HI Vittorio
On 02/08/2017 12:53, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
Il 2 agosto 2017 alle 12.23 denis <ripede...@yahoo.co.uk> ha scritto:
It is not a question of 'getting heard', it is knowing you have a
voice and where to use it. Literally anyone can join a discussion on
a Working Group mailing list, make comments, ask questions, agree or
disagree with other comments, propose a policy. The RIPE NCC's Policy
Development Officer will help anyone who wants to propose a policy in
any area of concern. It would be nice to have a wider participation
and hear more voices in some discussions.
Neither the RIPE NCC nor the RIPE community has a list of 'targets'.
Over the last 10 years governments and LEAs have taken much more
interest in the Internet management, operation and governance. This
is not unexpected as the Internet has become so integral in so many
people's lives. As they have asked questions the RIPE NCC, under the
guidance of the RIPE Community and RIPE NCC membership, has reached
out to answer those questions. If any of the groups you mentioned
also join discussions and ask questions they will also be heard and
answered.
I'm not saying that RIPE is doing anything bad or with any bad intent,
also I didn't really mean to start a thread, but even if this precise
discussion has been going on for a long time at ICANN and elsewhere
about 15 years ago, and views on it really vary, it looks like RIPE
still has to deal with it.
The point is that having an open door and saying "if you have anything
to say, just show up" is not enough, if you really want to make
balanced policies. Some stakeholders, like governments and business,
have well funded employees and lobbyists that can afford showing up,
while other stakeholders don't. In fact, the "public interest" is the
hardest thing to keep into account, because any narrow group with
specific interests can show up and scream to push your policies in
their favour, while the general public has a weak interest that only
becomes huge if you could aggregate several billion Internet users,
which you can't practically do. So either you make active efforts to
include these other points of view, e.g. like ICANN has been doing, or
you will always risk to produce policies biased in favour of those few
that actually can afford to show up, and against the general public
interest.
(Also, we may be going off topic, so apologies in advance - happy to
continue elsewhere if you like.)
I think this has moved off the original topic and is more about
diversity. There is now a separate mailing list for diversity issues:
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/diversity/
From what I have seen (and I am sure someone will correct me if I am
wrong) they seem more focused on 'diversity of peoples'. A current topic
is the issue of gender at RIPE Meetings. But to me if you work under the
general heading of 'diversity' that should cover all aspects of
diversity. Some people may believe the corporate world is much more
represented than the individual netizen at these meetings and on these
mailing lists. Then I would say the diversity group should look at how
to actively improve the diversity of representation at meetings to
achieve a better balance and ensure the general public interest is
served, avoiding the possibility of policies being made just for the
rich and powerful.
I think such a discussion would be better moved to the diversity mailing
list.
cheers
denis
Regards,
--
Vittorio Bertola | Research & Innovation Engineer
vittorio.bert...@open-xchange.com
<mailto:vittorio.bert...@open-xchange.com>
Open-Xchange Srl - Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy
