[WSIS CS-Plenary] Starting the planning for Prepcom 3

[Robert Guerra]

(I thought it would be a good idea to make the plenary list aware of  
the following topic being discussed on the Governance list)



    From:       rguerra at lists.privaterra.org
     Subject:     [governance] Starting the planning for  Prepcom 3
     Date:     August 21, 2005 10:04:05 AM EDT (CA)
     To:       governance at lists.cpsr.org

Given the importance of IG at Prepcom 3, i'm really disappointed by
the very small # of fellowships (10-15) that will be available to
fund CS participants to travel to and stay in Geneva. That's a real
small #.

That raises the question, what (if anything) could be done virtually
at the coming prepcom to allow those following the events in Geneva
to participate in an effective and meaningful way. In terms of what's
possible - given there's WiFi available  throughout the venue,
streaming, podcasts, blogs and yes, even regular email updates are
possible.

What to use, how to make it available to those who will not be in
Geneva - well, that's the question i'd like to ask the list.

Look forward to comments.


Regards

Robert

     From:       bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de
     Subject:     Re: [governance] Starting the planning for  Prepcom 3
     Date:     August 21, 2005 10:58:27 AM EDT (CA)
     To:       governance at lists.cpsr.org
     Reply-To:       bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de

Robert Guerra wrote:


> That raises the question, what (if anything) could be done virtually
> at the coming prepcom to allow those following the events in Geneva
> to participate in an effective and meaningful way. In terms of what's
> possible - given there's WiFi available  throughout the venue,
> streaming, podcasts, blogs and yes, even regular email updates are
> possible.
>

Good point, Robert. This caucus has a special responsibility, as half of
the PrepCom (at least) will be consumed by IG debates. On the other  
hand,
this is also an issue for general CS.

We at worldsummit2005.org will report every day and upload all important
CS documents that are not available elsewhere. We will also try to  
link to
all the blogs.
I guess Rik will again provide meeting notes etc. on the CS section of
wsis-online.net.

I sincerely hope the volunteer monitoring group coordinated by Jane
Johnsen will again cover all the official plenary discussions. They  
might
use some technical help (and definitely more volunteers!) to make their
work more efficient. Cory Doctorow has recently talked about the way  
they
did it at the WIPO meetings. Very professional. We should try to do
something along those lines. I have pasted the relevant part below.

Maybe the CS prep event on the 18th should also have a monitoring /  
online
participation meeting in the afternoon.

Best, Ralf

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003214.html

One of the truly subversive and amazing things the NGOs did is that  
we set
up open WiFi networks that weren't connected to the Internet -- because
there was no Internet access at the meetings when we started -- and then
we would take exhaustive collaborative notes on what was said. It's very
hard to take notes at these events. Diplomatic speech is very  
stylized, so
you'll have a typical intervention which begins something like, "Mr.
Chairman, allow me to congratulate you as I take the floor for the first
time, on your reappointment to the chairmanship. I have every confidence
that with your steady hand at the tiller, you'll guide us to a swift and
full consensus on the issues at hand. The delegation from Lower  
Whatistan
is pleased to take the floor." Und zo weiter. Eventually you get to the
point, and after 20 minutes it boils down to, "No." Taking notes on that
kind of speech is really grueling, because it's very hard to stay
attentive and catch the one little phrase that has meaning.

So we'd have teams of three or four people using collaborative note- 
taking
software, and one would be taking notes, one would be adding commentary
and another would be following behind and correcting typos and  
formatting
and the like. Meanwhile, we're all of us checking each other as we go --
filling in the blanks, noting discrepancies and so on -- and then
publishing it twice a day at lunch and dinner.

Now, the delegations there were accustomed to the old WIPO regime, where
the notes would be taken by the secretariat, sent out for approval by  
the
delegates, sanitized -- all the bodies would be buried -- and then
published six months later. And what happened once we started working
together like this is that delegates would get calls on their lunch  
break
about things they'd said that morning. Suddenly, they're immediately
accountable for their words, which completely changed the character  
of the
negotiations.


     From:       vb at bertola.eu.org
     Subject:     Re: [governance] Starting the planning for  Prepcom 3
     Date:     August 22, 2005 9:31:59 AM EDT (CA)
     To:       bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de
     Cc:       governance at lists.cpsr.org

Il giorno dom, 21-08-2005 alle 16:58 +0200, Ralf Bendrath ha scritto:

> We at worldsummit2005.org will report every day and upload all  
> important
> CS documents that are not available elsewhere. We will also try to  
> link to
> all the blogs.
> I guess Rik will again provide meeting notes etc. on the CS section of
> wsis-online.net.
>

I don't know whether ITU is going to do webcasts and of what, but it
would be good to have webcasts as well. If you want, I can contact the
people who did the webcast of the WGIG meetings using only free software
solutions. This has some practical disadvantages (clients are not so
nice, the system is still under development, etc) but I think it's
certainly better (in terms of political correctness) than using the
average Real stuff.

I don't think they could afford coming for two weeks to Geneva to do the
webcasts themselves, but I think that they would be more than happy to
help some volunteer to install the recording software, make it work, and
perhaps also provide (part of) the servers and bandwidth.

But the question is, is there anyone in CS (or maybe a team) who has a
suitable laptop/webcam couple, will attend the entire PrepCom, and would
spend his/her time doing the webcast?
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...

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> But the question is, is there anyone in CS (or maybe a team) who has a
> suitable laptop/webcam couple, will attend the entire PrepCom, and
> would
> spend his/her time doing the webcast?
>

A variety of CS reporting modalities would be ideal.

Certainly a dedicated person for live streams would be needed.
However, should be be ok with a delayed feed - then, it might be
easier.

We'd need to co-ordinate volunteers and make sure
they have the right software and connectors...

I'll bring some additional equipment (mostly audio adaptors) so that
I can record the audio stream directly and not by placing my webcam
in the headphones as i did in prepcom II. Others with laptops and
ipods, could, perhaps, do something similar.

The larger question is how to co-ordinate all of this? Is there an
existing "reporting group", if not, can a specific PrepCom III adhoc
group be created for this?


regards

Robert