HI Vittorio

On 02/08/2017 12:53, Vittorio Bertola wrote:

Il 2 agosto 2017 alle 12.23 denis <ripedenis@yahoo.co.uk> ha scritto:

It is not a question of 'getting heard', it is knowing you have a voice and where to use it. Literally anyone can join a discussion on a Working Group mailing list, make comments, ask questions, agree or disagree with other comments, propose a policy. The RIPE NCC's Policy Development Officer will help anyone who wants to propose a policy in any area of concern. It would be nice to have a wider participation and hear more voices in some discussions.

Neither the RIPE NCC nor the RIPE community has a list of 'targets'. Over the last 10 years governments and LEAs have taken much more interest in the Internet management, operation and governance. This is not unexpected as the Internet has become so integral in so many people's lives. As they have asked questions the RIPE NCC, under the guidance of the RIPE Community and RIPE NCC membership, has reached out to answer those questions. If any of the groups you mentioned also join discussions and ask questions they will also be heard and answered.

I'm not saying that RIPE is doing anything bad or with any bad intent, also I didn't really mean to start a thread, but even if this precise discussion has been going on for a long time at ICANN and elsewhere about 15 years ago, and views on it really vary, it looks like RIPE still has to deal with it.

The point is that having an open door and saying "if you have anything to say, just show up" is not enough, if you really want to make balanced policies. Some stakeholders, like governments and business, have well funded employees and lobbyists that can afford showing up, while other stakeholders don't. In fact, the "public interest" is the hardest thing to keep into account, because any narrow group with specific interests can show up and scream to push your policies in their favour, while the general public has a weak interest that only becomes huge if you could aggregate several billion Internet users, which you can't practically do. So either you make active efforts to include these other points of view, e.g. like ICANN has been doing, or you will always risk to produce policies biased in favour of those few that actually can afford to show up, and against the general public interest.

(Also, we may be going off topic, so apologies in advance - happy to continue elsewhere if you like.)

I think this has moved off the original topic and is more about diversity. There is now a separate mailing list for diversity issues:
https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/diversity/

From what I have seen (and I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong) they seem more focused on 'diversity of peoples'. A current topic is the issue of gender at RIPE Meetings. But to me if you work under the general heading of 'diversity' that should cover all aspects of diversity. Some people may believe the corporate world is much more represented than the individual netizen at these meetings and on these mailing lists. Then I would say the diversity group should look at how to actively improve the diversity of representation at meetings to achieve a better balance and ensure the general public interest is served, avoiding the possibility of policies being made just for the rich and powerful.

I think such a discussion would be better moved to the diversity mailing list.

cheers
denis

Regards,

Vittorio Bertola | Research & Innovation Engineer
vittorio.bertola@open-xchange.com 
Open-Xchange Srl - Office @ Via Treviso 12, 10144 Torino, Italy