Kerry Miller wrote:
> Diane,
> > there was no registration.
>
> But everyone who spoke from the floor identified themselves? What
> percentage might that have been?
Speakers were asked to identify themselves and most of them did. This has
been the practice since the IFWP days. Are you asking what percentage of
the total people present wanted to speak? I have no idea. I suppose it
could be calculated by going through the archives. Richard may have a
good estimate.
> > Time constraints are as much a function of how much total time a
> > person has to invest as they are a function of the final deadline.
> > I agree that e-mail is a great tool and in many cases will be the
> > best tool. But IMHO it's far from perfect and a physical meeting
> > still gets the job done much better.
>
> But is *a* person, or hyr time, the critical determinant? Isnt it
> rather, finding that elusive 'broad consensus of a representative
> community'? *Defining the job to be done by what can be done by
> the time/space/energy filters of a physical meeting is no solution at
> all. But lets grant there may be some 'job' that can be better
> achieved by the presence of 400 people instead of 4000 virtual
> voices -- even then their input has to be restricted 'so that
> everyone [sic!] can be heard'! Add in the open question whether the
> 400 souls who show up are in any way 'representative' (and
> whether they even feel particularly representative of even 10
> others), and the sense that live meetings of this sort simply cannot
> help but be rubber-stamp sessions becomes very strong.
My comments concerned working committees that must develop complex policy
initiatives. I wasn't referring to ICANN Open Meetings or other avenues
for polling consensus. The question of determining consensus based on
random physical and virtual participation is, IMHO, one of the most
compelling issues facing the Internet. I suspect you haven't attended
many ICANN meetings if you believe they serve to rubber stamp any
positions voiced there. In my experience, the bulk of comment in the
Open Meetings (as opposed to Working Groups/Committees) does not wind up
in the Board resolutions.
I disagree that time constraints can be ignored in either case. One does
the best one can, but time (and the other demands of the world) simply
doesn't stand still for any working committee or deliberative body.
> > That said, there may well be
> > very sound countervailing reasons to forbid physical meetings, just
> > as there are sound reasons to offer distance learning courses; but
> > I don't think they encourage efficiency.
>
> Until one knows what end one is to reach, one cant tell if the
> means to get there are effective. And until one has a process that
> *works, there's precious little use worrying about efficiency - but
> the Interim Board is getting so tied up in making its putative
> process efficient, it doesnt seem to remember the goals it was
> supposed to achieve.
Again, you have taken my comments about Working Committees and applied
them to the Interim Board. I specifically referred to what I believed
worked best for the development of complex proposals. In many cases the
committee knows very little about what the end result should be...that's
the purpose of the working group (to gather information, evaluate it and
perhaps make recommendations). I think the purpose of the Board
meetings, on the other hand, *should* be to hear complaints and
suggestions from the community as well as to attempt to assess consensus
on all issues.
Diane Cabell
http://www.mama-tech.com
Fausett, Gaeta & Lund, LLP
Boston, MA
