Okay Andrew, so there are three possible positions here regarding transparency:

(1) Mandated transparency
(2) No position, individual choice
(3) Mandated opacity

And you're saying that because the process of choosing mandated
transparency was not a bottom-up process, it may be procedurally
illegitimate.  (Correct me if I'm wrong, please.  This is how I'm reading
you.)

I think it's worth distinguishing at least some internal procedural
policies (how does ICANN work) from substantive policies (how does DNS
work).

ICANN was formed initially by a top-down process of incorporation in the
State of California, with an operating agreement with NTIA/Commerce Dept.
I don't think that process of institutional definition necessarily has to
conform to a bottom-up process (or if it does, perhaps any *changes* in it
need to have more than rough consensus -- perhaps they should be required
to have *full/unanimous* consensus -- cf. more difficult processes to
change the US Constitution than to enact laws under it).  Was transparency
of operation of policy-making bodies in ICANN's institutional definition
from the get-go?  If so, I don't think we need to insist that it adhere to
bottom-up definition procedures.

Of course, since ICANN's institutional definition is about to come under a
new authority, I suppose that means everything is out the window, like a
new constitutional convention.

I think personally that transparency of MS policy-making bodies is so
important as to make it a fundamental, unchangeable characteristic of any
MS process.  Without it, I don't see how the MS process can ultimately
succeed on its own basic terms.

Dan


--
Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and do
not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer.



At 12:59 PM +0900 5/8/14, Andrew A. Adams wrote:
>Dan Krimm wrote:
>> Personally, I would vote in favor of transparency over rough consensus, and
>> I would not stop advocating for transparency across the board even if
>> consensus were to go against it formally.  Can we really go anywhere
>> "consensus" demands?  I think there are limits to that stance, and this is
>> an example of such limits.
>>
>> Even if no other bodies within ICANN choose to comply with the transparency
>> principle, and even if it leaves us at a tactical disadvantage (they get to
>> "spy" on us while preventing us from "spying" on them), I think we would do
>> well to choose to adhere to our own principle of transparency, regardless.
>>
>> Even if all other ICANN bodies view this as an "error" we can at least
>> agree to disagree on that matter.  And we shouldn't ever let the matter
>> rest if it has not reached consensus to favor institutional transparency.
>> Without transparency, any policy-formulation process is utterly lost to
>> being broadly representational, which seems the highest mission of a
>> multi-stakeholder (MS) process.
>>
>> Of course, not all participants in a MS process are committed to the MS
>> process per se -- they may just be participating in whatever process
>> presents itself to try to gain as much narrow advantage as possible in any
>> way they can, and they would use whatever influence they have within the
>> process to shape the procedural details to their narrow advantage, whether
>> this fits the overall mission and principles of MS process or not.
>>
>> My personal opinion is that any entity that opposes the practice of
>> transparency is not truly dedicated to MS process in principle, and should
>> be viewed as being amenable to potentially undermining MS process if it
>> gets in the way of their proprietary outcomes.  In short, lack of
>> transparency undermines broad collective trust, and without trust the MS
>> process has a difficult time succeeding in practice, at least on its own
>> conceptual terms.
>
>Dan, while I agree with you that we should be both promoting and enacting
>transparency in NCSG, I think you have a logical error in your argument
>above. Unless there isa rough consensus specifically AGAINST transparency,
>i.e. a rough consensus FOR opacity (of process), then there is no
>inconsistency here. NCSG can argue that transparency is the way all SGs (and
>many other elements of ICANN) should operate and as a thought-leader on that
>may implement transparency internally. A rough consensus view that
>transparency should not be mandated, however, is not the same as a rough
>consensus view that opacity should be mandated. Such a rough consensus could
>come about because most of the other groups feel that within some groups the
>benefits of opacity outweigh the benefits of transparency, while for others
>it may be the other way around and so the rough consensus is not to mandate
>or even recommend anything either way. This, I think, also answwers Avri's
>point if it is on principle grounds: 1. NCSG internally has consensus or
>rough consensus on transparency, and thus we operate in a transparent manner.
>At this point, though, the current mandate for transparency from SGs may be
>illegitimate (as a mandate) because it was imposed from above without
>reference to the suitable MS process. So, as has often happened before, we
>can say that we actually agree with an idea, but oppose its current
>implementation because of the manner in which it was promulgated. We should
>therefore work to persuade the other SGs that they should reach a rough
>consensus FOR transparency, with a fallback position of arguing strongly
>against any declarations FOR opacity.
>
>
>
>--
>Professor Andrew A Adams                      [log in to unmask]
>Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
>Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
>Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/