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Jay Fenello wrote: > >It may be relevant to talk about the bwg-n-friends list. This > >evolved out of private correspondence that started before the IFWP > >steering committee collapsed. Some time after the Boston meeting > >there were enough people involved that the CC list became unwieldy, > >so someone proposed setting up bwg-n-friends. > > > >What no one mentioned was the setting up of a second, secret list, > >bwg-core. After a while it became apparent that all of the real > >decisions were being made on the secret list; the rest of us were > >just there to make proposals. That is, we were back in the old > >familiar "request for public comments / decisions behind closed doors > >by the inner circle" loop. > > > >So when Karl talks about secrecy and pretence you can be sure that > >he knows whereof he speaks. > > > >This whole process, on all sides, needs the light of day. > > Hi Jim, You don't make clear what you are actually talking about (bwg-core? ICANN? Hilary and Bill?) so I will have to make assumptions. > While light is good, I think we have a bigger issue > here -- what exactly is an open process? How do we > structure one so that everyone can participate fairly, > while actually allowing work to get done? The BWG problem outlined above doesn't align with this "bigger issue". In the case discussed, after several (many?) weeks I discovered that there was a second, secret list on which the things discussed on the open list were actually decided. Most people would regard this as unacceptable. I certainly regarded it as a breach of faith. > Somewhere along the line, we've come to expect > that an open process precludes private meetings > and communications. I disagree with that sentiment. As I said, I don't know exactly what you are referring to, but it is obvious that if we could all hear one another, if there was no degree of privacy, nothing could be done. Five or six billion voices heard at the same time would simply be a meaningless roar. Without selectivity there is no communication. So "that sentiment" is simply an absurdity as stated. > IMHO, it is ok for private meetings and communications > to occur, as long as the *decision* making process is > fair and open to all. The real question is "how do > we structure such a process?" If you are talking about ICANN ------------------------------ then I submit that you are wrong. ICANN is not a private enterprise. ICANN serves the interests of the Internet community as a whole. Furthermore, the circumstances at ICANN are unique. The ICANN board was chosen by a secret process. They have no mandate for their positions, no legitimacy in an sense. What is more, the group as a whole appears to be literally incompetent. They have no particular knowledge of the Internet; their chair, Esther Dyson, thinks that she is especially qualified to handle this position because she has a great deal of experience with the collapsing economies of the former Soviet empire. The implicit judgement that the Internet is disorganized and inefficient not only insults the Internet community but betrays her remarkable lack of understanding. Unfortunately she appears to be one of the better qualified board members. Given that ICANN is a public institution, given the board's lack of legitimacy, given its apparent incompetence, it is extraordinarily important that it operate in a completely open manner. While it may be uncomfortable for some of the board members to discuss policy in public, the only way that we, the Internet community, have of determining whether these people and this institution deserve our trust is by watching them do their job -- making policy -- in public. This does not preclude ICANN from carrying out policy in private. It is obvious that the administration of policy requires some degree of privacy. But the ICANN board is not an executive body. If you are speaking about the Boston Working Group -------------------------------------------------- well, all that I can say is that a body that criticizes another for lack of openness and fairness should adhere to high standards itself. > I suggest that we need a new paradigm for working > together using mailing lists in cyberspace. Here > is one idea I forwarded to the ICANN MAC, one that > reflects the reality of list use today: ... > >So, rather than a moderated list approach, I suggest a > >construct that features lists within lists. For example: > > - Decisions Maker's List (10 members) > > - Advisor's List (30 members) > > - Open List (100s of members) > > > >Each list would only accept postings from its members, but > >postings to each list would be propagated to the list immediately > >below it (or all lists below it). This ensures an open process, it > >gives everyone a chance to comment, and it allows work to get done. ... > Bottom line, solving this problem is part of > the process of creating a new tradition of self > governance. This isn't one problem. It's lots of them. ICANN's position is unique, as I said above, in part because of the way in which it popped into existence (with no one willing to admit who selected board members, with no mandate from the Internet community, etc), in part because it sits at a unique pivotal point in the Internet infrastructure, in part because of its board of unknowns. Your nested lists might actually be appropriate for ICANN. However, I think that what would do the job would be a single [EMAIL PROTECTED] list that anyone could subscribe to as a reader but only board members could post to, plus a filtered input list, say [EMAIL PROTECTED], which could be used to query the board. If you are suggesting that as you go up the pyramid you get more and more email, I think that you will get a lot of resistance to this idea from the people at the top. ;-} I don't think that your nested lists have general applicability. They assume, for one thing, a well-defined hierarchy, one in which people know their status and are satisfied with it. That is not the Internet as we know it today, nor the Internet that most of us would like to see tomorrow. -- Jim Dixon Managing Director VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Member of Council Telecommunications Director Internet Services Providers Association EuroISPA EEIG http://www.ispa.org.uk http://www.euroispa.org tel +44 171 976 0679 tel +32 2 503 22 65 __________________________________________________ To receive the digest version instead, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNSUBSCRIBE, forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Problems/suggestions regarding this list? Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___END____________________________________________
