[OpenISO] [karl at cavebear.com: Re: [governance] Speakers for IGF - ideas?]

[Norbert Bollow]

I have just added the following point to the draft vision statement
for OpenISO.org:

 <li>In addition to facilitating a conversation among experts (by
     means of which standards are developed and evaluated, etc),
     OpenISO.org should also solicit, actively consider, and
     respond to feedback from the general public.

The inspiration for this point comes from the below posting of
Karl Auerbach on the governance mailing list

Greetings,
Norbert.

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:28:26 -0700
From: Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com>
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org

Kieren McCarthy wrote:

> The general public aren't really interested in ICANN's work, sadly.

Which is quite a different thing than saying that the general public is 
not deeply affected by ICANN's work.

And from that hangs tale and a lesson for internet governance: That to 
be effective internet governance must remain legitimate in the eyes of 
its beneficiaries, the community of internet users.  And to obtain and 
retain such legitimacy, bodies of internet governance must do more than 
merely provide web-based bulletin boards that go unread and unanswered 
by those who actually get to make choices.

To obtain and retain legitimacy a body of internet governance must 
actually consider and respond, and be seen considering and responding, 
to the questions and opinions it receives.

When I was on the ICANN board, I received a lot of input.  Much of it 
was diffuse or unclear.  I had to spend time interacting with people to 
comprehend what they were saying, discovering what it was they were 
actually trying to express.

The absence of even that minimal level of feedback from ICANN - feedback 
needed to clarify what the comments mean - suggests that commentary to 
ICANN is commentary wasted.

The public once had a partial but vibrant voice in ICANN.  ICANN 
strangled it and replaced it with a company puppet that remains alive 
only through financial life support from ICANN.

So it is no wonder that the general public stays away from ICANN.

New bodies of internet governance should be structurally obligated to 
meaningfully interact with, and respond to public input.

		--karl--




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------- End of forwarded message -------


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                      http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG    http://SIUG.ch
Working on establishing a non-corrupt and
truly /open/ international standards organization  http://OpenISO.org