Re: @EXT: RE: United Nations report on Internet standards

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 3/30/20 3:57 AM, Marcolla, Sara Veronica wrote:

> I do understand it. However, in many cases, when the one and only governmental representative on a list/working group etc agrees/disagrees on a position, paper or policy, he or she does not so in personal capacity. He or she is representing hundreds of stakeholders "behind", who entrusted this specific individual to follow up and engage on behalf - often - of entire governments. That is, hundreds of people, or even hundreds of governmental agencies.

But this is completely contrary to IETF expectations, which are that 
each individual participant represents his or her own best technical 
judgment.   IETF does not recognize "governmental representatives", (nor 
representatives of anyone else) and this is an explicit feature.   [*]

> This vote, however, gets counted as one, as the one of any Joe or Alice.

IETF doesn't vote; it attempts to build consensus.   So a good proposal 
which has a good justification, even if initially supported by only a 
single individual, can carry much more weight than one vote.   And 
ideally a proposal is judged on its merits; it shouldn't matter where 
that proposal comes from.   At the same time a proposal with poor 
justification and/or one which seems to be harmful, will hopefully fail 
no matter how big the organization or government that sponsors the 
individual who argues for it.

> This is the big issue of participation,  with regards to government engagement in a multistakeholder environment. Often administrations do not find a good investment to make sure an individual is delegated to do so (with all internal coordination efforts, in some case at national level, in other even at international level), just to have one voice diluted so much.

Having that one voice diluted so much is a feature, not a bug. If on the 
other hand, there really is justification for a proposal, a government 
is welcome to send one or more people to try to build consensus around it.

There are plenty of other organizations in which governments can try to 
use their political clout or other means to promote their ideas, for all 
the good it might do.

Keith

[*] And in many cases I personally doubt that this specific individual 
is really representing the stakeholders (or even the interests of the 
stakeholders) - who after all, are not the governments, or the 
governmental agencies, but the citizens of the world.