Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
Civil society not representing the needs and interests you wanted to see represented in Geneva and civil society being a European/academic construct are not quite the same thing. I understood the latter to be a general impression and took issue with that. The goal of civil society groups throughout WSIS was to integrate many different needs and interests of Internet users.
And I was offering a response, which I stand by. Civil society -- at WSIS and here in ICANN -- is sufficiently far removed from the needs and issues of the public to be generally irrelevant to its interests. I would not limit origins to Europeans and academics (let's not forget trade unions and religious groups, amongst others) though I understand the sentiment behind the original comment. The core point is this: if the needs of the public interest were being met by civil society, NCUC would be addressing our issues and At-Large would not need to exist. Unfortunately that is not the case, so here we are. I would like to prevent ALAC evolving into a weak NCUC wannabe with money subsidy in lieu of Board representation. Unfortunately it's already pretty far down that path. - Evan