Re: [wg-c] Respecting the process

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Thu, Apr 20, 2000 at 04:43:52PM -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
> Phil et al:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Philip Sheppard [mailto:philip.sheppard@aim.be]
> >
> > Rather too much is being made of this vote.  It was not intended to be a
> > formal vote on constituency lines.
> I am afraid you are mistaken.  Rather too little is being made of this
> vote.  The NC majority blatantly disregarded a well-crafted and durable
> consensus item because they didn't agree with it.  In other words, they
> refused to accept the product of an open, transparent working group
> constructed according to ICANN's own rules.  This has extremely
> significant implications for ICANN's DNSO future. 

Yes, I hope so.  Perhaps finally the realities of the WG process will
sink in.  There is a *very* widespread delusion that WGs are
representative decision making bodies.  They are not, they have never
been intended as such, and the bylaws do not confer any such meaning. 
Far more important, as a matter of simple principle, self-selected
groups such as DNSO WGs can *never* be considered as representative
bodies, and it would be irresponsible to consider them as such.

When Kurt Godel published the incompleteness theorem it invalidated an
entire generations grand program for the development of mathematics, and
many of the mathematicians of the time were lost and adrift without that
program.  But some found the destruction of the old erroneous ways a 
path to a new paradigm. 

That is, the old paradigm of monolothic WGs that are chartered to deal 
with enormous policy questions has been, in my mind, demonstrated a 
complete failure.  It is a failure in terms of its results, it is a 
failure in terms of its effectiveness.  We need a new paradigm.

In my opinion the notion that WGs must be representative has been at the
root of the problem.  That is a horrible, fundamental mistake.  Forget
it.  WGs should *not* be considered as representative; they should be
considered as what they really are: a group of people with a definite
vested interest in the outcome.  If WGs are considered in that light,
and are chartered with that expectation, then the whole game changes. 
Instead of you trying to sway the world with your libertarian
balderdash, you can get together with your friends in a WG and produce
position papers that are your best efforts.  You don't have to waste
your time arguing with me.  And I and my friends could go off and
produce OUR best efforts, without wasting our time arguing every
nitpicking little detail with you.

The politics would still remain in full force, of course -- nothing
could change that.  But it would be moved to a different level, and at
least the quality of the output the WGs would be improved, and the 
debate would be over well-developed, complete positions, instead of 
mind-numbing rehashes of ancient history.

[...]
 
> Who made the decision to post that? Why? What gives Roger Cochetti, a
> spokesman for the incumbent monopolist, the right to a privileged
> platform to promote unreviewed and self-serving gTLD proposals?

About this issue, I agree with you.  I fully support Mr Cochetti and
NSI's right to make proposals, and there is much that I like in the NSI
proposal.  But you are correct -- the placement on the web page does
give it an undeserved prominence.  I think it is a good idea to post
proposals like that, and I think there should be a place on the DNSO web 
site for them, but the current situation is clearly not the way it 
should be.


-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain