Re: Internet organisations coordination meeting


The issue is not participation, engagement and cooperation which I consider 
vital for a healthy and continuously development of the Internet. The issue 
IMHO is the tag labeling of a group of individuals that perform on an executive 
role and how the labeling and some statements are perceived and interpreted 
particularly by mainstream media in a context where Internet Governance (widely 
misinterpreted by itself ) is on the forefront nowadays.

You may not see it because you are in the midst of it. My concern is with the 
"I* Leaders" label and how and where what you say can be easily taken out 
context and grossly misinterpreted without exercising some restraint and better 
choice of words. 

I'm not against Jari and Russ participation and having them share what's going 
on at IETF and explore opportunities for more and better cooperation.

I'd strongly recommend to get rid of the "I* Leaders" moniker.

Regards
-Jorge

On Feb 16, 2014, at 2:38 PM, John Curran <jcurran(_at_)istaff(_dot_)org> 
wrote:

Jorge - 
 
    This particular group of folks gathered and received updates on various 
activities 
    going on... e.g.  Jari and Russ spoke of perpass.  It is a coordinating 
function; so 
    we know about major initiatives going on and can support and/or avoid 
conflicts 
    as appropriate.

    The only reason for the post-meeting statements (in my view) is simply 
because 
    people were unaware that these periodic gatherings were going on, and 
indicated
    that we should be make such more visible.

    Note also that there quite a bit of focus on making sure the most recent 
statement
    simply said what happened, i.e.  a gathering of folks received a series 
of updates 
    from each other on a list of topics of potentially mutual interest.  

    As a result, I now realize that W3C is having its 20th anniversary; that 
ICANN's
    various strategy panels have been meeting, and that the "Brazil meeting" 
is now
    know as  “Netmundial” and has its own website <http://netmundial.br>.   I 
don't 
    really know what the other leaders (for lack of a better term) took away, 
but 
    would hope that Jari, Russ, etc. found it useful context and background 
for their
    IETF efforts.    I guess that one option would be for the "leaders" from 
the IETF
    community not to attend such gatherings, but that seems to be a rather 
extreme
    response to take due to lack of a better term than "leader" (and one 
hopes it is
    unnecessary so long as care is taken to make nothing more of the meetings 
than
    what they are - a gathering of folks hearing updates so we can better 
coordinate)

FYI,
/John

On Feb 16, 2014, at 10:58 AM, Jorge Amodio <jmamodio(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> 
wrote:


I agree that "spokesperson" is not either the appropriate term. And leader 
is far far away to be representative of their roles and positions.

True that on their role they "lead" the organizations they are involved with 
but the Internet community does not follow them as *leaders*, particularly 
the CEOs of some organizations such as ICANN, ARIN, etc, that are just paid 
employees to play a specific executive role.

I'm really starting to dislike this effort of reverting the bottom-up 
process by a group that is starting to behave like a dictatorial junta 
making public statements that can be considered or interpreted as 
representative of the Internet community and particular organizations such 
as IETF.

They are no spokesperson, nor leaders, just they are what they are the CEO 
of ICANN, the Chair of IETF, the CEO of ARIN, etc.


My .02
Jorge

On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 6:20 AM, Ted Lemon 
<ted(_dot_)lemon(_at_)nominum(_dot_)com> wrote:
Folks, as John Klensin said, the reason we do not say "spokesperson" is 
that our leadership do not speak for us.   We only speak as a group through 
the consensus process.   So the term "spokesperson" is simply inaccurate.

The term "leader" makes sense as a generic because there were a number of 
organizations, with different leadership structures, some not involving the 
same consensus process that exists in the IETF.   So we couldn't for 
example say "chair," because that term wouldn't apply to all the people who 
signed the statement.

I realize that the term "leader" has its own set of connotations, but I 
don't know of a better word to use.   There is no word that we could use 
that would convey to someone who is not already familiar with IETF process 
what we mean.   Representative is no good for the same reason spokesperson 
is no good.   Avatar doesn't really work either.

I think it's better to just accept that the language is imprecise, and 
think carefully about what is that we might be objecting to, and whether 
the objection _really_ makes sense in the context.   I guess there's about 
zero chance that this won't get discussed to death, and that's fine, but I 
don't think there's a knob to turn here.