Re: [wg-c] Respecting the process

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

It is, I think, hypocritical to blame WG-C for being noisy and divided when the
issue it was handed has been noisily dividing the Internet world for five years.
The WG threw all the fractious forces into a stew and forced them to deal with
each other directly. To those of us interested in actually building consensus
and moving forward, that was a healthy, if difficult, aspect of the DNSO
process.

Kent Crispin wrote:

> DNSO WGs can *never* be considered as representative
> bodies, and it would be irresponsible to consider them as such.

As mechanisms for finding out what the broad Internet public can agree upon (or
cannot agree upon) the WGs are far more "representative" than any other process
at ICANN's disposal. This is true precisely because they are open to anyone
interested enough to deal with the traffic and the noise and the issues. Of
course they are composed of those members of the Internet industry and user
groups who are most interested in the outcome of a particular issue. If any
interested party thinks it is unbalanced, they can join. The composition is
self-correcting.

That fact does not discredit but in fact strengthens whatever consensus findings
the WG can come up with. If 50 active participants can agree and those 50
include the likes of Dave Crocker, Milton Mueller, Kilnom Chon, Eric Brunner,
Chris Ambler, and Ross Rader, all long-time participants in the new TLDs debate
and all representative of *very* divergent viewpoints, then such agreement is
important. It is not something to be cast aside simply because a small plurality
thinks they have the votes on the NC.

I am disturbed at your suggestion that ICANN's processes and outcomes should be
insulated even more from the participation and influence of active members of
the Internet public.

The Names Council and its artificial and unbalanced structure prefilters
positions into specific interest groups. Its processes foster insider deals, not
discussion and consensus building. Minorities just get outvoted rather than
persuaded. An NC vote tells you who has power and who's paying off whom. It does
not identify areas of agreement and compromise. NC was never meant to be a
policy making body, it was intended to be a "manager of the consensus-building
process." Read the DNSO charter.

> That is, the old paradigm of monolothic WGs that are chartered to deal
> with enormous policy questions has been, in my mind, demonstrated a

True, WG-C was given an issue (new TLDs) that was too big and too complex. But
under the leadership of Weinberg it responded to that problem in the proper
manner:  After thrashing about it determined that no consensus was possible on
many of the issues. That fact reinforces once again the significance of the
areas in which it did find rough consensus. 6-10 was one of them.

I would like to know, on what basis do the NC representatives purport to know
which positions command widespread assent? In fact, the question insults our
intelligence. We all know what is going on. When Marilyn Cade or Roger Cochetti
question the representativeness of a WG-C consensus item, it is simply because
the WG came up with a result they didn't like.

> 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.

That sounds heavenly. Seriously, the sub-delegation of the development of
position papers to cohesive groups is an idea of some merit. We can use it in
the future. That has no bearing on how we handle the recommendations of this WG.

Also, as is usually the case with your suggestions, it comes in a poisonous
wrapper: should all position paper proposals have equal status, and the NC picks
whatever positions it feels like picking? No thanks. There's got to be more
bottom up to DNSO than that. Such an approach does nothing to ensure that the
representatives of various positions are incorporated into a broadly acceptable
or workable policy.

--MM