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Re: IAB statement on the NETmundial Initiative

2014-12-21 11:56:31


--On Sunday, 21 December, 2014 11:49 -0500 IAB Chair
<iab-chair(_at_)iab(_dot_)org> wrote:

Jari and I were invited to join representatives of the
Internet Society Board and the ICANN Board at a meeting last
week.  There were two topics: the IANA Stewardship Transition
and the NETmundial Initiative.  After the meeting, Bob Hinden
and Steve Crocker released a statement.  Here is a link to
their statement:
http://www.internetsociety.org/news/joint-statement-isoc-icann
-meeting

Russ,

I continue to be concerned about the appearance of "statements"
from small group meetings and their possible interpretations
relative to our commitment to broad, bottom-up, community
consensus processes.  This one seems innocuous at worst but, if
these sorts of meetings are going to continue, and continue to
release statements, I hope you can encourage your colleagues to
make those statements absolutely clear about who is making them
and on what authority.  When I first read it, I assumed it was a
statement by the group present at the meeting and presumably
speaking for their respective organizations.  Now that you have
mentioned "Bob Hinden
and Steve Crocker released a statement", I can certainly see
it that way.  However, especially against a background that some
of us interpret as deliberate misinterpretations by a few
individuals of support and consensus, it is each to get from
sentence fragments like "representatives ... met to discuss...",
"Everyone agreed that...", "We agreed to further strengthen our
joint efforts...", could easily cause the statement to be
interpreted as a consensus one, even though only Steve and Bob
signed it.

No complaints about this one, but I continue to believe that
small, closed, invitation-only meetings like this create
vulnerabilities when they are followed by "statements".  I
therefore hope that, to the extent possible, great care be taken
that such statements either reflect the procedures and norms of
each body that is in any sense represented or that they are
extremely explicit about in whose name and on what authority
they are made.

best,
   john