[At-Large] [lac-discuss-en] Vistaprint is abandoning .vista

[bzs at theworld.com]

On July 16, 2018 at 01:48 6.Internet at gmail.com (Sivasubramanian M) wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > On Mon, Jul 16, 2018, 12:16 AM <bzs at theworld.com> wrote:
 > 
 > 
 >     Multistakeholderism is open to all -- like the Ritz Hotel.
 > 
 > 
 > ( Understand that it is an anology that isn't perfect). Going by this anology,
 > it merely requires a simple, very simple fix:  Reserve a third of the hotel by
 > unconditional funding to the stakeholder group that can't afford it, and to
 > anyone relatively less privileges even from within even the wealthier
 > stakeholder groups. Then we will find the elusive balance.

I was thinking of how it exists, specifically ICANN, rather than some
hypothetical implementation.

The problem is that there is no tie-in (GAC possibly excepted but they
are advisory) between those who participate and those who are affected
by the various policy development processes.

Yes in theory anyone, even the poorest internet user, could simply buy
themselves plane tickets and hotel rooms etc and participate in the
meetings.

Given the actual way it's organized one would likely have to do that
three times per year for a few years to rise to any level of
participation beyond open mikes.

But it's open to anyone! Much like the Ritz Hotel.

It's no accident that multistakeholderism has been referred to as
system which is "of, by, and for the lobbyists"*.

In a nutshell get rid of anything remotely resembling popularly
elected voting members (even indirectly) and just let the big
registries, registrars, and others with financial interests be the
stakeholders and do all the policy development and approval.

Yes one can identify the occasional exception to that.

* That point was essentially on the wikipedia page for
multistakeholderism under "Criticisms" but disappeared about a year or
so ago.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multistakeholder_governance_model&diff=768793583&oldid=750897618

    Criticism of multistakeholderism comes from Paul R. Lehto,
    J.D.{{Citation needed|date=March 2014}}, who fears that in
    multistakeholderism, those who would be lobbyists become
    legislators, and nobody else has a vote. Lehto states that "In a
    democracy, it is a scandal when lobbyists have so much influence
    that they write the drafts of laws. But in multistakeholder
    situations they take that scandal to a whole new level: those who
    would be lobbyists in a democracy (corporations, experts, civil
    society) become the legislators themselves, and dispense with all
    public elections and not only write the laws but pass them,
    enforce them, and in some cases even set up courts of arbitration
    that are usually conditioned on waiving the right to go to the
    court system set up by democracies. A vote is just a minimum
    requirement of justice. Without a vote, law is just force
    inflicted by the wealthy and powerful. Multistakeholderism is a
    coup d’etat against democracy by those who would merely be
    lobbyists in a democratic system."{{Citation needed|date=March
    2014}}
-- 
        -Barry Shein

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