Hmm, it's my upgraded-Windows commands.
Franck also added:
I take also the opportunity to add something else on another subject:
ICANN, IETF, APNIC and other meetings are really easy to attend, they
are video casted, audio casted and even text casted in chat/forum like
channels. You can easily participate from the confort of your home. I
did it a couple of times. This is not true with any of the WSIS
related
meeting, where you need to sit in the room, with the proper
accreditation. I think in some sessions, non-representatives of
governments were asked to leave the room.
We spent some hours debating this. A couple of points:
1. The WGIG is a UN committee in that we are appointed by Kofi Annan
himself (he used the word "personally" in his letter). A few of us did
ask in fact for webcasting but we do have to respect the UN work and
meeting culture, which is different from that of the internet community.
The big meeting is an avenue for larger consultations.
2. The WGIG *does not* set any laws or policies. Our output is
intended to go the UN SG and then to the WSIS where the "negotiations"
are to take place. We are therefore like a think-tank for the WSIS.
3. Following from #2, we therefore try to be as objective as
possible. Taking a personal example, I am a consumer advocate in
Singapore but I just posted a point on the discussion in spam
highlighting a concern of business. What this means is that to do the
work, we cannot be subject to external pressures "in the course of"
doing the work. The work itself can be examined when done by various
pressure and interest groups but not during the work itself.
4. Because the nature of the work, a closed door discussion *during*
the work is helpful to allow "incomplete" thoughts. Take my example
earlier of spam. If I were a representative of a consumer association, I
would probably have been slammed when I returned for "advancing the
interests of business" just for trying to round off the discussion. I
think everyone in the group is aware that we will all be thinking
"incomplete thoughts" that could make us look bad or foolish if it were
all put on display.
5. This is not to deny transparency. The WGIG is adopting the
Chatham House rule http://www.riia.org/index.php?id=14: words and ideas
may be used but may not be attributed. Which is interesting because the
Chatham mechanism was designed so that civil servants in the UK could
bounce off wild ideas. Should the ideas turn out to laughably
unworkable, no one is blamed for being dumb. This encourages other ideas
to be tested in a forum before they are implemented.
At the larger meeting, most people expressed their understanding of our
constraints. The most vehement voice for openness came from a delegate
from a country most of us would consider closed.
Regards,
Peng Hwa
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