IGF 2015 First Open Consultations and MAG Meeting 3 December

IGF MAG Meeting

 03 DEC 2014 (MORNING SESSION)

 Geneva, Switzerland

>>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.  Can we please take our seats?  We're about to start.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you for being in the room on time.  Thank you for contributing to homework.  I read most of the contributions, except those who were sent in right before the meeting because of commute from the hotel to U.N. facilities here.  

 And so what are my conclusions?

 That most probably we will not be able to finalize completely work on theme, subthemes, and topics for intersessional work fully, but we certainly need to strive to complete as much as we can, and maybe attempt to adopt kind of working titles, for the moment, which would allow us to proceed, and then work on line trying to reach consensus or rough consensus in the group and finalize the -- these topics by the end of the year.  

 Why it is so important?  Because once we are putting out call for proposals, that should contain information about theme, subthemes, because one of the criteria of evaluation is how the proposed workshop fits in the sort of framework of the meeting and how it corresponds or resonates with subthemes.

 Looking and analyzing all different aspects and using my prerogative of the chair, I would like to suggest a working title for IGF 2015 which, in my view, represents maybe not a complete balance but is closest to possible balance, addressing concerns of many MAG members.

 And that is, "Building Trustworthy Net for Sustainable Development."  

 And then we would need to work on subthemes -- we would need to work for subthemes.

 Again, there are many, many proposals on the table.  My personal preference would be go simple and revive four major subthemes that have been used in the past, but of course that was not widely present in the discussion.  Therefore, I would not attempt at this moment to suggest any further proposals.

 When it comes to a theme for intersessional work and topics for best practices, I felt that ICC/BASIS's proposal, "Bringing" -- no, "Policy Menu for Bringing Next Billion On Line," or along the lines of that, was one which could be supported in principle by many.  And on topics for best practice forums, I think that the leading theme that came out was gender and ICTs or Internet IXPs were mentioned in a number of suggestions.  

 And we need to think further on other possible topics, because out of -- apart from those two, I didn't really feel that any other gathered overwhelming support.

 I also liked very much the suggestion of Juan Alfonso about the -- "Shaping the Evolution of Internet," but I see that that maybe could be introduced as a motto for IGF in general.

 I don't know whether that -- now it's time to add that type of thing, but please think in those terms, putting a motto for IGF "Shaping the Evolution of the Internet."

 So this is sort of my conclusion from our yesterday discussion and evening exchange, as well as you saw I did my part of the homework.  I proposed the draft schedule for preparations, and so that schedule of preparations stems from experience as well as sort of engineering a preparatory process, taking into account all other factors that may influence the process.

 So I did a little write-up -- and as you see, I'm not very good in long writing -- explaining what purpose or what aim of each of the MAG meetings have been so far, and suggesting that we should go for -- this time for three meetings because of the bigger distance between IGF Istanbul and IGF Brazil.

 It is more than 14 -- or it's 14 months, (non-English word or phrase), and so not lose kind of the dynamic in the preparatory process, I think we need to go for three meetings this time.

 The first meeting, I think the tasks are very clear.

 For the next meeting in May, we would need to do a selection of workshops based on results of the call for proposals and preselection which will be done by the secretariat based, again, on methodology and criteria, and after the May meeting we would have more or less sort of architecture of the event.

 And then there would be fine-tuning and negotiations with the promoters of workshops in order to fix completely the schedule.

 And then I think it would be useful to have another meeting in September which would be devoted more to analysis of state of play with intersessional activities and results and maybe shaping those intersessional activities that still need to be -- the modalities of which still need to be defined, and that meeting, in my view, would be very useful to organize in New York on U.N. grounds.

 The reason for that is that potentially we could also have interaction with the negotiation group of WSIS+10 review, so that's the rationale behind proposing it organizing in New York.

 Of course, this is our wish because the group has not been constituted.  We do not know whether a group will be willing to interact with other stakeholders as suggested by the UNGA resolution or what would be modalities of that interaction, what would be the calendar of that interaction.  But I think if we practically reach out president of General Assembly who is in charge of nomination of two co-facilitators as well as in charge of organizing interaction with other stakeholders, I think we could shape that timetable and modalities ourselves.  So, therefore, the proposal is to have the meeting in New York which provides opportunity to interact as well as inviting those negotiators to Brazil in November and organizing not in the meeting of IGF itself but during the meeting of IGF, on the margins of the meeting of the IGF, the consultations on the outcome document of the December WSIS+10 review.  So that is my proposal which I would like you to consider.  That will also focus our conversation further.  If you are in agreement, please let me know.  If you are in violent disagreement, please let me know either because it would be very interesting to hear concerns.

 And I see Izumi Aizu is first who is seeking the floor.  After that Juan Alfonso and Marilyn and Avri and many others.

 [ Laughter ]

 Please, Izumi.

 >>IZUMI AIZU:  Thank you, good morning.  As to your proposal of the main theme, I have some question about the timing.  As you proposed in the timetable -- and it will be ideal to come to the conclusion of theme and subtheme at this moment -- meeting on the one hand, on the other, we are starting very early unlike the previous preparation and now we are still December.  And that relates to the other question that there's some proposal floating that we may have a meeting back-to-back with OECD in March in Paris, which is not written in your proposed timetable.  Do we really have to decide a theme now?  Or as we tried in the last years, for example, to put online with the communities some kind of feedback and then Chair could -- you could decide.  That makes things much easier and widely accepted.

 I also have very strong problem with the word "trustworthy."  Some of you may know, it has been used by one commercial vendor for trustworthy computing for many years.  There is another initiative called Trustworthy Internet Movement by a particular set of organizations of people.  And there is trustworthy.net as a Web site.  If it is generally acceptable, fine.  But, again, I would like to hear the communities' voices before we make the decision and then get some questions.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Answering immediately about March meeting, then it seems to me we would go for four meetings and there are considerable funding implications.  And that is not OECD meeting but that is UNESCO meeting and more precisely, that meeting is in early March.  It is on the 3rd and 4th of March in Paris.

 Juan Alfonso, please.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  I in principle agree with all this process.  But I want to speak a little bit about the intersessional and to view all this toward the Joao Pessoa IGF as a coordinating process.  As I said before and many also echo that, next year is a very important year and the IGF should have really impact, maybe in terms of document.  It doesn't need to be consensus document as it is written, but it has to be real outcomes.  

 So I believe that the best way is to have the intersessional themes to be coherent with the themes of the IGF.  In this way, the intersessional could be sort of preparation of input material in order to advance the work and arrive to Joao Pessoa with a lot of ground covered already, even for the workshops to fine-tune in the end.  

 And not only that, I will even advise that this MAG could recommend a regional IGF or even national IGF as a recommendation, of course, because they can do what they decide, but to recommend to focus on the same themes of the themes that we adopt for Joao Pessoa.  

 And in that case also, it contributes as a flow and then it will have great strength of this output document or output -- whatever it comes out that we want to provide to the General Assembly for the sustainable development goal process and also for the WSIS+10 review.

 In this sense, I understand that the IGF has been categorized by diversity of themes.  And maybe this year we should try to make an exception and concentrate on only two or three themes that are really the concern of the global community, not only users but also the rest of the stakeholders.  I think this is not a step against diversity.  Maybe it is a tactical step for this year in which the sustainability of the IGF itself is at stake.

 And to finish, I would like to reiterate that we need to differentiate ourselves from ICT4 development events because that would signal the uniqueness of this process and it would also help our survival.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Juan Alfonso.

 Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.  My first comment is going to be in support of the idea that 2015 is indeed a very special year.  And for that reason, I wish to recall that actually traditionally we usually met three times a year and sometimes even for more than three days in trying to do our work.  We're at a very -- a moment of opportunity for the IGF and a moment of opportunity for WSIS follow-up.  And we need to also keep in mind sometimes it is easy to think only within the IGF that this is -- we are MAG members focused on the IGF.  But I think we need to remember that the IGF was created as part of a larger document, the Tunis Agenda which called for the IGF but also is based on -- the call for the entire work of the summit was focused on creating an information society.  

 And 2015 in New York, the IGF will be evaluated along with the WSIS outcomes themselves.

 So in relation to the draft time schedule, I would propose -- I do think we need to meet three times during 2015.  I understand there are financial implications.  And as I am not one of the MAG members who receives funding, I take that into account.  But I think that it would be very helpful for us to meet in conjunction with the meeting in UNESCO.  

 The content of the UNESCO report is directly relevant to the work of the IGF.  And UNESCO, of course, is one of the IGOs that participates actively in the IGF and also will be contributing heavily to the evaluation of the WSIS outcomes.

 A meeting in late May at a time in Geneva when we can get hotel rooms or facilities around the other busy schedule, or early June, is going to be needed, I think.  

 As for a meeting in September in New York, I offer the following thought.  While it might be a really excellent idea, I think I would ask that the secretariat explore the feasibility of sufficient rooms within the United Nations facility versus perhaps needing to meet in a different location and then going into the U.N. grounds for a shorter meeting which might be built around a consultation with the co-facilitators.  

 I'm just experienced in having seen in the past the difficulty of getting meetings for two days -- meeting space for two days within the U.N. facilities, particularly in September when the summit around the MDGs and sustainable development will take place.

 I like the idea that we will take public consultation on our ideas about the themes and other formats.  And I think we saw -- we learned last time that perhaps we lept ahead a little bit too quickly without taking that consultation more broadly from the community.  Putting out a call for consultation now would allow us to come back together in early March and then to start really finalizing themes, workshops, format, et cetera.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So to my count, you are talking about four meetings instead of three.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  May I please, Chair, respond?  You're counting this meeting.  And I'm counting three meetings in 2015.  So, yes.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I always was told that a counting is not a science, it is always an art.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you and good morning.

 I want to, first of all, say a couple things.  In terms of the theme -- the overarching theme as you suggested, I've always had difficulty understanding the Internet as not being trustworthy while some of the users perhaps weren't.  So I hope that we can differentiate those things, but that's not what I put my flag up to speak about.

 I think it's going on one of the same themes that Marilyn spoke of and that we spoke of around the table this morning with our sort of civil society breakfast meeting.  And that's that while we're going to suggest many themes today, that we not be the ones to decide on them until such time as we've had a chance to get a consultation.

 Now, what we've been recommending is that we do more than just our old-fashioned, please send in an email or a text but actually use some of the crowdsourcing tools to basically get a wider polling of the themes that the IGF community people find interesting, and not only what they find interesting but what they might be able to work on and interested in working on leading up to the yearly meeting and, finally, to get them to add any themes that we forgot to the list.  Something that is less than essay writing and more something that many of the IGF community could take part in.

 The suggestion we were making was that this be done by, you know, the end of the year.  It is something that certainly could be done in three, four weeks so it wouldn't slow us down.  We could certainly continue our discussions in the meantime but really requesting that we add themes to the list today of things to be discussed but that we do not eliminate themes, that we basically leave that as a next exercise for ourselves after the community has had a chance to add its voice.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So now I will take the remote participant, sorry, online participant, Subi.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Thank you, Janis, for making that distinction and good morning, everybody.  I do support the working title, "Building trustworthy Internet for sustainable development."  There are many reasons for that because while we are discussing these issues -- and I know there are corporations that have this as part of their motto, as part of their tagline, but for a lot of us in developing countries, we would like the Internet to remain free and open and this is a huge part of the conversation, erosion of digital trust, data localization, and data serenity (phonetic).  

 So there are many reasons and I could go on.  But I will stop with that as far as the working title is concerned which could possible be a main theme this year.

 The motto I particularly like, "Shaping the evolution of the Internet," because as the IGF brand stands, this is something that I'm really looking forward to.  It is an excellent proposal to host the MAG meeting in March in conjunction with UNESCO.  Marilyn has already talked about some of the reasons.  This is an important study, which covers all key areas and all of us are engaging with UNESCO in different foras at different levels.  I support that proposal.

 For workshop and evaluation rating, which is the first item on the agenda, I will come back to that when the floor is open.  But I did have a comment about themes for regional and national IGFs.  There was a proposal from the floor to look at working in conjunction with what we're discussing at the main IGF.  I think it is a two-way process where there are things that feed in from regional and national initiatives in the main IGF.  They are not just people who are taking concepts from the main IGF and implementing things around that.  So I think the IGF gets enriched each year.  And paragraph 10(g)(2) of the Tunis Agenda, reflection on capacity-building and documenting where we moved along, is an important priority.

 Just my last point, on intersessional work in the agenda, I see that as being finalized today in terms of working groups.  That is something as I pointed out even yesterday is a bit of a problem for people who are online and participating or some of us who can't make it.  

 So we've been nimble footed and we have been able to respond to new evolving topics throughout the year.  And November seems far away.  

 I request the secretariat and the MAG to be a little flexible as far as constitution of working groups is concerned for intersessional work.  And we do not finalize but we put some suggestions on the table so there is call for engaging a wider community then.

 But a framework and a parameter, some guidelines, that is the discussion that I'm looking forward to today.  Thank you, Janis.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Subi.

 Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Good morning, everyone.  Quick points.  One, I think the earlier we decide the theme the better it is.  Last year we really rushed and said we don't have much time.  Now we seem to have a couple of months more and we are saying "Oh, my God, we have lots of time."  I think it would be best to approach the issue of themes as early as possible.

 Now, if we want to go to crowdsourcing, that's not a bad idea but the challenge of open consultation is that certain stakeholder groups can send in 4-, 500 responses and certain others maybe send in 10 or maybe 15 at best.  That's just the nature of how people respond to online consultations and stakeholders do.

 And in the end, it becomes a numbers game, as you yourself sort of accumulated views this morning based on email responses, and that's where it boils down to.  So we have to be careful in not letting this down to be a numbers game alone.

 And, therefore, if we have to go for public consultation, we should ensure that we as the MAG at least agree to a set of parameters or principles that are indicated along with the consultation that must be adhered to when responding to public consultation.  Otherwise, we could be either in the same spot where we have 40 new responses or a lot of responses coming from one stakeholder and the others kind of struggling to match the numbers.  

 So I would strongly recommend that we look at principles and parameters on how to decide -- and convey that as part of the public consultation so that there is an objective way to then select what comes through the consultation process and it should not just be a sort of a voting or a number game.

 Second, I agree with the issue of motto.  I think that's very well presented.  We should certainly consider that.  We haven't done it so far.  This one fits really well.

 I also have a challenge with the word "trust" and "trustworthy."  I think we do a great disservice when we try and add those kind of words as prefaces to "Internet."

 I don't think the Internet has to be trustworthy; I think people who are using it and stakeholders have to be trustworthy.  

 So we should be careful not to add adjectives to "Internet" because the Internet really hasn't done anything wrong to anybody, and we tend to kind of, you know, focus on the Internet and it's like it's -- we should be very careful how that adjective will be perceived if we put it just before "Internet."  

 So I would go back to the working title which was suggested by our British colleagues of "sustainable development."

 On the issue of meetings, I would go along with the comments made by Marilyn regarding three meetings in 2015.

 If we were to get a theme out by the next 15, 20 days, or whatever the process is -- and I'm not sure how long this consultation could take place but, if we had to go that route, then we should try and get some preliminary information in by March.

 We should also use the March meeting, apart from the UNESCO discussions, to get into the meat of the intersessional work that would have begun.

 It would also have been around the time when the calls for the proposals would have gone out.

 So there is a lot of actual substantive work that MAG needs to do, which is, put out the call for workshops, convey the criteria for workshops, convey the subthemes based on which this will come through, and also have some substantive discussions around intersessional work because all we have left today is about five hours.  I'm not sure how much detail we can get into.

 And of course your suggestions for May or June and then September are very welcome.  I think we should think, too, very carefully about September and we would be guided by you, Mr. Chairman, and we are in your hands because we don't quite understand the U.N. processes of how we can get into that and how we can influence that and -- you know, so it will have to be probably a four-day MAG meeting with one day devoted to an outreach program, so we'll have to design that carefully, and I sort of -- you know, we agree with the idea and the principles of -- for what is being suggested.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  

 Just to inform the discussion, in the call that the secretariat puts in preparation for this meeting, there was a request not only to submit evaluation of Istanbul meeting and ideas for Brazil, but equally, proposals for themes, subthemes, and intersessional work, and 18 proposals in total have been submitted in response to that call, and the proposal -- one of the proposals on the theme was "Internet Governance for Sustainable Development and Promotion of Human Rights."  Another input suggested the theme should be related to topics like surveillance, cybersecurity, on-line privacy as a priority or overarching theme for 2015 meeting.

 So you see that we have had already some consultations and not too many people responded, or organizations, but nevertheless we went through the process and we created the opportunity.

 As much as I like crowd funding, I know we will have a Christmas tree and then we will be facing a need to trim that Christmas tree.  Of course I'm ready to go through this trimming process.  It's always engaging and intellectually challenging, and so happy to do if the MAG considers that is the right way of doing things.

 But let me now take the next speaker, and that is Fiona.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis, and thanks for the proposal on the schedule.

 I think I'll restrict my remarks to that, for the time being.

 Just to echo those that suggested on-line consultations, I think that's a great opportunity and something that we could do from now until whatever the schedule is we agree.  So that's always a good exercise to get feedback on themes and things like that.

 I would have some strong reservations about basically doubling the number of meetings we use to prepare for the IGF, which is in effect what we would be doing if we had four meetings.  

 The WSIS called for the MAG to be lightweight and nimble and it seems to be -- doubling the meetings seems to go against that concept and making things more bureaucratic.  I would suggest that we be thoughtful when we have face-to-face meetings.  Those meetings need to be deliberate and purposeful and things we can't do on line.

 We have in the last couple of years adopted this, I think, schedule of every -- a call every two weeks and those have been very effective in getting things done, and I think we should sort of default to that.

 I do think it's challenging to suggest we keep adding more meetings without clear purpose for those meetings.  

 I think the UNESCO activity in March is a very interesting one, and for those MAG members that are interested in doing that, I would encourage them to do so, but I'm not sure what the UNESCO activity, in and of itself, has to do with the MAG and organizing the IGF for November.

 I'd also like to point out, just in the scheduling concept, we need to actually get the proposal out for workshop requests, and we need to give stakeholders two months or so to respond to that request, which means that if we don't do that until March, we will not have sufficient time to actually get proposals in and evaluate them, if we're going to meet in May.  

 So I think the schedule you've outlined is a good one to start with and I think it could be fleshed out with more specifics of these, you know, every-two-week calls and what we hope to accomplish to make sure we do them, but would really have strong reservations about doubling the number of meetings, and how often we get together face to face to prepare for something.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Cheryl?

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 I also agree that coming to a conclusion on a theme earlier rather than later would help us, especially as I'm listening to Fiona's comments, with respect to the work that we need to do on the workshop proposals, and Virat's comments on the work that we still need to do on the intersessional piece.

 We do have a lot of other things that we'll need to decide.

 I also think coming to a conclusion on a theme a bit earlier gives the community time to get excited about it.  It's almost a marketing piece for the IGF, and it gives us more time to build around that.

 I do like the notion of some type of motto in the future by Juan Carlos, I think it was.  I think that's an interesting concept and I would be interested to hear more about that.

 Also, the theme of sustainable development that was raised by our U.K. colleagues, I think it's a great one.  And Ana's contribution yesterday with respect to the inclusion and focus on people I think is really important, and I think one of the other alternatives was sustainable and human development.  I'm very supportive of that as well, as a concept, and I think everything that we are doing, we are benefiting people or we're trying to benefit people, so we should try to keep that close.

 With respect to the best practice forums, to the extent that we are looking to add a new one, I would ask the MAG to consider possibly examining on-line education.  I think on-line education is an area that's seen a lot of growth over the past several years and it has -- there is a lot of research out there on it now with respect to MOOCs, massive open on-line courses.  Many of the major universities now offer on-line programs and these programs are accessible to individuals throughout the globe, and so it would be interesting to see the progress that's been made, how it's been impacting people, et cetera.

 And so I think that's one area that might lend itself towards best practice work.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I have on-line participant Izumi Okutani.  Izumi?

 >>REMOTE PARTICIPANT:  Thank you, Chair.  Izumi, in particular, would like to support Avri and Marilyn's suggestions about consulting the community through some wider consultations.

 We have other observers on line who are not MAG members who have also shown their support for this.  

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE: And I personally then, as I -- you'll see that I do have both cards up -- would also like to show my support for that.

 If I may continue as myself now.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Please.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  So speaking for myself, I do agree with the need to -- or with the proposals by Avri and Marilyn, and while I understand the timing problems and the addition of meetings, I also strongly feel that we need to approach the strategy of panels and the attention we need to give to remote moderation -- I'm sorry, on-line moderation, panel moderation, and panel strategy for proper interaction with on-line participation.

 So that we need a little bit of time there anyway, because when the call for proposals goes out, I think that strategy and information should go out.

 So I don't think that we're losing anything by taking a little bit of time to attend both situations, both consulting the wider community on the proposals and preparing better guidelines for workshop criteria.

 Thank you.

 Oh, I'm sorry.  Excuse me.

 Today is the U.N. Day of Persons with Disabilities, so I think if we wanted to just mention a little support for the dynamic coalition for persons with disabilities and keep that in the back of our minds, at least, that is a priority.

 And I thank the chair for the mention of gender as a possible best practice.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I have Mark, Shita, Constance, Lea, Dominique have asked for the floor.  That is -- Jivan.  And then I will ask our Brazilian hosts, maybe, to say what they think, how they feel, and then we would move on to the other topics.

 I see Kossi also is asking for the floor.

 Please, Mark.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Thank you, Chair, and good morning, colleagues, and observers.

 Thank you very much, Chair, for your precision in making proposals on -- with regard to themes and the timetable for preparation for the IGF next year.  That's extremely helpful.  Really appreciate that.

 On themes, on the overarching theme, support that proposal provisionally.  Perhaps we can allow 15 to 20 days, as Virat was suggesting, for finalization of that.  And likewise, with regard to the themes, I think we should act quickly in order to go public early in the new year on the themes, subthemes, as well as the overarching theme.

 I think it's appropriate, really, that the MAG, with its diverse and global membership, to be tasked with finalizing this rather than going to the crowdsourcing route.

 I appreciate Avri's point, obviously, that any opportunity to maximize engagement is good, but I think the MAG is properly empowered to do that task.

 The motto, I think, is an interesting proposal.  We'll give consideration to that and respond quickly.

 With regard to the timetable for preparation, we would prefer to keep it to three meetings, including this one.

 The March UNESCO event I see more as an opportunity for the MAG to report progress at that meeting.  I agree with previous speakers that I don't really see the necessity in terms of practical action for a face-to-face meeting that's going to have resource implications and so on.  On-line action, I think, will cover what we need to do in the period leading up to -- to May.

 So I would stick to your proposal for three meetings, next meeting in May.

 I agree with your September proposal for a meeting in New York.  Outreach there is vital and we should seek that offer to do that in September as early as possible, so that the lead negotiators there will be aware of it and will anticipate it and factor it into the program for whatever the modalities are for preparation for the high-level meeting.

 The second committee yesterday in New York, my colleague there has reported that a major influential member of the committee has resisted mandate renewal at this time on a point of principle.  I won't name that administration but it was a previous IGF host so that narrows it down, if you like, to help you identify who it is.

 So it looks unlikely that mandate renewal will happen in this year's resolution, so it makes it all the more imperative that we report, go public on improvements, innovations, the preparatory process for Brazil, and so on, with the themes readily identified and the processes of multistakeholder engagement fully enacted and so on.

 So that's my point on the -- my main point on the timetable.

 With regard to intersessional work, I -- I have to say I'm a little bit surprised that we're solely focusing on the best practice mechanism, if you like, if that's not -- if that's the right word.  I'm not sure it is.  But I certainly support, of course, the best practice approaches but I wonder if we're losing sight of other valuable intersessional work on net neutrality and supporting maybe two -- one or two dynamic coalitions on rights and child protection, and bring that into the package of intersessional activity so that we don't sort of narrow it too -- too definitely at this stage.

 So I just sort of wanted to come back to that, to the importance of taking forward what was agreed in Istanbul on net neutrality and what is -- what you reported, Chair, in your summary.  That is important with regard to the dynamic coalitions.

 Finally, we should inform, as early as possible, the national and regional IGFs what we're -- what we're planning.

 And one other point with regard to that con- -- potential contribution is that with -- going back to best practices, we should communicate to them a kind of request that they consider nominating experts from their -- within their national and regional communities to contribute to these best practice forums.  That, I think, is a valuable sort of line of global communication for us to develop in terms of ensuring that the active participants are truly global and represent stakeholder communities from all regions:  developing countries, least-developed, and islands and so on.

 So thank you.  I hope those comments are helpful.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Certainly they are.  The question about intersessional activities is -- we have -- there are two strategies.  One, we're proposing a menu of items and sort of spreading thin across the board or we are concentrating on one which fits in the 2015 year philosophy, sustainable development and economic development and access and so on.

 So again, these are two different approaches and I appreciate your thoughts on that.

 Shita, please.

 >>SHITA LAKSMI:  Thank you.  I have two issues I want to table.

 The first one is a subtheme.  I would like to suggest the continuation for discussion on the Internet as an engine for growth and development subtheme, just like we have in Istanbul, but more under the business term, or using what Juan said regarding the Internet for economic development.  Especially on how it should be reflected in the business ecosystem between the global and national business entities.

 And the second is that the timetable for intersessional work, what we discuss on the table with several civil society organization representatives, intersessional work -- and which I'm still digesting what the term is -- it was suggested that this work should be decided in the early 2015, considering that there will be a series of regional, such as Asia-Pacific, or national IGFs throughout the years.

 I would think that starting as early as possible would be good to exercise the intersessional work but I don't know, perhaps you have another explanation on that, why you put it in September, Chair.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No.  I mean, intersessional work would start immediately, as soon as we're ready.  If we're ready after this meeting tomorrow, we will launch it then.

 In September, we would review the progress and contribute maybe to finalization, if possible.

 So that is the idea.

 And certainly the every-two-week phone calls of the MAG is -- so we -- I intend to continue with that practice because that was very useful to progress activities and then make decisions.

 Constance, please.  ISOC.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone.

 On the overarching theme, I think I would echo some of the concerns about the word "trustworthy."  An alternative might be "a trusted Internet."  If we're sticking to the idea of sustainable development, then it would be "a trusted Internet for sustainable development."

 On the schedule, I would echo the points made by Fiona.  I think it's -- it's quite important.

 And then in terms of intersessional work, the idea put forward by ICC/BASIS I think is an interesting proposal.  I like very much this idea of having policy menus building up to 2015.  

 At the same time, I think we need to consolidate what we have already.  

 So my suggestion would be that perhaps we consider that the theme for intersessional work proposed by ICC be the same theme as the overarching theme of the IGF, just to make sure we stay consistent through our intersessional work and as we work towards outcomes for the final IGF event in Brazil.

 In the same spirit, it seems to me that then the policy menus should probably be the same in terms of themes and the subthemes we have for the IGF, and the best practices would be foundational pieces, I think, of those policy menus.

 And then in terms of how do we make this happen, if there is agreement and if we can find volunteers among the MAG group but perhaps also beyond the MAG group, I think it would be good to kick start work through some sort of working group that would be working closely with the secretariat.  And I've mentioned the need to have the secretariat lead the process for neutrality reasons as we develop outcomes, and I still think it's very important.

 So if we could have a working group, I think we would need to have someone from ICC, civil society, technical community, all the sensitivities in that working group to kick start the intersessional work after this meeting.

 And then with regards to the best practices, I hear your concern about limited resources.  If the idea is to work in the framework of five themes maximum, it seems to me that some of the current themes maybe need two or three extra months of work but not 12 months.  So maybe we could consider finalizing some of the themes between now and the next MAG meeting and then instead of adding simply one theme, we could add one, two, three, depending on where we are with the old themes.

 In this regard, in terms of new themes, I think IXPs is a good one.  Gender and ICT, I'm not an expert but if there is support, why not.  And then I think someone also suggested best practices for IPv6 implementation which might be another one to consider.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Constance.

 I'm now calling on Lea.

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Thank you, Chairperson.  Good morning, everyone.  

 I'd like to echo a number of points that were made by colleagues.  First on the timetable, I actually support the idea of having four meetings in total.  I do think that a lot of work has to be done in between, but having face-to-face meetings really adds value.  I do appreciate Fiona's point that we need to make sure that it makes sense and we can justify to our communities the expenses.

 I really like the idea of the New York meeting that you mentioned and having a part of that meeting to be an outreach activity to feed into the conversation about the WSIS+10 review.

 As Mark said, and I think I agree with that, this needs to be clearly communicated in advance in order to make sure that it has maximum impact.

 One thing that you mentioned, Chairman, in your presentation was the possibility of having consultation on the WSIS+10 review during the IGF meeting but on the margins.  Now, I'd like to perhaps caution against that and encourage us to have an open mind of still adding that onto the main program, if that's something that the community wants.

 I'm afraid it will be a big issue next year.  And as we will be coming close to the December meeting in New York, there could be a clash between then the main program and this discussion.  And I wouldn't want to see that happen, that people who are interested in that discussion can't attend if it is on the margins or clashing with the main program of the IGF.

 I'd like to strongly support the suggestion made by Avri and supported by others in the room on public consultation on the themes.  Perhaps to -- as it seems that there is a lot of support for this.  Perhaps a way forward would be to take the themes that were suggested by various members overnight and yesterday and put that together with the suggestions that were made in the submissions prior to the meeting as you suggested and put that out to the community to perhaps give them a draft of proposals that could be considered but also leave room for additional proposals to make sure that the views of the community are reflected.

 On intersessional work, I think Mark made that point that we need -- I don't know how others see it, but I thought that intersessional work is something much broader than the best practice forums.  It is actually everything that happens between sessions.  That's why it is call intersessional work.  It is basically anything that happens between annual meetings.  

 I think Constance made that point.  It contains not just best practice forums but dynamic coalitions as well as any preparations towards workshops that I think we should also encourage to make sure there's a dynamic discussion happening the whole year-round.  

 I think Shita mentioned having that as an August activity was confusing for me when I saw that in the schedule.  But you just clarified that's not what you meant.  So appreciate that.

 I don't know whether it would be worth perhaps -- as we seek views from the community on the themes to also seek input on intersessional work and support Constance's view that there should be consistency between intersessional work and the program of the conference to make sure we maximize input.

 As a last point, this is not something that perhaps we have to discuss at this meeting but just want to make sure it doesn't fall off the radar was something that was picked up overnight.  I think Patrick wrote an email about a document that was circulated yesterday, the MAG terms of reference.  There just seem to be a number of questions there.  Perhaps we can -- I hope we can have a discussion about that online after the meeting.  Just want to make sure that doesn't drop off the radar.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Maybe -- let me talk a little bit from systemic point of view.  Of course, many things have happened since 2006 when we met for the first time in IGF.  And there has been a significant evolution in the whole ecosystem.  Things have changed.  But, in essence, the MAG is charged to prepare one event, a global IGF.  And we do not have any say over neither regional or national IGFs.  We can only invite them to cooperate with us and to take up our suggestions which would then feed in the preparation and substantive work of the IGF meeting in Brazil.

 So that is how I see it.  So, therefore, I would be very cautious in imposing or even attempting to impose something on regional IGFs in a direct sense.

 Inviting them on a voluntary basis and consider and report back and then provide input, that is the phraseology we would need to use.  Our task is to organize the May meeting in the best possible way based on input from others.

 We have still many other issues to discuss and, of course, this is extremely important.  I think we're moving towards kind of general understanding that maybe additional consultations with the community would be needed by Christmas, and then we would attempt to finalize the theme by mid January, that we could issue the call for proposals around -- in January, early February.  So this is how I feel we can proceed.

 But, nevertheless, I have a number of other speakers.  And I will call on Dominique.

 >>DOMINIQUE LAZANSKI:  Thank you, Chair.  As this is my first intervention as a new MAG member, I just want to thank everybody for their interventions so far.  I've learned -- I've learned a lot already over the last two days.

 Just a couple of points.  I just want to support the idea of deciding on a theme earlier rather than later.  This not only provides, as Mark said, as our colleague from the U.K. said, sort of energy and focus going forward but also a structure from which we can do our work and from which everyone else can start thinking about and planning workshop proposals.

 It is important to point out that providing a theme, a general theme for the IGF is probably -- does not limit, in fact, any other subthemes or workshops or anything like that but just provides a general goal and vision.

 And to that end, I think it is, in part, our responsibility as a MAG to decide on that.  And I support the Chair as well, again, as various others in that direction.

 Just a couple of other things in terms of the meetings, three meetings seems appropriate as long as we can continue to have the calls and the discussions online which, again, I think need to be done in a sort of effective and structured way.  And a theme, again, would provide that.

 And, finally, I support obviously the proposal that the ICC put forward on intersessional work as well as Constance's intervention on drawing from that and towards a general theme as well.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Jivan?

 >>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI:  Yeah.  I want to follow up and underline the few who have said that "trustworthy" is not something that we should put as an adjective for the Internet.  And perhaps Constance's suggestion of going into "trusted" could do the job.  But that is something that I don't think would do -- describe the process well.

 I think that crowdsourcing is a good way and I think we should use it more, perhaps not necessarily directly on the main theme.  But we should work toward collecting more from the community, more ideas, more of their thoughts and what is important to them.

 And the regional IGFs I think are a good resource for that as well.  We don't necessarily have to oblige and create a direct link that stays from now on.  But to use them from now on is something that we should use henceforth.

 In terms of the crowdsourcing, I think the idea of panel moderation is a good one.  I think that there's a lot of people here who could contribute to that so that we shape up and especially because we do have these 14 months, we should use them to really in the beginning open the net wide and then slowly have people from here perhaps as panel moderators that direct conversations in a given area.

 And to get back to a conversation that we've had on outcomes, I think as we keep on thinking of outcomes as already polished product, and we don't necessarily have to think of them in that way.  I think that there are those things that come out as already polished products, perhaps the Chair's summary, et cetera.  But the IGF can also be a place where ideas, information, and data come out and that somebody else makes sense out of that afterwards.  It doesn't have to be made sense right away, what exactly it means.

 So increasing the numbers isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Increasing the number of data, increasing the number of ideas, of information that goes through the IGF in some form and thus through the MAG in some form is not necessarily a bad thing.

 Three meetings is more than enough, I think, including this one.  And I think that the proposals of May and September are well thought out.  

 And the motto -- the idea for a motto is a good one, and I like it the way it's shaped.  Cheers.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 Kossi.

 >>KOSSI AMESSINOU:  Thank you very much, Chairman.  Good morning.  Good morning, everybody.  

 I'm sorry for going back to elements which have already been dealt with but actually the subject we're talking about on the proposal being made is very relevant.  But the most important thing for me is to see how these proposals fit in to what our communities want.  This is what we're here for.

 And in the private sector, we have the world of research and also we have governments.  And at this level, it could be said that we could adopt a minimum consensus on the themes of our activities and the global themes because I'm saying that as far as national matters are concerned, I'm thinking about Benin, we want to be sure that the activities we carry out at a national level contribute to world level.

 It should not be at the last minute that information is provided on the themes so that everybody gets lost in all the proposals being made.  We've already said in the past that the national should be done before the regional and the world IGF should come after that.  If we want to respect that principle and be sure that the information comes from the base to the summit, then we will have gone a long way to reaching a consensus on the themes.  Thank you, sir.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Kossi, for your contribution.

 I will take three more interventions in this respect from the room, and that is Ana, Maria Victoria, and Cisco Systems.  We need to move on.  We can't stay on this all the time.  I think we're reaching -- and then I would like to ask Brazil to react.

 There will be other topics to talk about, many others.  And we still have at least 4 1/2 hours of working.

 So, Ana, please.

 >>ANA NEVES:  Thank you very much, and good morning, everybody.  I just would like to say a couple of things.  I think the overarching theme should be global, concise, and inclusive.  And it should sound strong and as a continuum of what has been achieved so far.  But at the same time, it should sound strong to the citizen.  So, again, I'm putting a lot of effort here to pay attention to people, to the citizen, because at the end of the day, what we are doing here is for us, is for the society, is for people.  Business is for people.  Economy is for people.  So I think that the theme, therefore, we should concentrate our energy on the subthemes that can be really broad and we can have a very good discussion on those ones.

 But for the main theme, I think that we should move on and I would like to appeal to have a global, concise -- a global, concise, and inclusive theme that sounds very strong.  So something that anyone can hear and immediately understand what we're talking about.

 And that's it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Maria Victoria.

 >>VICTORIA ROMERO:  Good morning, colleagues.  Chair, I will be brief because many of the issues that I wanted to touch on have already been said by previous colleagues.

 Regarding the overarching theme, I send this morning a couple of proposals but two basics, fundamentals problem of Internet governance and/or ten IGFs, where we are, where we're going.  I'm not completely sure about public consultation, the less it will be important.  It will be important as well as some of the colleagues said to have a consolidated version of all the proposals and to -- not to waste too much time and to start from that.  And I fully agree that it has to be people oriented as well.

 Regarding the subthemes, I could support those proposals of -- oriented to human rights and e-government, as Virat sent this morning this proposal.  I like that very much.  And as well as emerging issues, just to be sure.

 The other point I wanted to touch was on forging synergies.  I agree that you said we cannot impose -- we do not impose anything on regional or national processes, but we can work together and forge these synergies.

 As for the intersessional work, Chair, I agree that three meetings, it's a good number, including this one.  May and September.  And the one -- we have to be very careful of the one in September because we know that there's huge activity when the General Assembly starts and lots of heads of delegations and it will be difficult to get the attention of different people and especially the two facilitators of the WSIS+10 process, so we have to take that in mind.

 And also in the international -- intersessional process, Chair, I would like to stress the need to have in mind the activities for outreaching to other actors, especially governments from developing countries, and for that, activities in Geneva and New York are extremely important.

 Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Indeed, September is a busy time, but the second part of September in New York is busy time.  The first part is still okay.

 Cisco Systems.

 >>CHIP SHARP:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  Thank you for recognizing and allowing observers to comment during this period.  It's very appreciated.

 Two quick points.

 I was listening to the discussion on intersessional work and just -- it seems there's a difference, to me, between intersessional work and intersessional activity.

 Intersessional work implies a work product.  

 So I want to just repeat my plea from Monday that the intersessional work needs to be clearly scoped into what work's expected, you know, how is it input to IGF and what is it expected to do with it.

 So that's one point.

 The other one is, taking care on focusing on Internet governance and not slipping into technical work.

 Some of the proposals I've seen are very good, but they could easily slide into discussions of technical aspects and how to implement and I think that would be -- I think we need to focus on the Internet governance aspects, and not -- resist the temptation to get involved in, you know, discussing implementation work.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Lee, 30 seconds, please.

 >>LEE HIBBARD:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  

 Lee Hibbard from the Europe but putting my EuroDIG hat on to say that I think it's a very good idea to engage the regional IGFs, where possible.

 We have a planning meeting for the EuroDIG in Sofia, in Bulgaria, on the 27th of January.  I think it would be very important if you can -- if the IGF MAG can give clear indications or requests of what you actually want us to convey to you.  That's very, very important.

 And the second thing is that we already do a data collection of all proposals and we put them into a very transparent table and we therefore cluster things according to what we receive, so that's something we can share immediately.  

 And I think it's very important that all this data collection is done in a transparent fashion so that the MAG can decide very clearly what comes from where and how things are resolved thereafter.

 And the last thing is just to say that I think it's very important if we can try, at least in the planning meeting we have, to try to encourage legislate- -- to get some budget to send one or two, let's say, ambassadors from the region to contribute to the global level in terms of content substance issues.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Lee, for this intervention and proposal.

 Before going to Brazil for kind of maybe summing up and reaction, I will invite on-line participant Subi to say a few words, but please briefly.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Yeah.  So I still support the theme that has been proposed and I very strongly echo support for Avri's initial proposal for crowdsourcing inputs and going back to the public for consultation over the subthemes with a tight deadline, perhaps, as well as proposal for working groups and intersessional work.

 Before we go into the topic of main themes -- and I will reserve my comments for that section -- I would want to put a proposal on the table for commemorating and marking the decade-long journey of the IGF, even though a souvenir, and also augmenting the motto that's been suggested, "Shaping the Evolution of the Internet," by prefacing that with "10 years of Shaping the Use and the Evolution of the Internet."

 If you could consider printing badges or souvenirs and taking that message out, maybe augmenting also with the IGF logo with a sub-tag.  That is an important message that we can take away as we work towards the preparatory process.  That would be all for now.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  That is more for host country to do the -- the -- like these badges for participants.

 Please, Flavio, I understand you will be trying to express opinion and sentiments of the host country.

 >>FLAVIO WAGNER:  Yeah.  Thank you, Janis.

 So first, regarding the main theme of the IGF 2015, if we remember the final outcome of the NETmundial event, the statement identified many important issues that deserve attention from the community, and we feel that the proposed working title is maybe too narrow by concentrating on a subset of those relevant issues that we should face as a global community.

 And particularly, it may suggest that the IGF wants to concentrate on issues like security and massive monitoring.  And remember, please, that Brazil was strongly involved with promoting a discussion on these issues, even with a speech of the Brazilian president at the United Nations General Assembly last year regarding exactly security and massive monitoring.

 So people could think this theme has been proposed by Brazil to have a focus on these issues during IGF 2015, so this could give a very misleading message to the community.

 So we'd like just to reinforce our suggestion to build a bridge between the NETmundial outcome, which is much broader and inclusive, and IGF.

 So the roadmap established by the NETmundial declaration proposes further discussions on several themes that are extremely relevant for the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem.  And remember the declaration firmly proposes the strengthening of the IGF, suggesting that it is the most adequate forum to address in a multistakeholder setting all those issues that are not covered adequately by existing entities or processes.

 And especially in 2015 when the General Assembly will decide on the continuation of IGF, it would be very relevant to show that the community firmly proposes -- for instance, by means of the NETmundial declaration that has been prepared by the community -- that the IGF is the main forum for the discussion of all things that are relevant for the evolution of the ecosystem, and we think that the main theme of the IGF 2015 could clearly show that IGF accepts this role and is up to the challenge proposed by the community itself.

 And we think that the proposed theme also creates the required bridge between the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem and the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, so IGF 2015 could explicitly discuss, through its workshops, main sessions, and so on, how advancing the ecosystem and following on the path of the NETmundial recommendations we can help society and government to meet these goals.

 So this is regarding the main theme.

 Regarding the subthemes, we would like to see a small number of subthemes, such that we can organize the three or four main sessions that are focused on them and that bring together the contributions and results from the many workshops and dynamic coalitions and best practice forums and so on.

 So we would like -- we would not like to see too large number of subthemes.

 Finally, regarding the timetable for the preparation process, we would like to have as much opportunities as possible to discuss face to face in the MAG and to have public consultation with the community before we take our final decisions regarding the program.

 So we know that maybe due to budgetary problems it's difficult to have the meeting in March, but let's have this opportunity still open until we can take a final decision on that.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 So I have nothing to say.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No, it's very difficult.

 So one thing is clear.  We're very far apart on the main theme and subthemes.  We need further consultations.  And maybe if I -- if I would invite a group of MAG members who are most interested in this topic and who have spoken the most during the lunchtime still come together and try -- trying to work out a possible sort of proposal that we could put on -- sort of for consultations with the larger community, maybe that would be very helpful for doing that.

 Yes, Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Mr. Chairman, I just want to place one time consideration for the -- for the MAG to remember.  

 Just as we talk about two-hour main sessions and, you know, all the workshops reporting in to that and then there's a time issue because it's 120 minutes.

 This is an unusual year.  A typical year is seven months of preparation.  We have one meeting in February and one in May.  If we go with the process of consulting and crowdsourcing for the first time in IGF's history, which is a very good idea on paper, here is the challenge you have:  You'll put out the call for consultation in February every year.  You will get responses for intersessional work and theme in March.  You will finalize that, the earliest, in April.  When you meet in May, you will not have been able to put out the call for workshops and you will not have begun the work on intersessional work.

 So the May meeting would actually become meaningless every year unless the MAG is planning to meet every year three times starting December of 2015 and so on.

 We have -- this 14 months is an unusual exception.  We have seven months to plan.  So when we talk about crowd- -- 

 And that is the reason why MAGs -- many MAGs before us have made this decision and then left it open to the community to contribute workshops based on a range of subthemes.  That's the process of subthemes.  

 But please think again.  By May, you would only have finalized the themes, and intersessional work would have got you, at best, three or four months of work, which is the same as best practice last year.

 So as we -- as we put these proposals out, let's keep in mind we will not have 14 months each year.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Actually, now we have only 11, if my math is right.

 But, no, with the -- I do not want to change the timetable.  Maybe not in -- not in details, but in principle.

 I think the latest we would need to get out a call for proposals is the end of January.  By end of January, we need to have a theme and subthemes identified and agreed upon.

 Today, we're too much far apart, and this is -- there is no convergence in this room at the moment.  Maybe during the lunchtime, the most interested members could come together and to work out kind of a solution or proposal which we then would call a working title and we would put it for the -- for the consultations with the community to see their feedback.

 And then through the on-line meeting, through the conference call, we would take a decision on the theme and subtheme sometime in mid-January that we can propose -- can issue a call for proposals at the end of January.

 So then we would suggest two months for proponents of workshops to give -- sort of to formulate their proposals and submit to the secretariat, and then we would have another two months for MAG members -- for secretariat first to do a prescreening and then for MAG members to do evaluation.  

 And with that, we would come to the May meeting -- May or June meeting -- where we would do a selection process, as we did every year.

 After that, secretariat would contact all proponents, doing necessary adjustments, mergers, fine-tuning, and this nitty-gritty work, to get a schedule agreed and published, more or less, by end of July.

 So -- and then that would be for the -- for the preparation for the meeting itself.

 Then of course comes intersessional.  Intersessional activities and best practices.

 We -- now we know that seven weeks for best practices is not enough.  It would be good to engage and start working on best practice compilations as early as possible.

 So here I -- I hear we have three themes, maybe, which could be suggested:  gender -- Internet and gender, the IXPs, and IPv4/IPv6.  At least that.  And then we need to see what two other themes would be.  Either a continuation of two out of five that we had now, to finalize them completely and present outcomes to the next meeting, or my preference would be to have another two additional themes to make the library of compilations larger than we have.

 Also with the understanding that these are living documents and every time we have something new interesting that has been proven working, we add it to the -- to the mix.

 And so -- but then comes this intersessional.  You all know very well that one of the claims of everybody is that IGF needs to produce more tangible outcomes that should become more relevant, and in the Istanbul meeting, we were talking about engaging on a theme which would make a lot of sort of relevance for member states, particularly for developing countries, and it was suggested in the chair's statement -- or chair's report that this theme might be sort of noncontroversial, with a developmental angle, and ICC/BASIS has produced the proposal which suggests that this theme could be a policy menu for next building on line.

 That is -- that certainly has a developmental aspect, that has an economical aspect, that has an access aspect that is geared towards developing countries, that contributes to the overall sort of strategic theme of 2015, that is sustainable development, and so on.

 I mean, we can justify that particular topic.

 Of course we need to construct these intersessional activities, how that will be done, and again, taking into account the resource constraints, including human resource constraints.  We need to heavily rely on regional and national IGFs, hoping that they would take up that topic and they would provide input after discussing that topic in their events.

 Again, from the previous experience -- and please do not take it as any pejorative comment.  The previous experience shows that there is a hype of activities of the MAG members during the face-to-face meeting and then gradually it goes down because of the routine and daily work and so on, and we need to be very careful in our planning not to take up more commitments than we can deliver.

 I think that that is the danger for us, danger for our credibility, if we overpromise and under-deliver.

 I would rather go for a solution under-promise and over-deliver, in that respect.

 So therefore, again, we need to be very practical and evaluate the size of our stomach against the size of our eyes, because eyes always are bigger than stomach.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  And we want to eat more than we can -- we can really swallow.

 So these are my reflections, and I would like now to see if there is somebody who could volunteer to -- during the lunchtime to animate that discussion.

 Would you like to do that?

 >> BENEDICTO FONSECA FILHO:  Thank you, Janis.  I just was going to comment on that.  

 I think the timetable you have proposed is excellent and will allow us not to waste the time we have, to make good use of the time we have until November.  So by the end of January, we can have the themes and subthemes to kick off the process.  So since we are at the end of morning session, we only have three hours left in the afternoon, what I would like to suggest -- and I haven't even discussed with my delegation -- is if those interested parties could maybe meet outside the room or here by 2:00 p.m., of course, again even meet during the lunchtime, if that is more inviting.  But if those who can make it by 2:00, we'll be more than happy to try to have some more -- some further discussion.  This, of course, I think -- I don't think this will preempt the consultation that will follow online after the meeting but maybe it will help us to get out of the meeting some more clarity and some more understanding on the various options before us.  So we'll be more than happy to try to assist in this if we can rely on colleagues who can come by 2:00 p.m.  

 And, of course, then as you have said, Janis, we'll have to -- our eating necessities will be limited in time for satisfying the stomach.  But I think the discussions will be -- will benefit from this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Mark, very quickly, please.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes, thank you, Chair.  Mark Carvell, U.K. government.  Just very briefly, just to underline that in similar fashion to EuroDIG, the European Dialogue Internet Governance, the European regional IGF which Lee reported on in terms of process for picking up the direction from the MAG, the U.K. IGF committee is meeting next week.  There may be other national/regional IGFs which, likewise, are sort of hanging on for decisions here.  So just to underline that in terms of ensuring effective reaction, commitment, contribution to the intersessional activity.  This work that we are doing has to ensure agility, fleet-footedness, and expediency in securing the contributions to make intersessional activity meaningful, substantial work.

 So you need to ensure that the window for engagement with the wide diversity of national/regional IGFs and their processes of consultation and executive management is there for the MAG to secure effective solutions to intersessional modalities.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Constance?

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much.  I said I think that the policy menus was a good idea to kick start the intersessional work.  It's still unclear to me, however, why we need a separate theme for the intersessional work because it's -- experience shows that the difficulty within the IGF context is really to consolidate the work we have.  And I'm a little concerned that we might create another track that would not consolidate with what we're trying to do with regards to the preparation of the event itself.  Though, I don't have a strong opinion about the overarching theme, whether it is the one we discussed or whether it is the one proposed by ICC for the intersessional work, as long as I think it is the same theme in that we build intersessional work towards the event, the IGF event, where we would collectively acknowledge the outputs of the work done intersessionally.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Online participant.  Who is that?

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  Subi has asked for the floor.  And there is also a concern about the possible online participation during the lunch meeting.  Perhaps we can ask Evian (phonetic) to arrange WebEx at 2:00 here in the room.  Or I will check with you later?  No?

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  These are technical matters -- technical modalities.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  At any rate, that is a concern.  And then the card is for Subi.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Subi, please.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Janis, if we could re-emphasize the point that was made earlier in the day the differentiate between intersessional work and intersessional activity.  One of the concerns has been the IGF and the perception that we are organizing an annual meeting.  And when we look at your proposal from this morning, there is a very clear plan that has been outlined that communicates to the community and to the MAG members that we will be engaging in work throughout the year towards the preparatory process.

 However, there are best practice fora and two or three new working groups that we're suggesting.  I would like to reiterate that we have more such working groups but we also continue to disseminate actively the information that the IGF MAG will be doing while we're on the road to Brazil.  And I just had another suggestion for an intersessional work theme, enhancing youth participation at the global Internet governance dialogue.  If I could just leave it on the floor for reflection and consideration.  Thank you for now.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Subi.

 Christina from Egypt?

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA:  Thank you, Chair.  Maybe I'm coming in with the hat of the Arab IGF here, and I would like to welcome the proposal of the policy menu and of engaging with national and regionals intersessionally.  

 But I think we need to take into account that some of the national and regional IGFs only meet later in through the year.  And, likewise, we need to encourage them to work intersessionally probably also through mailing lists and online.  And I would suggest to issue, like, an invitation as early as possible for them with clear ideas of topics that we'd like to see in the policy menu or directions.

 And I also think I would like to echo maybe Lee and Mark's comments, that enough time and a larger window should be given to them; that is, if we want to allow for enough time for them to, you know, channel in their input.

 One last question.  I think it could be also good to have more info on how is the input coming from the nationals and regionals is going to be channeled.  How is that going to happen?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Just clarification, just clarification, for this intersessional work or the proposed topic, the idea is to produce a document which would be submitted or presented to the IGF in Brazil where we would seek maybe buy-in by all participants.  And that would respond to those who request more tangible outputs from the meeting.

 The same applies for compilation of best practices.  That would be also submitted to the IGF maybe without explicit requests for endorsement.  But this is the difference between this one substantive issue that we would try to work through intersessionally and bring some kind of document.  And, again, I do not know what kind of document, and I don't know how we will call the document.  That will be the people working on that, that would suggest whether that will be a principle or whether that will be a recommendation or that will be a take-away.  We don't know yet.  But that's the difference.  We will try to get buy-in by everybody to that document.  And, therefore, the theme proposed I think is very opportune because it is non-controversial, that is develop oriented.  That speaks about access.  And as we know today, the biggest access is in the developing world.  I mean, there are all these elements which are very favorable to speaking in favor of that particular theme.  

 Since we are not talking about policy recommendations but we are talking about policy menu, that means that there is -- there might be a policy that has worked in one type of country.  There is another type of policy work in other type of countries and so on.  So also there will not be controversy in terms of negotiations, which policy is better than others.  Simply, there will be a sampling of policies and so on.

 So from that perspective, I think this is a very good proposal coming out from ICC.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I have one question which is more looking for clarification.  I don't really understand what a policy menu is.  It seems that other people do have a much clearer understanding because they're supporting it, and I was asked by someone off list could I explain it.  And I went, uhhh, no.  So perhaps...

 In terms of the intersessional work, I like the idea of being able to come out with at least one output.  What I kind of am sort of concerned about is the sort of spending a lot of time picking the issue that we'll get at as opposed to starting immediately with several work threads and then at some point seeing how far we've gotten and seeing which ones are worth focusing on to take through all the way to an output.  So perhaps it is a slightly different modality as opposed to deciding which theme, start working on several perhaps and see which are ready at some designated intersessional document date.  And I'd like to put that in there for consideration.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Avri.  I think I answered your question right before you asked it, what is the policy menu.

 I said that this is a menu.  When you go to the restaurant, you get a menu.  You get starters.  You get the main dish.  You get the dessert.  And depending on your situation, meaning how hungry you are, how -- in what mood you are, would you like to have a fish or meat, you pick out your menu.

 The same thing here.  We are talking about preparation of policy menus that has helped different governments, different countries rather than governments to bring Internet at the level as they are.

 And those who are interested in bringing -- I mean, improving the state of their Internet and improving access and improving sort of youth, they go to that menu and they say, okay, my country is very similar to that one and they succeeded in this way or these are very good ideas and so on.

 Since we are not talking about negotiations, if we would say a policy for next million -- for next billion online, so that would imply, okay, there is one policy, let's negotiate which is the best one.  Certainly we would not get anywhere with that.

 But bringing different types of policies on the table and sort of explaining them in the way that everybody understands, I think that this is what I understand is a policy menu.

 Juan Alfonso.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  I think I am being a little bit reiterative here.  But how I see this is that the intersessional has to have the same theme as the main session.  How I see it, if I was the one planning this, like a chess game -- you know, I'm a chess player.  In a chess game, you first have to plan what you want to do.  What are you aiming?  You are aiming for a win.  You are aiming for a draw.  Then you select your opening, then how do you transfer to the middle game, and then to an end game that will hopefully be to your advantage.

 Here we have to plan similarly through this year.  And I will suggest to first select the theme or subthemes of the event.  And then to organize all the work regarding there and to engage in whatever way possible all the process in between and regarding the intersessional is to propose, to produce a paper.  You were asking what kind of paper.  It is an issue paper, an issue paper that could help the discussion on the IGF.  The IGF is a very good place for a wide discussion, but it needs to be organized in order to have tangible results.

 Let me put to you an example, just an example.  I don't want to preempt the theme.  But suppose we select the theme of economy.  Economy has many subthemes or many themes like that.  For instance, this world garden variety now of access that is opening for the Internet, we could put in the issue paper for discussion in the IGF:  How do you feel of this world garden access to the Internet?  Do you consider this is a good evolution of the Internet?  Because we are talking about evolution of the Internet and like that.

 Or how do we finance social interest Web sites in developing countries where we don't have advertising industry to finance free access Web site?  How to finance that?  

 Another thing, should you think that the revenue of selling the words of our languages should we pass around to the rest of the Internet community?  Those are big issues that should be in an issue paper.

 Regarding, for instance, cybersecurity, there are many things also.  Privacy, you could put questions regarding privacy.  I suggest that that's the output of the intersessional, issue paper that is in preparation.  

 That is a coming thing in many events in the world, that experts or somebody prepares the issue paper to frame the discussion.  

 But I think that we need to have coherence with the intersessional and the themes.  If you are very keen on this menu, I don't really like that menu thing, but if everybody likes the menu for the intersessional, then make the menu the theme for the IGF in 2015.  But we need to have the same both places.  We cannot spread ourselves thin and then as you say try to do more things than we can really do.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Jivan?

 >>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI:  Thank you.  I'm personally somebody who prefers to get together with friends and have dinner at home, in somebody else's home.  And before that, we all go perhaps to the market and pick our groceries, each of us, and then make dinner.  One person makes a salad and another person and so on.  I'm usually a person that likes this kind of an approach, not necessarily to go to a restaurant with a fixe -- with a fixed menu.  But I understand the logic behind the menu as well.

 Now, intersessions may be a good way to address calls for better outcomes perhaps but it is not necessary to frame it so much now.  I think we have to allow for other priorities to crop up.  I see a line clearly connecting the intersessional discussion and concept and policy menu.  That's clear by now, the third day.

 But I think that we should keep our minds open in what kinds of outcomes can come up out of the IGF and MAG in particular.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I think we're now getting in rounds already.

 Let me then ask Benedicto to convene informal sort of consultations at 2:00 here in the room but not going beyond 3:00 because then we will start our session.

 For those who are interested, please come and join this discussion.  Ideally, we would have a suggestion for a theme and subthemes.  As a result, please use also one hour from 1:00 to 2:00 in the groups to discuss these things, and I will ask you to report back at the beginning of the meeting but without entering any more in the further discussions.

 So let me also say that please think about the intersessional work in terms of working groups.  We have -- yesterday, we have identified that there would be one working group on sort of self-evaluation, adding information to the report which was done by a similar working group in 2013 preparing input for the CSTD meeting in May.  Then we think about who would be interested in joining working group on intersessional work modality definition because we need to have somebody who is sort of proposing and animating that part of work.  

 Also who would be willing to coordinate the best practice -- best practice tracks.  The question is whether we do one working group for all or a number of working groups depending on the titles, I mean, number of topics we're addressing.

 And now I would like to move to the agenda item related to workshop -- workshop selection criteria and mechanisms.

 You -- yes, Mark.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Thank you, Chair.  Sorry to interject at this point.

 I just wanted to know when you're proposing to consider interaction with the NETmundial Initiative.  Is that on the agenda for today?  I thought we were going to do that at some point.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yeah.  I -- depending how coherently we will proceed and how much time other items will take, but that should be -- we should discuss it at the end of the meeting for sure.

 The on-line participant?

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  No.  I'm sorry, that's not -- I was trying to indicate subtly that we have also offered to deal with improvements in on-line participation during the intersessional.  Sorry.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  That is -- that is in the program, no?  Yeah.  Let's go now one by one.

 We have three topics to talk through, and that is:  Workshop selection criteria; main sessions, preparation for main sessions guidelines; and best practice forums and dynamic coalitions, open forums.  And then on-line participation would fall in that part.

 So you -- you received the document which was developed last year on selection criteria and mechanisms, and I would like to ask Fiona -- Fiona?  

 I would like to ask Fiona, maybe you could very briefly introduce the work you did last time on the selection criteria and mechanisms and see whether we need to fine-tune this methodology or not.  

 Please, Fiona.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you, Janis.  I'll just do a high-level presentation, the details of which people can read in the document that I think Chengetai distributed but it's also posted on the IGF Web site.

 So last year the group decided that we would try to evaluate the proposals in much more of a systematic way which was useful, given we ended up being so overly subscribed with 208 -- I think it was 208 requests for 80 or 90-some slots.  

 And we identified a couple of clear priorities at the outset.

 First, we were looking to ensure that we had new participation and new participants and that we gave some priority to those that were from the developing world as well.

 So instead of actually developing a flat scoring system, we developed a sort of criteria to consider, and that's available on the Web site and I think was in what Chengetai sent around.  

 And then each MAG member, when they were evaluating each individual proposal, considered that broad range of issues and came up with one cumulative score.  So there wasn't an individual scoring of per-item anymore. 

 But sort of a cumulative score.  And then based on that scoring system, when the MAG met in this sort of May -- May or June time frame, we went through and evaluated and selected the workshops.

 Part of the process, Chengetai I believe it was, actually anonymized the proposals so that when we got them to score, we weren't influenced by any particular proposals.  And we also adopted a couple of clear rules at the beginning, which was, if you were actually a participant in the workshop or a named participant, you wouldn't score that proposal.

 We also established some numbers and limitations about the number of proposals that could be submitted.  I think it was three per institution.  And so I think the question is we need to have a conversation about what worked and what didn't work in that process that Susan and I put together, and I'm not -- I think she's probably not participating at this moment.  I know she's been weighing in later, because of the time difference.  I know she sent a note to the MAG list last week with some suggested questions.  

 So we need to identify what worked and what didn't and if there are any new factors we need to consider.

 I would offer that I do think that we did have a challenge that when we actually scored the proposals and when we actually looked at the proposals, we still had a fair number of proposals that were -- that scored quite highly that were duplicative, and I think, you know, we had left it to Chengetai and others to call applicants and to ask them to merge, and I don't think people were always willing to merge.  

 So I think if we are looking for a more breadth of participation and if we are looking for a broader range of participation, we might need to tackle that, in terms of approach going forward.  But I think as a high-level presentation, that was the basic gist of what we tried to do last year.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  I would now open the floor for any comments specifically, but specifically on the selection criteria and process.

 From my side, what I can say, the criticism that I heard was that the -- there was not sufficient explanation why workshops were rejected, and maybe that -- that should be factored in somehow, though it is -- might be a huge task.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Yes.  

 Obviously I wasn't on the MAG last year, but I did watch this process quite closely from -- you know, externally, from -- on line, and a couple things, first of all, occurred to me, and we saw.

 First of all, while we may have wanted to devalue panels, basically we ended up with many panels.  So the marking system we had -- 

 And in fact, we saw that many people, in order to sort of raise up their proposal, had lists of panelists proposed -- because there was a requirement for panelists -- who hadn't even been consulted.

 So I think that one thing we need to deal with, in terms of looking at it this time, is to certainly not encourage people to make up panelists, but perhaps not even to include panelists, and in fact, if we want to limit the number of panel-type work sessions we have, we need to do some of that.

 The other thing I noticed is to make the marking system work, it took some -- some very clever ad hoc decisions on how to proceed down the gradations to actually get to something balanced.  That the classification system, in itself, did not really produce a balance.  It took the chair sort of saying, "Okay, let's do it this way and let's take two of these and three of those and proceed down."  

 And so I think while I understand why that had to happen, the classification itself should do a better job of bringing those things out so it doesn't take some ad hoc magic at the end to make it work out.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  

 I think, Avri, you're talking about two different things.  One is the guidelines for submitting proposals, how they should be prepared, and that maybe there should be a clear distinction between panels, workshops, roundtables, and maybe we need to do a little bit of also teaching that organizers will understand what -- what is the difference between a panel or roundtable or workshop or seminar.

 So that -- that would refer to the -- more to the fine-tuning preparation guideline -- sort of guidelines that also exist, right?

 And -- but with the evaluation and scoring, we had an option.  We had an option to take the average mathematical score and say, "Okay, these are above the line and that's it," without any further consideration.  But since, among other principles, we were sort of promoting first-time participants, favoring developing countries and all this, I mean, that makes -- that makes it a bit of a -- sort of a balancing and challenging that we need to do a discrimination and bring up some from the bottom.

 Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  So first, on the question, Mr. Chairman, that you have spoken about with regards to transparency -- and I explained yesterday in great detail, for those who are new, that almost every single step -- well, every single step, not "almost," was in the public domain.

 But to your point about "We don't know how our proposal was rejected," you know, I -- before I was a MAG member, I had a proposal rejected, and I'm sorry or proud to say -- I'm not sure which one -- it was the highest loser, and so I know the pain of being .03 below the cutoff --

 [ Laughter ]

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: -- and then think about how I would have had a panel of my friends there.

 So here is what we could do.  We already convey the basis of the scores.  We already convey that there are high scores for format, for first-timers, for developing countries.  There are scores for gender balance, regional balance, stakeholder balance.  And to certain themes.  All this is already there.  

 I suppose what we could do is then put out the rankings.  I'm not sure if the secretariat does that.  But we could just put out the ranking of all the 208 proposals, because the average cutoff mark is determined by the total that go in, which is -- last time was 90 and I think the average cutoff was 4.43 or something like that, and that's how the cutoff is determined.

 We could put that score out for every proposal and people could see there is no way you can mess with that score because 55 MAG members score individually.  They don't sit in a room.  By the time they arrive for the May meetings, the scores are already compiled based on individual submissions of MAG members.  So there is no scope of getting together and rejecting or accepting a proposal.

 Then we bring about 110 proposals for discussion, and there are some which are scoring just below the line but are sort of moved up.

 And I just wanted to -- I think if there is a question about why are we rejected, we put out the scores based on the criteria that is already established, and I think Janis made a whole presentation of how that's done, if that helps.

 On the panel issue that Avri has raised in the past about, you know, having it more -- I think we will have to then -- I'm not sure we can ban panels but we'll have to look at a way where we will have to convey that only 20 out of the 80 proposals that will make it will be panels, so if you are looking for panels, you're going to compete with -- there are only 20 that will make it in.  

 So we can probably just put add-on points there and then the MAG will have to decide how to reduce the number of panels.  Because last year as I had mentioned to you, out of the 208 proposals that we received, when I started marking them, I had put zero marks for panel and I had to give zero marks to everyone, because everyone had a panel.  It's the easiest thing to do.  You put in a couple of big names and, you know, that's how it goes in.

 So I suppose we'll have to then limit panels and convey that, that only 20% of all the workshops will be panels.

 Again, I think the host country must let us know whether they can provide eight of the 10 rooms as roundtables because if that's the format that we want, then I hope the rooms can be sort of set up in that order.

 We shouldn't go into a theater style seating with a panel.

 And the last part, which is actually a pain for everybody every year is mergers.  And here is the difficulty with mergers and I'd request the MAG to give ideas, because we have failed to do this.

 When we request a successful proposal to merge with a proposal that was very close to the borderline -- and I was one but I wasn't on the MAG, as I said -- the winning proposal or the proposal that made it (a) doesn't have the incentive and (b) doesn't have the ability to merge because they already have seven confirmed speakers or eight confirmed speakers, so they can't put 14 confirmed speakers now.  And that's the challenge of merger.

 So we should either do away with the process of merger or somebody needs to come up with a better idea because two years in a row, we have not succeeded with -- you know, I mean, it's not -- it's not a big success.  Some people do it.  And then there's a lot of complaints to the secretariat and to the MAG members on why didn't we merge. 

 So I just want to caution us on the panels and the mergers, but I'm happy to express from my point of view that we can put the scores out, so that everybody knows how they scored, and actually finally the MAG only discusses 20 borderline proposals to bring them up or leave them down, because there's 80 which make it clear on the -- based on the score.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  Maybe we need to describe that mechanics that we take sort of 50 or whatever, depending on the number -- number of available slots, and put them automatically based on scoring, and then explain how we do the evaluation of the rest and how we discriminate and why we do so.  

 Fatima.

 >>FATIMA CAMBRONERO:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  This is Fatima, for the record.  

 I have a question and I'm sorry, if I lost this.

 We have the same rules, then, this year that say that MAG members cannot present or submit a proposal of workshop and the organizational members can submit three proposals only?

 And one comment.  

 I think if we decide that we approve, for example, seven workshop proposals, I would like that we respect that limit of workshop approvals because then we see some side meetings, for example, that we didn't approve as MAG members and then appear in the agenda of the IGF.

 And also I agree with the criteria that Fiona explained and that we work with this year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I think that these limitations are reasonable and they were introduced based on previous -- previous practices which were not overly positive.  And I think personally I would prefer to continue following them.  

 And so I will now -- I have Subi, Cheryl, Flavio, Yulia, Marilyn and Fiona at the end, and then -- please, Subi.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Thank you, Janis.  

 Janis, I think the first thing on this agenda, I just was looking and revisiting the workshop evaluation process.  I could speak to the question of panels, but I'll come to that after I'm done with the criteria.

 I think we've made great progress in terms of revisiting what were the parameters, and this conversation has taken place for a variety of reasons.  We wanted new voices.  We wanted to enhance developing country participation.

 At the moment, I see nine criteria.  There was a process of initial screening, as Fiona mentioned, but these nine criteria I think have scope for being coalesced further into about seven, where -- especially the point of speakers -- when we ask people, even in initial screening, to mention whether they have emails or contact details and we're evaluating proposals on the basis of confirmed speakers, I would argue that those people who have -- and we've often been accused of being a club of insiders.  There is a lot of effort that has been made over last year, this year, and the previous years, to do away with that.

 If we continue to put that as an important criteria, it naturally puts first-time proposers at a disadvantage while evaluating all the 200-plus proposals.

 We've seen that there are requests where they're actually asking the secretariat or MAG members to suggest different speakers or give us contact details.

 So that is one strong proposal.  They could mention their intent.  They could mention some names.  But that is not point where they should be done away with at the entry level or threshold, so that is one criteria I'd like to see revisited.

 On the overall scoring process, looking at all these nine criteria that exist from last year and giving a cumulative score of 1 to 5, while as a MAG member I'm reading a proposal and I'm trying to evaluate, this is a very complicated mathematical formula that I have failed to achieve.  How do I balance and evaluate and score a single proposal, remembering how it did on all these nine parameters.

 Before 2013 -- and these are excellent parameters -- we did have a process where each of these criteria was scored individually on a Likert scale from 0 to 2 and then a cumulative score was arrived at.  I prefer that process because I see that as more transparent and reflective of how a workshop proposal did on each of these criteria.

 So that's my first intervention on the criteria process.

 And the second is a form and system on submitting a report at the end of the process on panels.

 I strongly disagree that we as a MAG can limit a 20% tap on panel proposals.  When we consistently talk about going back to the crowd, the community, it is important to respect what workshop proposers want.

 We have done a lot of work, we've even put out session descriptions.  There's even points -- additional points for new and innovative formats.  We're offering advantages and we're offering positive affirmation for innovating in formats, but if there are people who like to propose panels, I do not think we can penalize them on that basis.

 On mergers, I completely agree.  It hasn't worked.  It is very difficult to make it work, because you cannot force someone, in retrospect, to go out and collaborate with somebody else whose identity, ideology also they might not agree with.  

 And my last point is on capacity building and the role of MAG members as mentors while these proposals are being put out.

 I think all of us can volunteer to take up and work with some proposers and I support the idea that we retain the agreement that we reached that MAG members refrain from submitting proposals themselves and help mentor, build capacity for new workshop proposers.  That will be all for now from me.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Subi.  Cheryl.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I actually submitted proposals to IGF Bali and also to IGF Istanbul and so I definitely saw the difference and so just a thank you to everyone who worked on the criteria and worked on improving the process.  There definitely was a noticeable change from both years, at least from my perspective.  I do agree that it was difficult to understand how to merge the workshop, and so I offer two possible suggestions for improving that, if it is decided that the MAG wants to keep this practice of merging.

 I think you might let submitters know upfront that there is -- their workshop could be subject to being merged so that they know right upfront your workshop may be merged as a precondition so that they're put on notice of that.

 And then, secondly, the merger itself is difficult.  We tried.  We were working with the other group that suggested.  But, again, the different panelists, different moderators, how do you pick and choose.  

 What might help the process is to have an actual MAG member or perhaps a small group of MAG members help to facilitate that synergy or help to facilitate the creation of that new workshop then.

 And then I have a question, just a point of clarity with respect to what we're discussing regarding panels.  I'm not clear if we're saying that -- we're telling people we are only accepting a certain number of panels.  So if we get, say, a hundred offers for panels, do we just automatically reject those proposals?  Or do we take those proposals and then communicate back with the proposal writers to say, look, we have too many panels, would you consider forming a roundtable or would you consider forming one of the newer, more innovative, I guess, setups that we might be attempting?

 So I just put that out there as food for thought.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Cheryl.

 No, I think this is a subject of guidelines for preparing.  I personally don't see that we can arbitrarily say no more panels here.  Many people don't understand actually difference between panel and then roundtable.

 There is another question that I would like to put on the table, and that is privileges of the host nation.  Remember, we had a number of proposals last year coming out from host nation that were put in the agenda.  And that raised a number of concerns and questions by the community, and maybe we would need to add clear guidance in this respect that either we accept, let's say, two or three proposals which follow the same sort of methodology and then principles as any other from the host nation, and that is not evaluated in line with any other.  Or we just clearly say host nation should go through the same process submitting proposals and so on and there is not any privilege in that sense.  I think that is also something that we need to consider and add to our guidelines to be very clear upfront.

 Flavio, what do you think about it?  I'm not putting you on the spot, sorry.  I'm just trying to joke.

 >>FLAVIO WAGNER:  So I would like to talk about the evaluation of the workshops.  So first thing, I support the idea already mentioned by Subi that we should try to give scores for the individual aspects of the evaluation spreadsheet so that we do not give only a global final score because this is really difficult.

 I think that this is very usual in many, for instance, conferences of the scientific community, that we have those spreadsheets for evaluation where we even have weights for the individual aspects.  We may decide which are the things here that are more important than others.  For instance, we want to give a priority for first-time proposers or for diversity, gender or geographic diversity.  So we can put different weights for the individual aspects.

 And then if we give a score for each aspect from 0 to 2 or to 3, the final score will be weighted and not simply adding literally the individual scores.  So I think this would add to the evaluation process.

 And I also think that this -- the aspects are fine, this eight, nine aspects here, but they are of different natures.  There are things that are related to diversity so whether the proposals are first-time proposals, whether they represent diversity, gender, geographic, and so on, if they come from developing countries.  This is one set of evaluation criteria.

 There is a different one that's related to contents.  If the proposal is well thought and true and complete, if the topic is relevant to the Internet governance, if the very specificity in the problem or question or challenge to be addressed and so on.  

 So we can group the criteria, have two or three different groups, and then decide which weight we should give to each of these groups.  We want to put more emphasis on diversity, on contents, or vice versa.  So it is still to be decided.  If we have this working group for taking care of this, maybe this working group should consider these things that try to balance weights of the different aspects to be evaluated here.  And I think we should give -- publicize the complete scores for the individual aspects so that people see why they had a final score of 3 or 4 because they have been evaluated so and so for each individual score.

 Another thing is that we should try to balance the workshops among the subthemes that we will decide.  So if we have three or four or five main subthemes we should try to avoid too many or too few workshops on a given subtheme.  So this is another criterion for evaluation of the workshops.  

 Of course, we should give room for workshops that do not fit directly into the subthemes if they are relevant.  So this is orthogonal to the other evaluation of the individual proposals, how we balance the workshops among the subthemes.  I would like very much to be involved directly with this criteria and maybe volunteer for this working group.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much, Flavio.

 Yulia?

 >> YULIA MORENETS:  I would like to bring a few points.  First of all, the difficulty of one of the evaluation criteria which was obviously the list of speakers while it was part of the agenda perspective, geography, and et cetera.  I think it was a real difficulty to have -- well, from time to time, I had personal difficulty how to evaluate in terms of -- we had the list of confirmed speakers and for other workshops it was not confirmed.  And I found that a number of workshop proposals were very good actually and we had many confirmed speakers and others it wasn't confirmed speakers.  

 What I'm trying to bring here, I think we really need this as information at least before the May meeting.  To have just agenda, geography, without any names practically or just as an information but not as an evaluation point.  Because the workshop proposal could be good but people, it is very difficult to have confirmed speakers at this time.

 The second point, I would like to support and I support what Virat proposed concerning the clarity purposes actually to have the scoring being published online.  It will be very clear for the rejected workshops why it was rejected, et cetera.

 I also would like to bring something else that I mentioned yesterday.  I think we need to strengthen and to encourage the evaluation process, the assessment of the workshops after Brazil meeting.  What I mean, just encourage participants at the workshop to evaluate and to have a kind of format of framework, how to vary the workshops.  

 The next year, for example, 2016, it will be easier for MAG to make the evaluation process of the workshop proposals.

 Also, on the -- concerning the merging of workshops, personally I don't really agree that we don't need to encourage the merge.  I think this is difficult.  I have a personal experience, and it was a good experience.  We succeeded in merging, and I think it was a great proposal on how many workshops -- sorry, working groups on how to facilitate the merge.  And I think we really need to encourage this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Yulia.

 We have further requests, Soonjoung.  And Fiona, we will keep you for the end because you know I will ask you to continue working together with Suzanne.  I'm giving you a preview.

 [ Laughter ]

 Soonjoung, please.

 >>SOONJOUNG BYUN:  Thank you, Chair.  Actually, I was thinking about the criteria of the scoring.  As far as I remember, I had really difficulties to find panels, various panels, because I was new there and also because I was the only -- how can I say -- proposed -- I mean, in Korea, I was the only one who proposed a workshop.  So I only have to depend on my personal capacity to find panels.  But, you know, having too many panels would not be helpful for discussion and debate.  So I think -- I don't know how to put this in English, but if we can put more score on some workshops with joint founder, joint founder.  I mean, if Korean government makes some workshop with other stakeholders in different regions, it could help to make more subject reach and also facilitate more (indiscernible) and more experienced discussion could be produced during the workshop.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Marilyn, please.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  My comments are going to start out by saying that as some know, last year in my first year as a MAG member, I championed very strongly the idea that MAG members should not be themselves developing and proposing workshop meetings.  We are those who evaluate workshops.  

 And my past experience as a non-MAG member was less than optimistic or -- and perhaps I will stop at that.  But that led me to make that strong recommendation.

 I also think there needs to be a limitation, a ceiling, to the number of workshops that any entity can suggest.  In previous years, one organization proposed 15 and another 17.  That creates a very unlevel playing field, particularly when an organization is very sophisticated and knowledgeable and well-resourced.  So we set some limitations, and I hope we will stick with those.

 On the question of mergers, I did coach and help with mergers in Kenya and Lithuania, in Baku and in Istanbul.  From my corporate life, I will tell you my experience is there's no such thing as a merger.  There's only an acquisition.

 And most of the parties that we ask to merge really felt that way.  And I found when I tried to mediate and moderate, I really shared their experience.  So my two suggestions on merging are this:  Start very early.  Have a neutral, non-involved MAG member to be a facilitator of the merger, and require giving on both sides.  Otherwise, we only have acquisitions.

 We ask for merging because of the similarity in theme or the similarity in speakers or the similarity in perspective.  So I'm not -- I do support the idea that merging will be necessary, but I think we got to start very early.

 On the issue of panels, if you are from a developing country and you are a first-time proposer, dictating the format may be very unfair on our part.  I think what we're looking for is a diversity of formats but really the party who proposes the workshop needs to have the flexibility to design and rationalize that design.

 It helps tremendously -- and many parties who submitted workshop proposals kept asking me for information about what is the space that is available.  So the earlier we provide the room setup, the better and more helpful it will be to those who propose.

 Finally, I will just say I don't think having a hard and fast scale actually is fair.  I think the MAG needs to go through the rating and then we have to apply some judgment in order to come up with the mix of balance of workshops across topics and inclusion of new proposers and, in particular, proposals from developing countries.

 We also need to spend a little time at some point talking about the open forums that are available to governments and to other entities and that may be the way to address special proposals from the host.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Marilyn.  There is also a host that will take over as mentioned.

 Silvia, please.

 >>SILVIA BIDART:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I support the ideas of Cheryl and Marilyn on merging issues.  I think the effort is worth it because we have several examples as facilitators or being participants of different kind of contests and also in projects like AP7 (phonetic) mergers are done and we have to take into consideration that mainly is an acquisition not just a merge.  But it is possible.

 So we have to consider in working on the guidelines, as you say.  So maybe there could be a group that could improve these guidelines on this issue.

 And, also, another question is if the -- I agree also with the ICC-BASIS on the next billion connected.  Shouldn't we include some kind of, I mean, mention in the scoring about this new billion connected?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Not specifically.  I think one of the criteria is how the theme -- how the proposed workshop resonates with the existing or identified themes.

 Kossi, please.

 >>KOSSI AMESSINOU:  Thank you very much, Chairman.  I think that the criteria that we defined last year already is a very good start.  All we need to do now is look at the aspects that need to be readjusted.  And a few I think we need to take into account -- well, last year we already said that MAG members shouldn't make proposals.  And then we said they can make proposals but they shouldn't evaluate the proposals they've made.  And that was already a difficult balancing act.

 I propose then that members of MAG not be both a judge and jury, that they be isolated, separated from the decision-making process here from those who are going to make the decisions on that issue.  And those who are going to have a panel, tell us if MAG members are going to be on the podium, are going to be moderators.

 We have -- I think also to deal with problems dealing with the reports on the different workshops, we're going to have perhaps different panelists.  But one of the things that a moderator has to do is to report to the secretariat.  And maybe using two rapporteurs should be authorized for each panel.  And would they have the necessary means to do their job?

 I would propose that members of MAG contribute to helping provide this information.  They act or perhaps as volunteers.  At least one of the rapporteurs be a volunteer coming from MAG.  And I think this would allow us to have a good collection of data.

 Now, talking about merging workshops or not, it's true that they often have similar themes.  For example, the example -- the example of (indiscernible) on a regional basis.  Should we have one for Africa, one for Europe?  

 Maybe we could simplify by having one single room and all of them take that opportunity to present what they've been doing specifically in one single setting, but splitting them up into different workshops -- well, going region by region, maybe the secretariat of IGF could take care of this.

 For those workshops that we've been informed of, we could say, "Here's the focal point for the regional workshops," and in this way international organizations could get their messages across knowing where they had to go.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Before going to on-line participant, Izumi, I will ask Jivan to take the floor briefly, and then Mark, and then Fiona, and then we will move on to the next item.  

 Izumi -- sorry.  Jivan, please.

 >>L.P. GJORGJINSKI:  I just want to have it set in the record in bold that I agree with Marilyn completely.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Izumi?  

 Izumi, are you with us?

 So if you're with us, please indicate that.  In the meantime, Mark.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes.  Thank you, Chair.

 Just -- Mark Carvell, U.K. government.

 A couple of suggestions to throw into this discussion.

 First of all, we should encourage proposers to consider the options for the kind of event in the IGF.

 So instead of talking about workshop proposals, we might change the word "workshop" to embed the idea that they have an option.  You know, it could be a -- could be a workshop with a panel, a discussion with -- or a discussion with facilitators, a roundtable, flash session, and so on.

 So this gives us more maneuverability in terms of ensuring a rich program and so on.

 Secondly, with regard to panelists, perhaps the guidelines could signal to proposers that they should be encouraged to consider running their proposal past their national or regional IGF so that they would more likely secure participation by experts reflecting diversity and gender balance, to help -- especially newcomers to this process, to help them come up with a proposal that has a more developed element in terms of participation, be it in a panel or roundtable and so on.

 So for that, we need to signal to the national and regional IGFs that they should undertake some kind of advisory role for proposers for events at the IGF.

 So those are my two suggestions.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Mark.

 I see that Fiona is taking good note.  

 Izumi, please.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI:  Thank you, Chair.

 I just want -- the comment about differentiating the content element and the framework about how the workshop is submitted is interesting.

 So considering whether the content of the workshop is good and set certain criteria for that.  

 And then also another element is looking at whether it meets certain criteria, such as geographic diversity, gender balance, et cetera.

 So while I don't want to overcomplicate the criteria, it may be -- it may be worth thinking of categorizing which criteria is relevant to content and which criteria is relevant to meeting actually the framework of the workshop itself.

 That's one observation.

 And regarding the comment made about being new and not being able to reach out to other speakers or panelists to meet the criteria for the proper geographic balance, et cetera, I found one of the suggestions made by Cheryl, I believe, on the mailing list was interesting about have some kind of common resource for suggested speakers.  That might be something that may be worth exploring.  Maybe not necessarily in terms of having individual speakers, but maybe a list of organizations which are willing to introduce speakers for a certain topic, for example.

 And lastly, regarding the point about accommodating sessions from the host country, I think we have to be quite careful in its consideration, but I'm basically open to the idea of accommodating sessions from the host country as long as the criteria is clearly defined, and -- for example, such as the contents are in line with the spirit of the IGF.  I think that's a "must" condition if we accommodate it.  And also the number of slots is also predefined and we don't just keep on increasing the content from the host country.

 So that's my comment for now.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Izumi, for your comments, and also addressing the -- my question about clarity about privileges of the host country in terms of content proposals for the IGF.

 Peter and then Fiona and then we're moving to the next topic.  

 Peter, please.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning.  

 I'd like to continue this discussion about improving the content of the meetings by starting a conversation which we can carry on on line after this meeting about post-event evaluation of each session.  We don't seem to do anything except to require some people to file a report but there's no evidence that I can see that the report is actually used except as a check.

 What we need to be doing is measuring sessions against the proposer's own goals at the time that they submit the proposal, measuring them against the theme of the IGF itself.  That's a standard -- relatively standard fare for most recurring conferences.  We can prepare evaluation sheets for people to use in the sessions.  And the reason why people do this is because it provides useful input into preparing the next session, identifying popular and useful topics, good presenters, and so on.  

 So I'd like to start that conversation.  It may be that the most appropriate place is to add that to the working group that's prepared the front-end evaluation.  That's the logical conclusion.  

 But just to announce this seemed to be the appropriate time that's a conversation I'd like to start.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Peter, for this proposal.

 Fiona, a lot of things to take into account.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis, and for everyone that provided input.  

 I would just recall that a lot of the conversation we're having today we've had before.

 When I originally proposed criteria for the workshop, I actually tried to do what Flavio suggested, which is this very detailed criteria-per-element and the group rejected that.  That doesn't mean we can't have that conversation again and maybe it's time to consider doing that, but one of the reasons we came up with for these general eight or nine criteria and let the MAG members do a cumulative score is people wanted flexibility.  So I understand that does cause some confusion to those that are actually being scored, so we need to discuss that as we go forward, but just to refresh that for folks.

 We did actually try to do element-by-element evaluation on a scoring system and no one accepted that last time.

 So with all of that said, I'm happy to sort of work with Susan and come back to the group on the list with a proposal for how to move forward.

 My understanding, just so I understand what the assignment is to the group -- and anyone that wants to participate, obviously, please let Susan and I know or just sign up on the list -- we need to look also at the guidelines for submission, because they'll have to be edited to reflect any changes we make, and then Peter's idea of post-event evaluation, we can add as we look at the full life cycle.

 But I think when -- a few things we need to consider is are the goals still the same, are we still looking for new participants, new formats.  And we can talk about that on the list.  Look at the scoring format and the criteria and confirm it.  And then address this issue of how do we actually do the mergers.  

 I do think it's probably a bit unfair last time that we left it to Chengetai and the IGF secretariat to try to make people merge things and I'm not sure that that worked well, so we should look at that.  

 I do think there's three sort of threshold issues we probably need to decide as a group and I don't know if we need to do it here in Geneva before we leave or at least before we get going.

 One is what's the deadline for getting the announcement out so we can work backwards and actually plan.  That would be helpful to know.  It would also be helpful to know now or as we're planning what's the maximum number of workshop slots we're looking at.  I think it's important that those proposing understand there are limits, and if people are being rejected, it's within the confines of those limits, it's not anything else.  And then I think we also need to agree as a group -- and it's better to do this in person and reconfirm or change it -- what will we be the limit on the number of workshop proposals from MAG members or individual institutions.  

 I just think those are some sort of three threshold issues that are important to frame the working group as it goes forward.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Fiona.  Especially thank you for sort of continuing working together with -- or leading the work, together with Susan, on this topic on line.

 I think we should retain the same principle as we agreed and applied last time.  It is no MAG member submits proposals, and no more than three organizations -- sorry, three proposals per organization.  That was also supported during the debate.

 The -- personally, I also see one issue is enforcement of obligation of reporting.  Not necessarily all workshop organizers provide those reports after the sessions, and that, of course, impacts the quality of the compilation of all the reports.

 So these issues, we need to address.  So thank you.

 I think we can now move on to the next agenda item, and that is conversation about main/focus sessions, as yesterday it was proposed that maybe we need to talk about focus sessions.

 We had very mixed evaluation or feedback from Istanbul and actually from every previous meeting as well.

 The difference in Istanbul, because of the size of the room, there were -- there were a number of -- the rooms were relatively full, but we had many speakers -- too many speakers and too little interaction in those -- in those meetings.

 I think it is very difficult to -- to provide a solution, but at least my suggestion would be to work on kind of the guidelines for preparing those focus sessions.  That would help ourselves, actually, to do that.

 These are -- focus sessions are the ones that are organized by the MAG, and basically they should be the ones where every workshop feeds in and provides input.  Kind of collector sessions.

 So the floor is open.

 We have another 12 minutes to go in this session, and then we may continue in the next one.

 Michael, Fiona -- Michael, please.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON:  This is related both to this issue and the previous discussion.

 Do we have any information on how many people are looking at the Webcasts of the different sessions?  Is there a way to know whether the main sessions have gotten a lot of attention after the fact?

 I really think that as we think about revising the criteria, we might want to look at these numbers and -- because it would be helpful to know if there are certificate topics or certain types of sessions that attract a lot of echo after the fact.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Chengetai, do you have an answer?  Sorry?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I can try and find out.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  We will see if we can get the answer in two hours for the beginning of the afternoon session.

 Fiona, please.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis.  

 I would strongly support the idea of guidelines.  If nothing else, it helps with the institutional memory.  There is a large rotation of MAG members every year, and I think to sort of ensure that we don't sort of start from scratch each time, I think it's a helpful construct.

 I do think the challenges for this particular IGF -- and this has played out on the MAG list over the course of the fall as it was being organized -- was that a couple of people did diligent work to try to organize these events and I feel like they ended up having to do a lot of work by themselves, which is not how this is supposed to work, so I think we need to sort of address that as a concept.  But also it would be helpful to sort of identify what the goals are of each session and the limits of number of speakers.  

 I know we end up with having to have a lot of speakers because we try to make each session meet all the elements of diversity and I think that's probably challenging.  If we keep doing that, we're always going to end up with a lot of speakers.  And maybe we can look at this as sort of the IGF more holistically and make sure that the diversity element is met with -- if we look at the main sessions in total, not as individual elements.  That may help with some of that.  

 Because otherwise, we end up with having to actually, you know, tick the box to make sure you have people from every region and every gender and every group, and then you end up naturally with 20 people on a panel and I don't think that's always the most constructive format.  

 So I would just offer that as a suggestion as we go forward.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Fiona.

 While Subi will be speaking, I would like to invite MAG members to think who would be willing to volunteer to put pen on the paper and work on those -- or coordinate working on those guidelines for organization of focus sessions.

 Subi, and after that, Marilyn.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Thank you, Janis.

 I hope (indiscernible) secretariat would be taking note of on-line volunteers, I would like to volunteer to work on formulating guidelines.  I think it is an excellent suggestion that Fiona put on one of the virtual calls for putting together main sessions.

 I'd also like to assist Susan and Fiona on contributing towards workshop evaluations and rating process while we're revisiting it.

 On the main sessions, I happened to co-organize, with Marilyn Cade and 14 other volunteers from the MAG, a main session last year.  I've submitted a detailed report to the secretariat.  There was also some conversation on line about sharing these reports from funded MAG members, it would be helpful, and as an expression of interest from others as well, if they would like to read.

 There are concrete suggestions which also mention challenges and barriers that we experienced as MAG members while organizing these sessions.

 There were several innovations this year.  It also included substantive engagement throughout the year and inputs from the community, volunteers from the community who were non-MAG members as part of the planning process while we were putting these sessions together.

 But main sessions remain one of the core tasks that MAG members perform other than evaluations and ratings.

 I think it's important to realize, as we go forward, that there will be no blanket solution or one-size-fits approach.  It will depend upon the theme or the subtheme that we select for the main session.  While we go forward, there will be a requirement of experts or leadership inputs.  

 Even when you have more speakers striving to achieve gender balance and diversity and meet with all the criteria, there are innovations in formats that we can achieve as organizers.  

 You do not have to absolutely keep interaction and Q&A for the last 20 minutes of a three-hour-long session.  It is important that after initial remarks, you open up the floor and you include the room as participants.  

 So main sessions remain important and key, must relate to workshops and suggestions.  They should be spread out throughout the week.  

 And guidelines are very important because when we're putting out inputs or calls for inputs, there have been a lot of -- we understand that MAG members work on a voluntary basis, but those people who are trying to colead or facilitate also have similar challenges.

 So you cannot wait endlessly for inputs to be provided or given.  Some kind of a guideline with respect to the time calendar that we will maintain will be extremely helpful.

 And I would also like to see more MAG members in the room when these main sessions are taking place, so that there is feedback.

 Assistance in terms of logistics from the host country with volunteers who speak and communicate in English is very, very important, so that we do not need to have MAG members running around while the main session is on.

 This is important feedback.

 And thirdly, the importance of more microphones in the room so that people can queue up.  And these were lessons that we took this year from NETmundial.

 We reversed, we opened up the deeper format.  We had a full room with standing room only, and I agree with you, Janis, the room capacity determined that, but I see this as success when we've had almost empty rooms for main sessions.  We had full rooms with nobody leaving until the end of three hours and we had active engagement from audience participation.

 So if you do have main sessions which is well-structured, I do not think that there will be an issue about audience engagement, participation, from across the floor or the session format.

 And we'll take the rest of the conversation on line.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Subi.  Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  I want to echo much of what Subi said.

 I also want to note that I hear a little bit of disinformation sometimes from time to time with comments that main sessions were organized only by one or two MAG members.  

 In case -- in our case, as Subi already said, there were 14 other collaborators.  

 I think Virat has already noted that he had a very large collaboration as well in planning the session.

 So perhaps the problem is there was not enough cross-communication due to lack of time because we were planning the main session relatively quickly.

 I want to comment now on something I said yesterday.  I said there's a difference between a plenary session where everybody comes together and a main room session, which is designed to meet the interest of a large audience but not the entire audience.

 And I think that is what we did successfully in Turkey.  We had standing room only in almost all of those main sessions.

 Really, I would also note that people did stay.  There are excellent transcripts.  We captured a lot of information.  I will be interested -- I think Mike's comment is very relevant, Mike Nelson's comment.  And that is, you know, to what extent are we seeing the replay of our videoed content and something for us to think about as the MAG.

 I want to say something about the relationship between workshops and main sessions.  If the theme of the main session is being echoed in workshops, then the feeder nature works.  But in a couple of cases such as in the Internet governance -- the evolution of the Internet governance landscape which Subi and I co-organized, I think, in fact, we didn't have a lot of feeder workshops.  So we should probably talk more about as we come up with the main sessions, do we -- how do we relate between workshops and the main sessions.

 And I may have further comments later.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I'm not sure there will be later.  I was kind of hoping to conclude this before lunch because I think what we need to do is just to define who will be willing to coordinate the process and then move this discussion online.

 Fatima and then Flavio and then maybe we can finish.  

 Fatima, please.

 >>FATIMA CAMBRONERO:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  Fatima for the record.  

 Everybody's comment, I would like to repeat similar comment I made yesterday regarding the organization of the main session.  I considered that as MAG member, we have to have a role that we can involve in the organization in one or two main sessions only because this year there was a perception of (indiscernible) of the organization of the main session by a few MAG members.  I would like that the next year this is a no repeat event.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Flavio?

 >>FLAVIO WAGNER:  Thank you, Janis.

 So I think the main sessions should be very well aligned with subthemes as far as possible so that we should limit ourselves to three or four main subthemes and so main sessions.

 Also, it has been already said by others, the main sessions should have a very limited number of panelist speakers.  We had in Istanbul an excessive number of speakers in some main sessions.  So we should provide enough time to provide real interaction with participants, both local and remote so that we have real discussion during the session.

 Of course, the linkage with the workshops is very desirable.  We should try to see how we can best feed the main sessions with the contributions that come from the workshops.  We have been discussing this offline.  

 Maybe we have an adequate platform for having online discussion and contributions prior to the event if we have -- when the workshops are defined so we have an online platform where contributions to the theme of each workshop are given and discussion goes on so that we can arrive in Joao Pessoa already with some conclusions or proposals.  I don't know, any kind of contribution that comes from the workshop that is then refined during the workshops and then fed into the main sessions.

 And, finally, I would like also to volunteer for helping define the guidelines for the main sessions.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Then may I suggest that we conclude debate on this item.  We have heard that there are two volunteers, Flavio and Subi, who would be willing to coordinate and put pen on the paper.  And the deadline for -- as a finalization of this work would be March.  More or less the same as for evaluation guidelines, that we can apply them once we start evaluation.

 Fiona, please.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  I think actually we need to actually finalize the evaluation guidelines before we issue the call for workshops.  So if we are going to issue the call for workshops at the end of January, early February, that needs to be done well in advance because otherwise you can't communicate to people what they are going to be judged on.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you for this comment and precision.  I agree.  So then the deadline for your part of the work would be much earlier.

 And, Ginger, you would like to say something.  We're really in last seconds of the meeting.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  Just very quickly.  I agree and would like to join just to add the aspects of remote participation and the criteria.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  And we discussed with Chengetai, then for every workshop we will try to identify here at the meeting the key coordinators, the main coordinators.  Usually we do two.  That's easier.

 And then we will open a Doodle poll where every GAC member -- sorry, MAG member will be able to sign up for any of the workshops -- sorry, for any of the groups individually.  And then we will have a record who is working on which subject.

 So thank you very much.  Thank you, interpreters, for letting us a few minutes over the time.  We are coming back for the session which will be interpreted at 3:00.

 And we will start sharp at 3:00.  So those who are interested in continuing conversation on the themes and subthemes, please come here at 2:00.  At 2:00 will be remote participation facilities available but no transcription.  Transcription also will start at 3:00.

 So please enjoy your lunch.  And I will see you back in the room at 3:00.  Benedicto at 2:00, those who are interested.  Thank you.

 (Lunch break.)

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.  I hope that we're now live on transcript.  

 And thank you very much, Benedicto Fonseca, for undertaking these consultations over lunchtime.  

 If I may ask you to report back, for the record, if you have made any progress in determining theme and subthemes of the IGF in Brazil.

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA FILHO:  Thank you, Janis.  

 Well, we have had, I think, very good discussion, but unfortunately I have to report there was no -- we could not near to an agreement to themes, subthemes, or which topics should be taken for intersessional work or best practice fora and model.  Actually, three-quarters of the time we dedicated to the discussion was on the process itself.  There was a very lively discussion with regard to whether MAG should take upon itself without any further consultation the task of determining the themes or subthemes or whether there should be wider consultation to the wider community.  

 And there were very interesting points in favor and against.  I would highlight maybe some comments that there was a proposal that maybe that should be proposed to the next IGF from the start and something that we would look to receive from the community, those inputs for themes and subthemes, not now.

 There was a concern in regard to the lack of established criteria for this to happen and a concern in regard to the timing we'll have to receive and process these in a way that is taking into account the comments we receive.

 Another comment was in regard that maybe no new idea that would come up from those consultations, that actually all the material we have for making decisions is available.  And as Mark has just indicated -- I'm sorry, that I think Virat indicated that we have already a kind of consultation that took place in a way.  

 On the other hand, there was, I think, very important points as well that that could be seen as something innovative we could do that would reflect the extended time frame we'll have this year, probably in regard to other years in which we have benefited from the fact IGF this year happened in September so we had more time to have this meeting in December so that would be an opportunity.  We have some more time for this.

 And that actually we do not need to normalize all the answers we received, that MAG would be in a position to process these.  And also there was a comment that we could do it maybe on a test basis and allowing community to comment and crowdsource around one subtheme, for example, not the full theme and subtheme but restricted to one area as a kind of test case for future years.  So there was no -- I have to say there was no conclusive decision in that regard.

 And the remaining of the time, we had roughly 12, 13 minutes to discuss the substance itself.  And in that regard, I think some points were made in regard to proposals that had been put forward before and actually even a new theme was proposed.  That indicates the complexity that will be found to find a solution around this.  The new proposal is:  "Ten years, shaping the evolution and use of the Internet."

 And then some points were made in regard to a concern that the notion of "sustainable development" that is embraced by many participants may be too broad, does not exactly lead us to discuss specific problems, specific issues we want to discuss.

 On the other hand, there was also against that vision that even being broad, we could deal with that in regard to the subthemes.  

 So I think we had some very useful discussion.  I think most participants -- I myself benefited very much.  I assume all who participated also were enriched by the discussions.  But this does not for sure preempt the need for another phase to be decided upon and proposed by you, Janis, on how to move forward in that.

 Just finalize that, even those who don't think that now is the right time to launch these crowdsourcing exercise, they are fully in favor in principle of having the more open kind of consultation.  And we have this concern about the timing, about the lack of criteria, about how this would be processed.  And that's very perfectly, of course -- this is my attempt to sum up the points that were made.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  I understand Constance wanted to say a few sentences.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you so much.

 There has been another proposal floating, and just to feed the reflection -- and this is not my idea, "Internet governance for empowerment, trust, and prosperity" for those who feel that "sustainable development" is maybe too vague.  Thank you so much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Constance, for that proposal.

 What I would like to suggest, it is obvious that we cannot reach consensus here.  I would like maybe to ask Benedicto to take up the task and continue consulting community online, MAG and community.  I would urge to open up the discussion to broader community as was suggested by Avri and supported by others, maybe not for overly long because the definition of themes and subthemes may delay the call for proposals.  And we would need to get this job done roughly by mid January, latest end of January.

 I would suggest that we schedule a conference call around mid January and put that as the only item on the agenda and then try to finalize and then reach rough consensus on that.  I don't think that everybody will be equally happy.  I would rather think we would need to strive to make everybody equally unhappy and then from there we will then go forward with a call for proposals.

 If that is agreeable, then we can proceed that way.

 Avri?  You're against that.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  This is Avri.  I just wanted to add one thing, and that I'm willing -- understanding the resource limitations of the secretariat and having spent a fair amount of time working with the secretariat, I'm more than willing to help them do this over the intervening time.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much, Avri, for volunteering.

 Benedicto, you have a good collaborator for this task.

 So let us move to the next item, and that is discussion about other activities surrounding which are part of the IGF and maybe also other type of sessions that we have.  And, of course, we have already touched upon best practice forums.  And I do not think we should go much on that topic, but topics as dynamic coalitions and interaction of dynamic coalitions with IGF and the role of dynamic coalitions and how dynamic coalitions could be leveraged in order to promote the aims of IGF or how the dynamic coalitions could be used to engage them in intersessional activities and what are relationships between dynamic coalitions and IGF and in general.  So I think this is the concern of some MAG members who will put that -- or who asked to put that on the agenda.

 And I think that also will help us to shape our better understanding how -- about the modalities of intersessional work might be organized.

 And I recognize Marilyn.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  I raised some concerns yesterday.  But my concerns extend not just to the dynamic coalitions but an expression as well of awareness that I ask that we have about the expectations that we may wish to bring to national and regional initiatives as well in terms of their ability and even in terms of resourcing to take on additional work that does not come from their organic process.

 I support the idea of inviting participation.  Some will not be convening in time perhaps to contribute; others will.

 But let me go back to dynamic coalitions.  The dynamic coalitions are not all at the same level of maturity.  Not all of the dynamic coalitions actually are yet, I would say, geographically representative or necessarily reflecting all points of view.  And, in fact, some have been successful in a particular area because they are more aligned around the work that they are doing.

 This is not a criticism of the dynamic coalitions.  It is an observation.  So the people who come to work in the dynamic coalition about accessibility, for instance, tend to be committed to and aware of that issue already.  They are not there to debate whether it is a good thing to do.

 I notice that Peter -- I take note that Peter Major is here and may be able to comment further.

 I want to understand what we think dynamic coalitions are expected to do and whether we think that there needs to be different criteria for the dynamic coalitions, or we are prepared to accept that some may be more basic in their evolutions.  Some may be more of a birds of feather, like-minded work program.  Others may be very different and be more of a preliminary, we're just beginning to debate and figure out an issue.  But I don't understand our expectations, and I'd like to understand those more.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  If you would allow me very briefly since the dynamic coalitions were created at the very beginning and actually the history or the story behind creation of dynamic coalitions was that IGF has never been made to make any decisions.  And it was understood that some people, some organizations could get together around one theme and take that theme to greater maturity and propose it for decision-making somewhere, where that belongs to.

 And in 2006 we had created -- during IGF, there were a number of dynamic coalitions created.  But then they went somehow loose and then there was a decrease in activity.  And now there is, again, a little bit up, sort of increase in activity of the dynamic coalitions.  Some of them have gone as far as proposing some recommendations to international organizations, and they have been acted upon.  But there haven't been any kind of strong feedback to my understanding from dynamic coalitions to the IGF.  And that is why the question is on the table, how we deal with them.

 We have created them at the very beginning, but do we need to establish kind of rules of engagement with them.  That is the question.  Markus?

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:  Yes.  Thank you.  Thank you, Chair, for recalling the history.  I would like to pick up also on what Mark had been saying and Marilyn.  Indeed, the dynamic coalitions we have are very heterogeneous.  You were right in pointing out it was a kind of compromise to begin with.  Somewhat -- some sort of regular subworking groups, that was rejected at the beginning as it was seen by being too institutionalized, and the compromise was let these dynamic coalitions get off the ground and get started.

 Now, most of them didn't do much except organize an annual meeting.  Some others actually did some work.  The dynamic coalition on accessibility is a very good example of very useful work being done by a dynamic coalition which is not so much in debating a theme but more as raising awareness and putting documents together on how we can help people with disabilities.

 And I came across -- when you asked me to, Chair, to lead the session on network neutrality, that there is a dynamic coalition on network neutrality.  That dynamic coalition has been extremely dynamic in developing principles.  But this is an issue which is extremely controversial.  And they did that in a kind of vacuum among like-minded, did very good work, and took that work to the Council of Europe and I think also to the European Parliament.  But they never took it back to the main body of the community or never had it -- there was lack of a feedback to the broader IGF community.

 And this is, I think, very relevant and we touched on this on one of the calls we had after or before Istanbul, and I think there is a need to create a feedback loop between the dynamic coalitions and the broader community.  

 And when preparing the net neutrality session, we actually looked at the example of the Internet Engineering Task Force, where anybody can start a bird of a feather.  When this gets traction, they can then propose creating a working group, which needs to be approved by the Internet Architecture Board, the terms of reference need to be approved, and then the working group can start its work.

 But again, once they conclude their work, they have to report back to the broader community, and if the community then agrees on their work, then it turns into an official RFC of the Internet Engineering Task Force.

 And I think as IGF, we can look at the IETF and learn a bit from this kind of mechanism, but if we want to have a tangible outcome of the dynamic coalitions, we need to create a link to the broader community and I think the MAG would be the logical group that would approve the terms of reference for the dynamic coalitions and would then also give the IGF label over the outcome.

 There's also the dynamic coalition -- I think also Mark mentioned it -- on rights and principles that came up with a very elaborate outcome.  They have a little booklet where these are printed out.  But they were never actually reported back into the main body of the meeting of the community.

 So this is something -- and I'm sure we will not be able to come to a conclusion here, but I strongly urge that we have to give sufficient reflection on how we interact with the dynamic coalitions and bring them in the main fold of the IGF.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Markus.

 Peter?

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Peter Dengate Thrush.  I. 

 Agree completely with everything that Markus has said, and I wonder if the way to go forward and to adopt your suggestion, Mr. Chairman, about making some rules, is to begin first, as one should, by collecting some facts and doing some evaluations.

 Why don't we include in the evaluation mechanism that we've been talking about, the post-hoc mechanism -- begin by doing some evaluations of the dynamic coalitions, and then armed with the information that that will produce -- because these things don't need -- I don't get any sense we need to do anything in a hurry but we need to do it properly.  So why don't we start by collecting some information, doing some evaluations, and then moving forward into the kind of areas that Markus is talking about, which I agree is where we need to go.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Virat?

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Could be my shortest comment ever.  I lend my voice and weight behind everything that has been said by Markus.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Mark?

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes.  I'll be equally brief.  Mark Carvell, U.K. government.  

 Agree very much with Markus' main points about the need to develop this sort of loop mechanism back into the IGF.  And what I had suggested earlier about each of the dynamic coalitions reporting and briefing the MAG on their action plans and expected outcomes, we would then be in a better place to understand how we can integrate them in the intersessional work and in the IGF in Brazil next year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Anybody opposing?

 I see none.

 Marilyn, would you agree to take that mapping first into the scope of the working group on sort of self-evaluation?  That we get a list of those existing dynamic coalitions, and then as a result of that, see which are active, which are not?  

 And listening to this discussion, we have a practice in IGF that one slot is given to -- for coordination of activities of national and regional IGFs.

 These are spinouts from the IGF international.

 Maybe we should also add dynamic coalitions to that list and assign a certain number of MAG members to be present in that coordination meeting and gather all this information.  

 I would be very hesitant to make MAG as a Senate which calls on on hearings, ones or others.

 I would rather see MAG members going in the community and gathering that information, and I think that that mechanism would be -- would be more democratic and helpful.

 Marilyn, you are in agreement with me as usual, right?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  With one tiny, tiny edit.  Marilyn Cade speaking.

 Chair, I do think that the dynamic coalitions, just like the national and regionals, they do have the opportunity to write a report, and so I don't want to overlook the sort of self-assessment responsibility and contribution.

 Happy to put it into the working group because I think it is an issue of what are we doing about developing outcomes or outputs -- which may be a term I like better -- but I think I just want to recognize that there are reports, and perhaps the secretariat might even be able to help me with a comment on that.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Then that is decided.

 And are there any other questions under this agenda item that people would like to raise?

 I see none.

 We can then move forward.

 The -- I understand that we already had a conversation about the preparatory calendar meetings and milestones.  I think that the majority thought that what I did send out would be something to follow and was not, except very few, keen to do three meetings in 2015, and therefore, I would suggest that we go for a three-meeting strategy, with the understanding that every second week we would have a teleconference where we would be addressing topics that need to be decided.  

 I think we will start with themes and subthemes as a question which has the highest priority for the moment.

 And then of course when it comes to a second meeting of the cycle in May, we really need to see this is just an indication that we may have one at that time.  We do not know exact dates.  We do not know exact place.

 Usually the May meeting is sort of aligned with the WSIS forum, and the dates that I have put in the proposal, these are dates either three days before the meeting -- meaning Wednesday, Thursday, Friday before the week of WSIS forum -- or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the week after the WSIS forum, because WSIS forum is taking place five days and this will be a celebration of 150th anniversary of ITU around World Information Day.

 We need to see availability of rooms.  We need to see availability of hotels.  It may happen that we need to look at a venue.  Occasionally there is EuroDIG meeting happening in early June in Sofia, so that might be an option.  Not that we're going, but that might be an option.

 But again, it remains to be seen.  The secretariat will communicate as soon as possible these dates.  

 But in between, of course we need to give -- to send the call for proposals end of January, collecting all inputs, submissions, by end of -- or March, mid-March, end March, do evaluation, preselection evaluation before the meeting, and then aim at sort of selecting the majority of workshops or events during that meeting.

 I see Marilyn and Cheryl asking for the floor.

 Marilyn, please.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  Marilyn Cade speaking.

 Chair, I just want to -- for all colleagues to note that the Commission on -- United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development meets on May -- from May 4th through 8th, and I understand that sometimes we have met on the cusp of the WSIS forum but sometimes we've also met on the cusp of the CSTD.

 I mention this because many of the countries that are members of CSTD are also actively engaged in the -- in the Internet Governance Forum, and the WSIS+10 review report that CSTD is mandated to deliver and debate in May is quite significantly important to the IGF.

 So I just mention those dates and that event for consideration as well.

 The CSTD typically, as it meets, it has an opening high-level session, it has two major work tracks, one being science and technology for development and the other being WSIS follow-up, a responsibility which was given to the CSTD by the UNGA in 2006.

 So I would like us to also take that meeting into account.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, but you're not suggesting during the week of the CSTD.  It should be either before -- no, not before.  That's too early.  After that?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  I -- it could be after it.  I just note that actually for my own purposes, although I do participate in WSIS forum, I think there are more opportunities, perhaps, at -- to participate in the day where that debate will take place.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 Cheryl?

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I just had a quick question.

 I wanted to see if we had concluded our discussion on main sessions and the substance of the intersessional.  I know that we had put a proposal on the table and I wasn't sure if it's appropriate to address it before we close or not.  But I just wanted to ask that.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  We have concluded discussions on main sessions, yes, but we have not concluded yet discussion on intersessional activities, so that is still coming.

 So thank you, Marilyn, for that.

 Peter?  Peter Major?

 >>PETER MAJOR:  Just to follow up on what Marilyn said and what you have mentioned, the CSTD in this year in its resolution about the WSIS follow-up will naturally take some -- will have a paragraph about the continuation of the IGF.

 And in view of that, even though you said it's too early, probably we should reconsider whether we shouldn't have some kind of impact or outreach towards the members of the CSTD and the bigger community here in Geneva.

 By "bigger community," I mean the diplomatic community.

 So I just put it on the table to think about it.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No, I think when we discussed the self-evaluation, my understanding was that we would submit the results of self-evaluation, the report, to the CSTD as an input to their discussion.

 The outreach, I think Geneva is the place where we can do outreach easily because secretariat is based here, and I see no difficulty in doing that, and actually this is the next point on our agenda:  How to do communication and outreach.  That's Point Number 7 that I wanted to open the floor for comments, inputs.

 I heard Jivan talking, volunteering to put pen on the paper based on his experience and knowledge, but I don't see him in the room.  Maybe he's -- he will join us.  Hopefully soon.

 I had two requests for the floor.  Virat and Marilyn.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to volunteer for the outreach group.  

 Preferably the evaluation group should also be the outreach group.  That would be a perfect way to start developing what we have learned into the outreach.

 So I just wanted to volunteer for that.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  My name is Marilyn Cade.

 My suggestion would be it would be good, I think, to integrate the evaluation.  I'm not -- perhaps I'll call it "assessment and documentation," as opposed to "evaluation," because I think what we are trying to do is to document the achievements, as opposed to so much rate them.

 And I do think it would be good to integrate that into an outreach initiative, and I hope that -- I suggested to the secretariat I think yesterday there was a suggestion that we have a mailing list but perhaps we could also -- those who are interested who are in the room could gather in the back of the room, we could put together a mailing list, and come up with a rough idea in order to deliver something useful by May.

 I just will note -- and I will turn to the vice chair for one of the regions, Mr. Peter Major, vice chair from CSTD -- I believe that means we really need to have a document to circulate within the MAG by the end of March.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Indeed.  That is -- I think the statutory requirement is to send documents one month before the session, but that is by secretariat.  I assume that secretariat needs to get it beforehand, so that they can process and put -- or communicate that to members of CSTD.

 So at the end of the day, we do not have much time.  

 But also I -- I think that the communication and outreach practice is slightly broader than just this.  We need to communicate the results of our self-assessment to inform the debate, but in reality we need to find a way how to beat -- or oppose perception that basically IGF does nothing.  

 In reality, IGF does a lot of things.  We have produced a wealth of material, both video material, documentary material.  Every session that has been held in IGF technically is recorded and is available.

 The point is that not many people know about it, not many people use it, and we need to find a way how to push that information out to relevant organizations, to relevant countries, to relevant individuals who may benefit from that information, and that is the tricky part.

 We also need to take into account that there always will be calls for doing more, and they will be motivated by political considerations rather than by reality.

 So we will always be confronted with opposition of some kind, so therefore, we need really to think how we overcome those shortfalls and how we proactively present IGF outside, and of course the community input would be very useful.

 Here I have now a number of speakers.  Maybe we could devote the next 15, 20 minutes to this conversation.

 And I would like to see also volunteers who would like to be coordinators of this work, and help us out.

 So ICC/BASIS first, and then Maria Victoria.

 >>ICC/BASIS:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  

 I would just like to offer the support and contribution of ICC/BASIS to the communication and outreach work of the MAG, and as a non-MAG member, I'd like to contribute to that.  

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you.  Maria Victoria?

 >>MARIA VICTORIA ROMERO:  Thank you, Chair.  

 We come to the point where I can actually volunteer to participate in the outreaching group on communication and outreach.  And as I've been mentioning, it's extremely important the participation of developing countries, and it's quite worrisome that the New York -- the voices of many like-minded countries are not here because of a lack of clarity or understanding.

 We think that we can be of use here in Geneva among the diplomatic community and to the highest level, bringing some ambassadors into discussions and to have them with a better understanding and transmit these messages to our capitals and from there to New York where the decisions are made and -- well, that's all.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Lea?

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Thank you, Chair.

 Just to add my voice of support for this -- for the integration of these two elements as you and Virat suggested.

 Also like to volunteer to participate in this work.  And in practical terms, what I think would be useful, in thinking about outreach and communications, is in the early stages think about an action plan with relevant points where we could actually then input, whether it's conferences or events where MAG members can then feed these findings.  That's all.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Peter Dengate Thrush, then Peter Major.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  

 Can I just -- good governance principles require that I insist that you separate these two functions along the lines that you started to suggest.  We mustn't confuse the function of collecting, evaluating, comparing, and compiling information with one of the uses to which that information is put which, as you pointed out, is a major task, the communication about the IGF.  So a communications exercise is a separate working group with separate skills, separate people, separate targets from the evaluation and collecting of the information.  The information, once it is collected, is useful, for example, for designing programs, for recruiting, for all sorts of purposes.  

 The information that's taken from that source is then selectively prepared for the communications messaging that's required.  So we really do need to separate these functions and these tasks and these working groups.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yeah, no, they are separate.  The one doing self-assessment, mapping, that will be led by Marilyn.  And then we're now talking about communication strategies and outreach strategies.

 Peter Major, please.

 >> PETER MAJOR:  Thank you.  I fully agree that we are talking about two different things and we should keep that in mind.  And the first thing about the assessment and the usual U.N. way of doing things is probably by the end of the assessment, it will be transformed into some kind of report from the secretariat which will be sent to the CSTD secretariat to be made available to CSTD members during their May meeting.  

 As for the outreach, we may do it in a very complex way.  Probably we won't have the time and the resources to do that.  So what I can think of is some new task for the secretariat to organize some kind of meetings with the local diplomats here in Geneva to give some idea what we are doing and what are the achievements.

 And I'm ready to contribute to that as well.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  I have further Marilyn, Mourad, and Dominique on my list.  Marilyn.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  My comment is going to be very quick.  

 I do think the working group that I and I think Lea volunteered for before and others will be working on will be a major source of information.  

 I just want to note that really in paragraph 72, this is something that needs to be -- this outreach and communication needs to become a more core part of our ongoing activities.  

 And I would like to volunteer to work in the -- in that group as well because I think that packaging up our story is one of the -- and becoming ambassadors ourselves in an informed way is one of our major objectives for MAG members.  But that means we also have to have materials that MAG members can use.  And I understand the difference in skills.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Mourad.

 >>MOURAD BOUKADOUM:  Thank you.  I just wanted to recall my proposal of yesterday to convene a meeting, an information session, by the IGF secretariat with the permanent mission here in Geneva in order to introduce the forum itself and talk about its achievements so far.

 I would like also to suggest that we use broadly the social network in order to marketize the next event.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Thank you for this proposal.  Actually, I have seven years' experience here in Geneva.  And I can tell you for secretariat, it is not so easy to organize that type of outreach session.  But it is very easy to do it by delegation.  So, therefore, maybe I would invite our next hosts or our previous hosts or hosts of all previous IGFs to get together and to organize one information session to Geneva crowd at a time which is most opportune because sometimes people are very busy running from one meeting to another.  But there are some quiet times.  

 And to my knowledge, the beginning of January always is very quiet.  People are keen to work, but there is nothing happening.  So that's the best time of doing things.  Usually it's happening during the lunchtime, two hours' lunchtime.  Delegates buy sandwiches.  They come, they get their sandwich, they go in the room, and then they have an interaction for about one hour and 30 minutes.  

 So I see Benedicto is already committing himself to do that.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA FILHO:  I had precommitted to this --

 [ Laughter ]

 -- when I decided to propose Brazil for next IGF.  

 I would like to thank colleagues, especially from the delegation here who have indicated their willingness in that regard.  We think it's very important that this outreach be made towards governments which is recognized as one of the -- maybe the stakeholders that is last involved in IGF meetings and especially because there will be this high-level meeting by the end of next year.  It is very important that the delegations be involved in Geneva and maybe more importantly in New York.  And then we have already been giving some thought to this.  We want -- we will be working with our mission to identify appropriate moments.  It will be very good if we could do this in partnership with previous host countries, the future host country, Mexico as well, and other interested parties.

 We think in New York taking into account the current state of negotiations, maybe we should aim to have different kinds of briefings, for example, one addressed to G77, I think would be up for us, G77 members.  Because in New York, this negotiation occurs between groupings, G77 and others.  So it is important.  And then to have a larger reaching out to the wider membership.  We have given thought to that.  And on debate of the discussions we have had in the course of this meeting, this has reinforced our perception of that meeting.

 And also in some -- maybe also in a different setting, you can work together also with you, Janis, with UN-DESA to organize also some outreach.  I think we have to think of maybe some building blocks to make sure we reach out to the negotiators who will be dealing with this who need to -- as Mexico has had to be better informed and to have a sense coming from governments primarily but also from other stakeholders as well.  I think that would be helpful for the purpose we want to achieve.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Thank you, Benedicto, for committing.

 Please, Hartmut.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  Very brief information.  I receive a message from Mark Sanchez (saying name) who is now collecting all materials of the last IGFs.  And I sent him all material, all MP3, all videos, all transcripts from Brazil 2007.  So if we do it, all past organizers, if you have an archive.  I do it, and he is organizing this.  He is well-known in the community.  He's supporting us and he has, let's say, the time or the wish to organize these historical documents.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Very good.  Thank you.  I understand we're getting very excited.

 Silvia is next on my list.  I have a number of people.

 >> SILVIA BIDART:  I would like to volunteer for the outreach activities.  I can also help with different groups and region coordinators.  I participate in private sector, civil society, governments, et cetera.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  

 Dominique.

 >>DOMINIQUE LAZANSKI:  Thank you very much.  While I think we all be excellent ambassadors both offline and online for the IGF, I just want to also volunteer our global reach from a GSMA perspective for all that we do.  So just throwing that in.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  As I mentioned, we will organize the Doodle sort of activity where everybody will be able to join in volunteering to different work streams that we're organizing now.  Maybe if we could stick to the substantive points.  I really do not want to prolong the discussion.  I want to go -- I want to go to next agenda items which are maybe more -- not controversial but more complex.

 Ephraim from online participation stream.  Ephraim, are you with us?

 >>EPHRAIM KENYANITO:  I'm here.  This is Ephraim Kenyanito from Kenya for the record.  I just wanted to say I want to register my interest in outreach and communication and especially translating these compositions to young newcomers from developing countries.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Towela?

 >>TOWELA JERE:  Thank you, Chair.  I just wanted to add my voice to the need to actually package information that would actually allow us to actually do this communication and outreach.  And I would also volunteer as far as reaching out to stakeholders through the African Union and through the NEPAD agency.  

 But I wanted to also suggest that perhaps there's a need to maybe ask MAG members to actually submit events that they are aware of that are happening next year that are strategic and that may actually be useful for us to consider engaging with as MAG.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  I think we have overwhelming sort of understanding of importance of these things.  And I'm looking to Lea now.

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Thank you, Chair.  Just a quick question.  Would these working groups be open to the broader community or just to MAG members?  This is just not known.  Thank you.  If you can clarify.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  We usually try to identify coordinators from the MAG, and then the rest of the group is open to community, specifically to those who used to be MAG members in priority but, of course, everybody else as well.

 I really want to close down this conversation.  I haven't decided yet whom from volunteers I should ask to lead the process.  Maybe Dominique.  Would you agree to launch the activity and then we will see who will join you as a team?

 From my side, I have decided to post at least one blog per month in preparations to the IGF explaining where we are in process and what are the topics, what are our objectives, what we are trying to achieve, and where we are in preparation.  So that is commitment from my side.

 And with this, I would like to close this part of the conversation and move to the few outstanding issues.

 And I was told that IGF Support Association has brief sort of information to share with the MAG.  Am I right?  I'm looking to Markus or to Raul.  This would be just an information without discussion.

 >> RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  Thank you very much, Janis.  

 As you already know, the IGF Support Association was launched during the last IGF meeting in Istanbul.  Here in the room, there are some colleagues that are serving the executive committee.  Avri is here.  Cheryl, Virat, Marilyn, myself.  Markus is the secretariat of the IGF Support Association.

 We finalized the corporation of the organization in Geneva.  We appointed Markus as the secretariat of the association.  And the first month we were working as The Internet Society supporting -- the association providing the secretariat financials for one year free of cost.  So we were working on an agreement on the terms of reference of the work that The Internet Society is providing.

 We form two committees, fund-raising committee that is chaired by Cheryl Miller.  And communication and outreach committee, that's chaired by Marilyn Cade.

 We sent an invite to the members of the association inviting everybody to join one of those committees.  Now that the committees are formed, they are working.  I repeat the invitation to everybody.  So, please, if you are interested in collaborating with the association, joining one of those committees, talk to Cheryl or to Marilyn and be in touch with them.

 The state of financing of the association so far, counting the money already received in the bank account of firm pledges, we have almost $190,000 and it is composed in the following ways.  $1,100 were the initial contributions received in Istanbul.  And we have received contribution from Amazon for $2,500.  Wily Ray (phonetic), $1,000.  Verizon, 2,000.  (phonetic).  CIRA from Canada, $25,000.  And $50,000 from ICANN.  And $100,000 from The Internet Society.

 A report will be published next week, and we will include all those figures.  And this is just because this is the first report we will issue to the community.  But after that, we plan to issue those reports quarterly so in the beginning in January, sometime in January we will issue a new report.

 Today we have opened our own account in Geneva.  So far we were working under an account of The Internet Society, but we opened our own account today.  So now it will take just a few days, we hope, to have the paper mechanism available for making contributions online.  

 For those who already contributed to the association, they will receive receipt probably within the next 15 days.  Some people have asked about that, people that paid cash in Istanbul.  So we are now in a position to start to send invoices -- sorry, receipts to the people.  And we are ready also to invoice the people that have expressed the intention to contribute now that we will issue the invoices with the details for making the contributions online or through wires, depending obviously on the amount of the contributions.

 So basically we are ready to receive your contributions.  So, please, take your pen, open your checks, and take advantage that we are here.  So don't miss this opportunity to make a contribution.

 One of the things that we are discussing in the executive committee now is the criteria for applying the money that we are collecting.  It seems much simpler than what really it is because there is a consensus on the executive committee to apply the money collected to three basic things:  To support the IGF secretariat, to support participation of MAG members in the meetings, to support regional and national IGFs.  There is also agreement that majority -- the majority of the resources will be used for supporting the secretariat, but it is not clear yet what exact percentage and if all that money will go through the U.N. Trust Fund or we will reserve some part of the contribution to the IGF secretariat for being spent on an ad hoc basis.

 The executive committee will elaborate the criteria for its next meeting.  We are holding conferences once a month.  Once we take the decision, surely in the next meeting we will make it public, the criteria.  So all the members will have the opportunity also to express their opinions.

 And the executive committee is also working on other priorities that are the processes, the necessary processes for dealing with those things that I mentioned before.  For example, for support and participation of MAG members, it is necessary to design processes for how to receive applications and how to take issues based on what rules.  Same thing, for example, the capacity we will be able to make contributions to the IGF secretariat.  We talk in our meeting that we have yesterday in making probably two contributions per year.  

 But so we need to develop the procedures for that and I think that all those procedures surely will be ready in the next couple of months.

 So the -- the situation is good.  We are almost -- I think that we need just a few dollars, a few bucks, for accomplishing the goal that we set for the end of 2014.  

 Now, the goals for 2015 are much more ambitious, and so we need from all of you -- and not only from all of you but also the people, all the connections you have, people that you can bring on board.  I think that we all -- all of us here in this meeting are really interested in supporting IGF and ensuring the stability of the process and the secretariat, so I know that you will be contributing with us.

 I have some things here, but -- I have pens for you, and I have also pins.  Pins and pens.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  And I will be happy to give to you now.  And there is also a brochure available.  I think that Virat brought some copies of the brochure to be distributed here.  And also the brochure will be available on line so anybody can download it for using it for outreach purposes.

 I think that that's all.  I hope to not forget anything, but I'm running because of the pressure of the time that I know that you have many things to cover in the meeting today.

 So happy to answer any questions after the meeting or by email.  Please be in touch.  That's all.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much for this update and for all your assistance.

 I would --

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  We do not have too many questions remaining but they are fairly complex, and so let me list them.

 So one is modalities of intersessional activities, how we will arrange, and we need to get kind of a common understanding what we mean by that and how we will work on that, get some volunteers who would lead that process.

 Secondly, we need to discuss what we do with the invitation by ICANN, CGI, and World Economic Forum to join the council of NETmundial Initiative.  That is an outstanding question from day before yesterday.

 And then we have the last agenda item, any other business, where Chengetai will give a briefing on the state of play with the Web site and the financial situation of IGF and any other questions that he deems necessary to convey to the MAG.

 So let me now turn to the first of the outstanding issues and that is intersessional activities.

 And to give the tone for this conversation or exchange of views, let me explain a little bit where we're coming from and why we're talking about that.

 The recurrent request coming from all quarters, from all groups, is to improve tangible outputs of IGF, and in Istanbul, in the runup to Istanbul, during the Istanbul meeting, we thought that we may want to construct a process that would address those concerns, and in an experimental way start with the minimum we can, with a simple thing, and to test whether what worked in the runup to NETmundial conference would work also for IGF.

 Because, of course, there are differences in the nature of the meetings and the purpose of the meetings and so on.

 So therefore, in the chair's summary, it -- it was -- MAG was invited to provide sort of input and to think about organizing intersessional activities on a theme which would not be too controversial which would have developmental aspects and so on.  You have read the report.

 So then ICC/BASIS proposed a theme "A Policy Menu to Connect" -- "for the Next Billion On Line," so now we would need to discuss how we -- how we will organize our work, how we will involve national and regional IGFs, and what do we expect at the end, in order to address this recurring request to have more tangible outputs from IGF.

 So the floor is open.

 On this topic, Cheryl, please.  You start, then Virat, then Avri.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I just wanted to volunteer to continue to work on this and help with it.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Virat?

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  I also wanted to volunteer to work on this, and what I wanted to recommend was that in terms of specifics, we have got a couple of things to resolve.  One is the process of engagement of the MAG and the working group, and the second will be the larger community and especially the national and regional IGFs.

 I would suggest that once the working group is created, it could submit its plan and design, let's say towards the end of December, if that's not too early, or if it's a big holiday period, then we could do it in -- by mid-Jan, and based on that, we could then proceed.

 We could keep that open for -- that work plan open for a week for comments, take inputs from the MAG.  If it needs to be more widely circulated, we could do that.  And then hope to begin the actual work by third week of Jan, at the latest, taking into consideration a five-, seven-day holiday period.  

 So that would be the rough timetable to which we would launch this.  But I think the first test would be to get the working group together, to get a specific plan with processes in place, and get inputs from the wider MAG because it's really a product that everybody must own, and then get into the actual functioning of the nuts and bolts of the working.  Because we should aim to produce something by September.  Hopefully, if we have a compendium -- and the end result, for those of you who have had a chance to read that, is to produce a compendium of policy menus which do not override one over the other but basically give you a global level of information.

 I'd like to say one more thing, that the World Bank does a report once in two years which is their strategic report on an issue, and for 2016, the bank is leading a report specifically on related and specific direct issues, so we would also want to reach out to the World Bank because they are doing a global study to try and see what parts of this can contribute to their report and how they could engage with this discussion.

 Similarly, UNESCO, which has parts of this in a study that they are discussing.  So those are at least two well-identified.

 I'm sure ITU has similar information available.

 So a specific engagement with intergovernmental agencies and their involvement, which also goes directly to Section 72 of the Tunis Agenda in its operations and in its implementation.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I don't know how I made feedback, but good for me.

 I was going to volunteer, too, but now I'm confused again.

 First of all, as I had spoken of before, I -- I did not think it was supposed to be a top-down thing, yet another top-down thing, where MAG decides what it's working on and then it goes about doing it.

 And what I had suggested when we talked about it earlier was that, you know, perhaps we found a couple efforts that we got started, that each of those efforts had at least one MAG person that was willing to kind of shepherd the effort and see what they could get out of it and see who they could attract to working on something, and then at some milestone point down the road we would look at the ones that had gotten started and see which of those had enough substance, had enough capability of actually coming to an outcome to sort of put more energy behind it, while allowing the others to keep working, and if they didn't come up with an outcome this year, well, then if there is another year, they would be able to continue working, and if there wasn't another year of the IGF, they could continue working on the regionals and other things.

 In other words, the thing that was important about it was that it was work that needed to be done, that there were MAG members and community participants at large that wanted to participate in and wanted to actually work; that outcome is important, but in some sense it's secondary to it being something that people want to do, that wants to get done.

 So I'm interested in working on an effort but I'm kind of concerned about getting involved in something that has a lot of up-front process and is very MAG top-down.

 So I'm not sure -- as I say, I'm back to being confused.

 But I do finally have some understanding of the menu, though I prefer to think of a buffet.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  As I mentioned, this is kind of experiment this year, to see how far we can get in addressing the concerns because you see where is the danger?  The danger is to change the nature of IGF.  And in -- in the conversations, I usually use the analogy of a tram.

 We have built a tram, and that was back 10 years ago.  And now there is a request to make this tram go faster, and we're trying to do that and most probably we can make the tram go faster.  We can even turn the tram around like a train.

 But what is -- one thing is for sure.  We cannot make this tram to fly.  If we want to fly, we need to build an airplane.

 So therefore, there is a limitation how far we can sort of evolve IGF, and then when we need to say, "Okay, this is not anymore IGF as it was created, now we're creating either IGF Version 2 or we're creating something new."

 So -- and therefore, what we need to do is to experiment and see how that works in the setting.

 If that works fine, let's continue in that direction.  If that does not work, so then let's consider why it didn't work.

 Constance, please.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

 I'm happy to volunteer and join the efforts with ICC, Virat, and others, but only if Avri joins the group.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  And I will say this because I think the menu proposal is interesting, although the document is a little long and I still need to go back to it, and I think we should consider it as a proposal, a basis on which we can build.

 I still have concerns about launching new themes, another track, while we have already foundations, including the best practices but also messages coming out of main sessions or workshops, and I'd like to make sure we -- we stay consistent and also reflect what's going on in terms of building the agenda, and I think the voice of civil society is absolutely critical so I'm awaiting confirmation from Avri.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Lynn?

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chair.  Lynn St. Amour.

 I also wanted to volunteer for that work because I actually think it's very critical to the IGF's future development.

 And while I support Avri's comments in principle and I think there's an opportunity to do what she's suggesting, I think it's just as important that we actually ensure that we maximize that track or that opportunity to try and advance -- you know, get the step up that we've all said we think the IGF is both ready for and that we're all looking for.

 So I wanted to support Avri's comments, and at the same time say that I think that we probably need another parallel effort, as well, to ensure that it actually does work to advance the IGF the way that, Janis, you know, you've talked about a number of times.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  At the risk of saying the same thing now the fourth time or maybe the 14th, I'm very enthused about inviting the national and regional IGFs to consider participating and contributing.

 I think you may find -- I did a mini-study a couple of years ago with Dr. Dima [phonetic] Epstein from Cornell at the time, and I think you may find that some will say we've already addressed this or we've addressed it differently or we are addressing it differently.

 So as long as we provide flexibility for the national or regional IGF to say, "We really want to focus on the content aspect," "We want to focus on indigenous content," "We want to focus on" -- as long as we're open to that, I think that we will find some wish to participate.  Others may not.  As long as we're flexible and open, I think this can be a good idea.

 On the issue that Constance raised of we also have best practice forums, one of the really interesting things to me about the best practice forums is they brought in the non-attendee participants from the community because they draw on experts, people who are particularly interested in the topic of the best practice forum.

 So I'm not sure I see those as duplicative effort at this time.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 I would need also some -- some comments from government representatives because we are now having all groups except government group on board on this very topic.

 Cheryl?

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Chair.

 I just wanted to respond and clarify a little bit.

 The proposal was in no way meant to be sort of a top-down proposal that we're wedded to.  It really was created to further the discussion and to receive feedback from everyone.  From government, from civil society, technical community, et cetera.

 I do note that -- I note Avri's comments and in principle I do understand and I support where she's going.  I also hope that Avri will join the group.  It is critical that civil society is a part of this, so that we can try and move it forward.  And it's in no way intended to compete with the best practice forums or other initiatives of the IGF.

 I think for me, I participated in -- in part, in one of the dynamic coalitions, and the difficulty was that we all found that while the work moving forward was good work, there was no process, and so we kind of got stuck right there and that's something that we started talking about earlier.

 And so that was, in part, part of the reason why we looked to different criteria that already exists and what different organizations such as IETF and others are doing to try to start to put together some initial criteria that we could discuss and see what made sense and see how we could kind of move this thing forward.

 So thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Juan Alfonso.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.

 At the risk of saying the same thing 14 times, as Marilyn said, I think that what I recommend is to have coherence in what we are doing intersessionally and with the main themes of the IGF itself.

 I already said that next year is a special year, so maybe the IGF has to be special itself.

 In past years, the IGF has been some sort of -- how can I tell it in English? -- smorgasbord of topics, you know, distributed, because it's a very bottom-up, and it's good.  It's for policy dialogue.  But I think that in next year, we have to pay more attention in a little -- not for the voices but for the ears to whom we have to send this message.

 We are going to send this message to the global community, the global political community of the world, so we need to have coherence.

 I just make this recommendation.  Whatever topic is selected for the -- for the main themes or the subthemes, I suggest that also the intersessional efforts and also the best practice efforts should be all surrounding that in order not to disperse the voice of the IGF in that special year.

 I think that this doesn't mean (indiscernible) to the spirit of the IGF.  I think it's a tactical move that we have to make in a very special year.  Coherence, coherence, coherence.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  ICC/BASIS?

 >>ICC/BASIS:  Thank you, Chair.

 I won't reiterate too much what has been said by my colleagues, but I would like to say that our intention in developing and putting forward this proposal was actually in response to the consultation process that was initiated by the ICC -- the IGF secretariat.

 So it is in no way whatsoever intended as a top-down process.  It's an idea that we put on line quite some time ago and then have extracted the abridged version of these recommendations and have circulated them for discussion, for cooperation, and evaluation collectively in this -- in this group today.

 And it is our hope that the MAG can pull together a working group that would include Avri and others to a broad representation of colleagues to evolve and help shape this to reflect everyone's perspectives and concerns so that we come out with something that's meeting the needs for this very unique year, as everyone has pointed out.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Virat.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Chairman, I wanted to make three quick points.  One is the fact that this is a proposal by a non-MAG member in response to open consultation which has found its way even in the synthesis paper of the secretariat.  And so in that sense, if it is coming in response to an open consultation and has been on the net for almost a month and a half, that would be considered bottom-up because I'm now kind of -- now I'm confused about the concept of bottom-up.  It is a non-MAG member.  It is on the net.  It is for over a month.  And it is in the synthesis paper.

 The second point that I would like to mention is that when we set formal working groups, it doesn't have to be a working group of only MAG members.  The working group is basically just trying to get the structure in place so that they can go consult all the communities outside that working group and then bring other people into the working group, including and especially regional and national IGFs who I think would contribute to this in year one and hopefully when the compendium is ready, it will serve as a capacity-building exercise for them.  So it has a two-way meaning for both of which are strongly enshrined in the Tunis Agenda.

 And the last point I would make is that we would request both governments and especially Avri and our colleagues, Mark, others, to join the group and contribute with their ideas and tell us and guide us in how we can make it more inclusive.  Take it out to all people and have the whole community contribute to that.  

 We are completely open to any of the discussions that come in.  But we have to start somewhere, and this is a submission for us to consider.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Mark?

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Thanks very much.  Well, that's a very neat segue to government in respect of my role as a contributor.  I mean, I'm very happy to put my name forward and engage substantively in the work.  I think the problem for myself and perhaps I might be speaking on behalf of Ana Neves and Olga Cavalli as well is that we're GAC members and we're completely overwhelmed with the ICANN and IANA processes and ICANN accountability processes at the moment.

 But with that caveat in terms of pressure on us as government leads in ICANN on all that loading, yes, I would be very happy to contribute from the U.K. seat.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Fiona.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes, thank you, Janis.  My apologies to you and others in the room.  I just want to understand what the question is on the table.  Is the idea that we want to create a working group to look at intersessional activities and the ICC-BASIS contribution informs that?  Or is that solely what we're going to be looking at?  Or is it the idea that the ICC-BASIS document starts the conversation and as the working group continues its conversation, perhaps things change or get amended?  I think that would be helpful for me to understand what exactly the question is on the table.

 And then just to the point of process, I think that the MAG needs to figure out how to incorporate in every step of every activity it does the concept of public consultation.  And I would pause here to figure out what "public consultation" actually means for us and define it and actually have some parameters around how we actually do it.  That might be helpful in what we do, not just for this but for all the things we're doing.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  In clarifying your question, so I see that this working group that I would like to ask to coordinate and moderate to Avri, Virat, and Lynn and Mourad.  And the lucky winner is Mourad as a government representative but, of course, taking into account that Mark already volunteered.  

 They would do the following.  They would come with proposal how this intersessional work would be constructed, how the national/regional IGFs could be involved, how they could input in the document, or whatever this intersessional work will produce.  So what would be the theme?  

 There is a proposal from ICC-BASIS that I hear gather some traction, not 100% but there were a number of voices in favor of that proposed topic.  And would organize and coordinate that process, maybe proposing to organize an open-ended process involving all community when things are very clear and then would be working or whatever output we would bring to the IGF meeting in Brazil.

 So that is -- that may be one of the most long-term projects that we're now embarking on.

 So this is my answer to your question.

 Benedicto, please.

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA FILHO:  Yes.  Just to comment that by default, we are interested in being contributed as much as we can to any working group that would be established here that applies to the self-assessment group, to the other group that was also established in outreach and communication on this one as government but also as part of the Brazilian Steering Committee.  

 We also -- of course, for us, since this event would be held under the aegis of the steering committee, we want to make sure we have people working on all those tracks and contributing to the extent we can.

 We hope to rely on this collective capacity of work including government participation, and we hope that our own addition will not be exceeded by our capacity.  

 But by default we want to be part of all the groups.  We will make the best we can to contribute to the success of this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  As I mentioned, we will do this Doodle poll where everybody will be able to sign up for different groups as we go along and we create them.

 Thank you very much.  I think we got to the point of agreement.  Peter.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Just to make the same point that I made earlier.  There is a risk if you take the intersessional work and you link that to liaison with the regional and national IGFs of running two or three different processes together.  Now, obviously we don't need to form a separate working group on every single issue, and there is a risk of too many committees.  But just to keep an eye on the fact that the intersessional work is one thing, and we've got a series of targets of work for the intersessional work.  And we've had a very carefully prepared suggestion from the community about that.

 The issue with the regional and national IGFs and linking them to the work is actually slightly different and it actually would come to its apex at the session, if you'd like, at the IGF itself.  So it is in many ways not related to intersessional work.  It is a way of bringing them into the sessional work.

 So as I say, there is a risk of having a different working group on every good idea.  And I'm not suggesting that, but just to keep an eye on the fact that there really are two quite distinct issues being bundled together.  And maybe this working group can manage them both.  But just to keep an eye on it so if they do start to separate out, we take proper account of it.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Peter.

 I think we will get reports on the progress on each of the tracks we're creating as we advance.  And if there will be need to make a correction, we certainly will make a correction.

 So thank you for this decision.

 We have maybe -- another topic.  This is what we do then with best practices.  I think we have identified best practices, the themes for best practices.  New words would Internet and gender, that would IXPs, and maybe IPv4/IPv6 transition.  That was proposed and supported by many.  I see that there is a request from de Natris who was the consultant who was working in the best practice compilations this year.  And if you don't mind, I would invite him to share brief experience that he has.

 >> WOUT DE NATRIS:  Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.  Good afternoon, everybody.  What I would like to share is more as a private person than as the consultant because my tenure is up by now.  What I would like you to realize is that when you have asked these experts from around the world to deliver this input, you also raised a lot of expectations with them because what actually happened in the two groups to be able to facilitate is they came up with questions that really transgress their own constituencies, which made actually topics that are multistakeholder and that they cannot solve themselves within their own constituency because they need other stakeholders which may have been at the table or were not at the table because they were not interested or not aware of these topics.

 So, in other words, there were a lot of questions raised that need addressing that now there's an expectation of all these experts that they are looking to view basically to follow it up somehow.  And that's the message that I would like to convey to you, that perhaps it looks like these topics are over.  And in the end, they're not.  The real questions that they cannot solve on their own are now at the table, and that's why I would like to urge you to look at that and see in what way the MAG would actually -- and the IGF would actually help these topics forward.  

 That could be by inviting workshops from these reports.  And that's another way of looking at it, than looking at it in a way that needs more work.  Maybe they could be solved by bringing people together or taking these topics to other constituencies where these topics could be solved.  That's basically the lesson that I took with me in the work over the past months.  Thank you for your attention.  Good afternoon.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us and your thoughts.  Of course, we may hope that organizations or individuals will propose workshops on those outstanding issues or issues that came up as a result of this engagement on best practice compilations.

 So any volunteers?  Any thoughts on how to best organize the best practice work stream?  Constance.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you.  I'm happy to -- with others, to lead -- co-lead on the best practices.  But my understanding again is that really the best practices should be part of the broader effort on intersessional work.  And I'd like this to be part of the same working group Virat, Avri, and others would join.

 Just on the comments made by Wout, to add on them -- and I echo what he said -- there is a need as we develop these best practices to make sure that all the workshop organizers on related themes feed into or send information.  And this is something that technically did not happen for logistical reasons, but we should absolutely do for 2015.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you for volunteering together with others.  

 Desiree, are you volunteering for this?

 >>DESIREE ZACHARIAH:  Most definitely.  I would like to volunteer with this one, as well as I will send an email about another working group.

 But concerning this best practice, I think in the past, we had a situation we created a shared platform, a shared document platform or portal of some sort so that I'm not exactly sure what the secretariat facilities are but we can probably use something provided free of cost from Google or another provider.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Constance, please.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Just to bounce on the question about the platform, what the IGF secretariat did for the 2014 edition is that they looked at the NETmundial online platform for collecting, compiling comments before integrating them in the drafts through an iterative process.  Intentionally we followed the NETmundial methodology that had been successful for Sao Paulo.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  We have now two volunteers.  I'm not very sure that this should be the same working group because I see that there's slight differences also in the reason behind launching of that activity.  

 So we can see if that working group can take that on board and whether at one point best practices may just ring out from that working group, if that's acceptable.  

 Thank you.  We have two more volunteers, coordinators of this part of the activities being part of the bigger working group on intersessional activities.

 So now let us move to the next outstanding question, is the NETmundial Initiative and IGF taking a seat in the council, not permanent seat but taking a seat in the council of NETmundial Initiative.

 Desiree, on this question or on the previous one?  Please.

 >>DESIREE ZACHARIAH:  On the previous one, Mr. Chair.  Desiree Zachariah speaking.

 What I wanted a clarification on, was it intended for there to be a working group -- a coordinator of best practices?  Or was every best practice group required to do their own coordination?

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So I think at the beginning, we need to start with one sort of -- two coordinators working and launching the process.  And then we will see -- I think that every best practice stream should have a coordinator.  But for the moment, we're starting with the one launching everything and then we will go sort of in each section, each stream.

 So I understand this is on the topic on NMI and IGF taking a seat.

 Peter, are you on this question?  Your name tag is up again all the time.  No, you're not.

 So let me then list that I have noted.  We have Marilyn.  We have Juan Alfonso.  We have Mark.  We have Lea.  And in that order I will take comments.

 Marilyn, please.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Say something good, please.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>MARILYN CADE:  My name is Marilyn Cade.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  That we have heard a number of times today.

 [ Applause ]

 On that, we have unanimous agreement.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Let me open my comments by saying that I was, like everyone in the wider community, interested to see the announcement of something called the NETmundial Initiative.  I've done my best to follow its progress and variations as it is evolving.

 I have still a number of concerns about where it may go and what it may do, and I think it will continue to evolve with further input from many in the community who have called for more -- for less top-down and more organic development.

 I understand that the so-called seats are not permanent seats now, but that does not change the concern that I have about a linkage between the MAG chair position and the NETmundial Initiative.

 I am very aware of the opportunities where really only the MAG chair and the MAG secretariat will be able to speak in a variety of important settings coming up ahead of us that includes the CSTD meeting, it includes hopefully the UNESCO meeting, but many others where the representational identity of being the MAG chair is really important.

 Now, we as the MAG are advisors to the secretary-general.  We are not a legal body.  We're not an institution.  And I'm sure that the intention in reaching out to make this offer was well-intentioned, but I'm uncomfortable with linking the -- with having the MAG chair take a seat on that -- in that structure.

 Not the least because I don't -- I'm not really sure how it is contributing to the evolution and enhancement and strengthening the IGF.

 I think that's yet to be seen.

 My priority is this organization.

 Having said that, if there is a view widely across the MAG that it would be good to have a limited liaison relationship with NMI, then I would propose that that should become the secretariat and that it not become overwhelmingly a time compliment, since I'm overwhelming today with the workload we have ahead of us.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  Juan Alfonso.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  

 Before giving my opinion, I want two clarifications.

 First is now I'm going to speak in my personal capacity, given -- and give my opinion to this problem at hand.

 And the second is that I don't want to evaluate ideologically any initiative.

 Many here should know, or many should imagine, that I have very strong ideological views.

 But I want -- as a member of the MAG, I try to leave that outside this room because the MAG is not a policy group.  It's not a policy working group.  We are an organizing working group.  Sort of wedding planners, but with a more fancy name.

 [ Laughter ]

 [ Applause ]

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  So in this case, it's in -- with this view is how I want to analyze this subject.

 The first is about initiatives itself.  I think it's good.  It's good that many initiatives regarding Internet governance happens, and on the way we cannot pose.  If the planet Mars wants to have an initiative in Internet governance, we should applaud that happened.

 Also we cannot oppose.  They will do it if they want to.  Even closer to home if the Vatican wants to have an Internet governance initiative, that's welcome.

 So -- and especially if this initiative wants to collaborate.

 So I think it's good that this initiative opens for that collaboration with the Internet Governance Forum.  

 But I think the invitation was badly done because the MAG, as I said -- tell you, we are a little more than wedding planners.  We are not the ones to be invited.  IGF was convened by the secretary-general of the United Nations as a result of a decision agreed by head of states in (indiscernible).  So I think this invitation should be addressed to the United Nations secretary-general.  The secretary-general then, maybe he can appoint the head of the MAG or maybe the head of the secretariat or maybe the head of UNDESA, Under Secretary, or maybe somebody in UNDESA or maybe they -- because we are his advisors, maybe they will -- the ball will come back to us to give them advice on who should sit in that.

 So that's the first thing.

 And the second thing is about collaboration.

 If there's an invitation to collaborate, it should be without any strings attached.  I find very puzzling that in the Web site you have to say that you agree with the NETmundial outcomes, or something like that.

 I was wondering, to make an experiment, to propose myself and answering "no," if I agree with NETmundial outcome, and see what happens, you know?

 Because this is -- this is not collaboration if it's -- if it has conditions.  

 It's like the martians say "I want to collaborate with you but you have to have green skin to collaborate with us."

 [ Laughter ]

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Or like the Vatican, "I want to collaborate with you but you have to be Roman Catholic to collaborate with me."  That's good.  Maybe they want to have an Internet governance initiative only for Roman Catholics, but that's an internal affair, that is not a global outreach thing.

 So if they want to collaborate, it should not have any strings attached.  

 And finally, I said I would speak in this, leaving ideology, but maybe you were wondering so I will tell you a little bit about that.

 I can only say at this stage that of the three conveners, I like much one of them, I dislike much one of them, and the third is comme ci, comme ca.  The word is out there.  You can figure it out.  Thank you.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  So, you know -- you know, since we're in this mode, there is one.  Two people are in a hot air balloon in the mist.  They don't know where they are.  And so they are trying to understand.  

 And then somebody sees people on the roof of the building and they approach them and say, "Where we are?"  

 And some people on the roof answer, "You are in the balloon."  

 "Thank you."

 So after a few seconds, they say, "I know where we are.  We are over the State Department."  

 "Why?"  

 "Because the answer was very precise but totally useless."

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Sorry to say, I didn't hear what was your position?  Should we join or not?

 [ Laughter ]

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  No.  Of course I believe in collaboration.  I think that even -- even if we have -- on any topic, if we have ideological differences, if we have very -- if we have the terms of reference of the collaboration and in this case we're collaborating to make Internet a better medium for humanity and mankind, it's like going to a party.  

 You sometimes are invited to a party and you go.  Maybe the party turns sour and then you leave out.  But you can you cannot prejudge any initiative.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  So I'm for collaboration, but there are two things that for me precludes collaboration.  

 The invitation.  It has to go through the proper channels.  It has to go to the United Nations secretary-general and he will -- maybe he will appoint you and we will all applaud that.

 And the second thing, that collaboration should not have a -- some strings attached and some conditions.  That's ridiculous in the Web site that they say you have to be with -- you know, you have to endorse this document.

 You know, the IGF, by the way, has much more legitimacy than any other institution or initiative that are out there or will be out there --

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ: -- because it comes from the United Nations, it comes from a summit in which our heads of state, with the voice also that it was first time in United Nations summit of the other stakeholders --

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ: -- all asked for this --

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Juan.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ: -- and everybody was on board with this.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Juan.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  So I think my answer to your question is to collaborate but if it's invited right and without conditions.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Very clear answer.

 So I had Mark and then Lea.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes.  Thank you, Chair.

 I think we should respond positively to the invitation.  It's clear, from my understanding, that the NETmundial Initiative seeks to complement the IGF and through its objectives in creating an online platform, that's going to serve to support developing countries, projects, and expand international effort in the whole area of Internet governance.  It seems highly appropriate that there is a meaningful conjunction of the initiative and the IGF, so I would support that.  

 I'm not volunteering to be the MAG representative on it, if you're looking for somebody from -- from the MAG to perform that function.  As I indicated before, we're pretty heavily loaded.

 But I also wanted to sort of raise the potential of the initiative to contribute in taking forward IGF activities intersessionally.  That could be explored through our direct participation in the -- in the council and reporting back to the MAG accordingly and so on.

 So broadly I'm in favor of it, and I hope we can take a quick decision on that in terms of identifying who could -- who could lead for us and report back to us on the council's work and so on.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 We have exactly 70 minutes doing that.  A number of people have asked for the floor.

 Lea, please.

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Thank you.  I'm not sure if I missed something.  I thought we were still on the previous agenda item and I wanted to make an intervention about that.  Is it still okay?  And I wanted to get a clear sense of what's happening now with the working groups and what the process is with going forward.

 And my -- I was trying to put together a list of how many we've set up and what the process will be for volunteering, just to make sure that the people in the MAG have a chance -- who are not here or who left the meeting or couldn't attend can still have a chance to volunteer, but also to see how the wider community will be able to join these working groups.

 Just --

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I will try to answer those questions and -- I'll try to answer those questions in my concluding remarks.

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Okay.  Okay.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Ana?

 >>ANA NEVES:  Thank you very much.  Well, I have to say that I'm -- I'm in favor of -- with what Juan Fernandez said.

 I have a problem because I don't understand what -- what NETmundial is.  I understand what the NETmundial event was, but I don't understand what NETmundial is.

 And I don't understand why NETmundial is inviting MAG and MAG is -- is not a legal body.  And actually, I think that if NETmundial Initiative, the people that are, well, involved think that MAG or IGF should be discussed or -- I don't want to be -- to say "part of."  

 I think that the invitation must be addressed to the United Nations secretary-general and not to the chair of the MAG because we are not a legal body, we are advisors, and it will be the other way around.  I think that IGF should discuss NETmundial initiatives and not NETmundial initiatives to have MAG on board.

 And it has been said it's good to have initiatives on Internet governance.  Of course we are not against at all.

 But the problem is that -- as I don't understand it, my problem is when they start to do something that touches where my -- where the policy -- where I'm navigating has something to do with, so I become a bit cautious.

 So I don't have any problems with the -- with the initiative as long as it doesn't touch anything I understand.  

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Ana.

 I think Nora tried to explain what this initiative is about.  You know, that in the NETmundial final document, in the part of the way forward, it has been very strong call to support IGF and to strengthen IGF through a different means, and initiative, as we heard, is to contribute towards implementation of NETmundial outcome.

 So that -- that is how we see.  There has been, of course, lack of information.  

 From Nora's clarification, we heard that there will be a number of parts.  One is activity in this year's Davos meeting, where there will be a session organized specifically on Internet governance, promoting multistakeholder model.

 There is work to create a platform where those who are interested could find information, sort of a solution or proposal where to turn when solution is needed and so on.

 So these are elements that we know.

 Tomorrow will be a call, information call, where every question will be clarified within the limit of time allocated for the call.

 So I would like also to say that the invitation, as far as I understand, is open-ended.  Everybody's invited to submit their -- or to manifest their interest.

 Of course one can understand that maybe it is not overly polite through the press to invite secretary-general of United Nations to do that.  There are other different forums how to do it.  But in principle, everybody is invited, and actually it is not the MAG which is invited.  That is, IGF is invited to be part of the council.  But since IGF is a process, the MAG is representative of that process and the MAG is invited to nominate a representative.

 So we had this initial exchange on the -- on the MAG list where a few of the MAG members said that there should be a chair.  You said that that should not be -- but that was in the context of permanent, a permanent seat for IGF MAG.

 Now we need to decide, so there is a proposal that that should not be a member of the council, that should be just a liaison to the council, so this is where we are now.

 Next on my list is Maria Victoria.

 >>MARIA VICTORIA ROMERO:  Thank you, Chair.

 Following your explanation, I'm still wondering if MAG or IGF has the mandate to answer or to respond to such an invitation.

 And first, I see we have two options.  We can -- either following the U.N. procedure, as Juan already explained, to have an invitation addressed to the secretary-general because we belong to that, or we can follow Marilyn's proposal of having a limited liaison to go to NETmundial, and I tend to favor probably the second one because this is probably the easiest.

 Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 Virat?

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I -- first, I want to just preface this comment by saying that I have personally, and as a wedding planner, the highest regard for NETmundial principles because it involves discussions around NETmundial principles.  I think that was an excellent example of how multistakeholder initiatives can work bottom-up.  And also, for the aspirations and objectives that NETmundial Initiative is trying to pursue.  So I want to park that point first.

 Four sets of questions have been raised today and on line in this discussion.  

 One is around process.

 There's a question around protocol and propriety of invitations.

 On the clarity of objectives and what it hopes to achieve.

 And then there is the issue of implications, which is, once you join, what happens?  

 I'm going to try to limit myself to the point of implications for MAG, in case which invitation has to be processed.

 Any of the MAG members are free to join this, as you've already clarified.  There is no restriction.  Anybody can put their name forward.  They can do that.

 Many of the MAG members actually join many of the initiatives.  They serve on it with absolutely no issue.

 But the MAG, per se, has always been secular, in that it has been equidistant and loves all such initiatives equally.  It has not shown and it has not gone and fed into or participated in any discussion as either MAG, but it has shown the highest respect for these events.  It has found a place to discuss plenipot, to discuss WCIT, to discuss substantially NETmundial, and I think again it will discuss.

 But it has always been secular.  The businesses, as you are aware, has asked about 30-odd questions.  We have sort of put that online.  We are hoping some of those questions will be addressed tomorrow.  They are both process and substantive.  Here's the part I think we need to pay attention to.  I will read from the NETmundial Initiative Web site which is, "Embrace NETmundial principles as a precondition to be nominated to the Coordination Council, to sign up your name as a public advocate of NETmundial principles."  But the one that MAG needs to look at carefully is the following:  If representing an organization, the nominee must confirm that their organization will officially embrace the NETmundial principles.  So you have to confirm that if you are to join.

 Now, would that be the MAG as the organization or would it be the United Nations or UN-DESA?  What would the organization be?  And if it is the organization, then -- and let's assume it's MAG because if it is U.N. or UN-DESA, that's a whole different ball game.  But let's assume it is the MAG.  

 Then each one of us has to confirm to it.  But each one of us then represents either companies or civil societies or organizations and have been voted through a process to come into this entire thing, which means each one of us then have to embrace this.  That is a legal issue.

 It is one thing to be in a room helping contribute to a non-binding document through a rough consensus.  It is something else to write in that we officially embrace this as an organization.  So I'm on the point of the legal issue that is -- which arises out of this verbiage here, not about individuals but about organizations.  And that means all of us have to then consider the implications of this on each one of us, on the governments that we represent, on the companies that we represent.

 And that, it seems to me, is not clear.  So if you can get some clarity on that on the questions that have been sought, then perhaps there is a way forward.  But if, in fact, this means each one must accept it and embrace it, then that will have to go back to a bunch of -- at least 55 into 3, about 165 lawyers who would have to look at this and then be able to respond on whether you can say yes to something like this.  

 I will leave it at that.  I have no clarity.  But this is a phrase that I think that comes into play when we talk about you as Chair of MAG representing on that Coordination Council.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Sounded like a lawyer yourself.  Are you?

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  No, I'm not.  I have never been accused of that.  Thank you.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Constance, please.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you, Chair.  And thank you for the good laugh, Virat.

 With regards to this important question, in my view, there really is no urgency to address this question.  I mean, a lot of communities, organizations have raised some concerns, questions, requests for clarification about the NETmundial Initiative.  And we do have in mind that it is difficult to build two houses at the same time.  At The Internet Society we are very committed to focusing on the IGF.  At the same time, we have a fluid dialogue with stakeholders, all stakeholders, and Brazil -- and we are committed to the Sao Paulo declaration.

 Since there is no more permanent seat on the council, again, I don't think that the 15th of December deadline is for this group to consider.  I think we should take the time to see how the initiative evolves.  

 Again, we are very interested in the Sao Paulo declaration and we'd like to see how we can implement some of the principles through the IGF.  And in my view, we should explore how we take those principles and inject them in the agenda of IGF 2015.

 I also believe that Brazil will play a natural role of liaison between the initiative and the IGF community since they're hosting IGF 2015.

 Maybe this is a question this group can reconsider once there's more clarity on the NETmundial Initiative, bearing in mind that the Sao Paulo declaration is a very strong text for our group.  It really calls the IGF to strive towards better outcomes for the IGF and strengthen processes.  So I think we should keep the channel of communication absolutely open.  But at the same time, we still have -- we still have time.

 If the invitation went to the Secretary-General and that there was a decision that the Chair should play some sort of role, I do believe that we should make sure we have strong and complete consensus within the MAG before proceeding.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  

 Fiona is next.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes, thank you, Janis.

 I would like to start by associating with the comments that Mark made earlier about why this could be a good thing and why I'd be supportive of it.

 If nothing else, whatever happened to the NETmundial Initiative -- and it is still in its early formative stages -- it has the potential to impact the IGF.  And it seems, if nothing else, understanding what's happening and having that liaison of understanding is a good thing.  So, again, I think it would be useful.

 I think the bottom line, though, is whether you as the Chair personally have the time.  And if you are willing to do it, I think it should be something to be considered and you should do if you want to.

 I do find it slightly ironic that we spent the better part of the last three days talking about outreach with other parts of the Internet governance community.  But then when a group of stakeholders tries to put together an initiative and reaches out to us, the response from some in the room is no and procedural, which by the way is very governmental in nature.  It is just an interesting observation on the conversation of the last few days.

 Again, I would just like to agree with the comments made by Mark earlier.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Avri.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Thank you.  I tend -- first of all, I actually wanted to bring up the notion that while the Tunis Agenda had the IGF initiated by the U.N., it is not a U.N. body.  And so I think any of the formality of consideration that we've got into about needing to go to the Secretary-General and all that is really more complexity than we need to get into.

 Again, I tend to look at this one rather simply.  The hosts of the place we're going for a major meeting who are putting themselves out to welcome us to their country for an important meeting are also part of another endeavor that is basically inviting us to participate, and I believe that the IGF should participate.

 Now, whether it's the Chair or whether we say, "No, it's actually better for the secretariat to attend and to do the follow-through and understanding" and such that we need to do to, you know, be there, to participate, to be the communication path, call it a liaison, call it a council member.  It is just a name.  It really doesn't matter.  These associations, they come.  They go.

 We should participate in it.  It is somewhat about the IGF.  It concerns the IGF.  And I think we're overthinking it.  I think we have an invite to participate in something.  But if it is too heavyweight to send "the MAG" or the MAG Chair, I think it makes perfect sense for the secretariat to participate and to track it for us and come back and let us know what's actually happening as opposed to dealing with all the rumors and everything we get from here and there and so on.  So that's my view on it.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Hossam?

 >>HOSSAM ELGAMAL:  Thank you, Chair.  I think the NETmundial Initiative could be a very great thing.  We don't know now.  We have no idea exactly where it is going.  But for sure that for the MAG Chair to have a seat, it would be seen as decisions coming from the Council, where the MAG Chair would have one out of 25 voting rights, like having a consent of the MAG.  And this is -- I don't think is valid.  This is why a liaison synchronizing with the NETmundial Initiative could be a good thing.  But having formalization of having the MAG Chair on there, I think it would be misleading as such.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.

 Cheryl?

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I do recognize that there are a number of outstanding questions with respect to a formal seat on the Coordination Council.  And so I think at this time, I would be hesitant to support that.

 Now, participation definitely comes in many different forms, and I think the IGF has at least since the last IGF in Istanbul really tried with participate with the NETmundial Initiative bring forward some of the things.  And I'm sure that we will be doing that again moving forward.  

 With respect to the actual Council seat, I'm not sure we're there yet.  I think it would be fair to first have those answers to the questions before moving forward.

 And I think over the past few days, we have focused quite a lot on procedure, and it brings me to my next point.  It seems as we are coming up on this 10th anniversary, there are actually a lot of questions with respect to the role of the MAG in a number of different areas.  So with respect to the selection of themes and subthemes, how we go about that, the intersessional work.  I saw a note on the list about social networking and fund-raising and other requirements that some of us may, may not understand, or some of the roles may have changed now that we are at this new inflection point of the IGF.

 So I would suggest that perhaps we look towards creating some type of -- if not a main session, maybe a special session that really looks to these issues and gets community input and sort of discusses what the role of the MAG really should be moving forward.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Fatima?

 >>FATIMA CAMBRONERO:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  This is Fatima.  In my opinion -- and, of course, I could be wrong, the role of the MAG members and our Chair is working in preparation of each IGF without external distraction or activity.  And, of course, the outreach could be done regarding to the activities of the MAG or the IGF with external activities.  That's all.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Juan Alfonso for the second time.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Two things, Chairman.  First, I beg to disagree with Avri.  We are United Nations.  Who selected the MAG?  I think I was selected by the Secretary-General.  At least that's what it says on the Web site.  And who -- the secretariat to whom depends.  Depends on UN-DESA and also United Nations.  So we are United Nations.  That would be liking of somebody or the unliking of some others, but that's reality.

 And the other thing, let me tell you, again.  I think as Fiona said and Mark said before, I think that we should collaborate.  All Internet governance initiatives should collaborate.  But I put only this comment that the invitation should go through the proper channels and with no strings attached.

 And to the case of if MAG should need to have consensus or not, please, I don't want to, again, repeat that we are only -- we are not a policy group.  We are planners.  I don't want to say it again because maybe it is not so sexy, but we are planners.  We advise for the planning of an event.  We're event planners.

 So we should -- of course, personally, we should have -- and everybody has an authority to be for it or against it.  It is early to prejudge.  Even knowing that some of the organization I don't personally like, but I can give it maybe it is useful.  I don't know.  If it is not useful, we can step out.  

 But, Chairman, I think that invitation should go, I repeat, through U.N. channels.  And then we will decide whether it is the MAG to participate, whether it is the secretariat.  Maybe the president of the General Assembly will be the representative of the secretariat.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  What I hear is that IGF should be present and cooperate.  So this is what I hear.  That's already one conclusion that we can make.

 So NETmundial, as I mentioned already, was very supportive to IGF.  And as far as we heard on Monday, the initiative is supposed to strengthen IGF or to contribute towards strengthening IGF.  So, again, that is something positive.

 Though all of us, we acknowledge that there is a lack of information about where this initiative is going.  So, therefore, it is always good to be present and be able to influence whatever decisions the council will be making.  If we are absent, we cannot influence in any way.

 So, therefore, the agreement or consensus that we have reached here that we need to collaborate and be present is already a good decision.  

 Juan Alfonso.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  I can agree with that, but the precondition has to be retired -- removed from the Web site, from the understanding that collaboration cannot have precondition because that is not collaboration.  

 It is interesting.  Virat mentioned all the details.  It sounds like there is a fraternity thing, that you have to be a member of that.  That is not collaboration.  That is not open.  That's not global.  That's not multistakeholder.  That's really -- I don't know.  It was really a bad idea.  

 And I think that they should retire that and then move on and maybe -- maybe it is useful.  I don't know.  But that has to be taken out before accepting anything because, otherwise, all the things -- it has even legal repercussions because IGF, it is very open, very wide.  It is the strength, diversity of opinions, and how can we join -- collaborate with something that is asking us with preconditions.  That's really out of the question.  That will have to be removed first before any other decision should be taken.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I understand you are very passionate about this thing.  I have not finished yet what I wanted to say.

 And I'm trying to accommodate your concerns and concerns of everybody in this room.

 Constance?

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.  My understanding is that there's not necessarily a consensus in the room.  And my recommendation at this stage would be that we absolutely keep the door open and the channels of communications open and ensure that we follow the developments of NETmundial Initiative.  

 And perhaps this group could reconsider the question of a liaison at its next meeting once there will be a feeling, a general feeling, that everything has been clarified, questions from the community addressed.  

 Again, I do not see the urgency since there is no more permanent seat.  And my recommendation would be that we keep the channels of communication open, but I do not hear that we have consensus to participate at this stage.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yeah, because I haven't said that yet.

 What I'm saying, the consensus is that we need to engage.

 Now, we are invited to join the council, and here there is no consensus.  But there was a proposal that we may nominate somebody to liaise with the council until clarification is -- or more information is provided when the direction in which initiative will go will be clearer, and then we may reconsider our position.

 So the nomination of the liaison to the council seems to me might be the way forward by consensus by this group, with the understanding that that would not be the part -- I mean, the formal -- formally part of the council at this moment, maybe joining later, but being as a liaison.

 Lea.

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Thank you.  Your summary just addressed what I wanted to say, so I would like to add my support to that proposal which you just put forward.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  So now the question is who should be the liaison.  

 Juan Alfonso, do you have a proposal?

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  No.  I'm sorry, Chairman.  I'm sorry to differ with you.  We usually have the same view.

 But I think that it's even premature what you're proposing.  It's like, you know, we have in Spanish the saying, "You give a finger, then they take the hand," something like that.

 I think that we should give -- send a message, maybe through the Brazilians here, to the NETmundial Initiative organizers of these concerns about the invitation, about the preconditions, and then to see how is the -- what is the answer to this concern of ours.

 And after we receive the response to this concern, maybe we can take this step of having a liaison, a little liaison or a little, little liaison, before having a full-fledged council member.

 So I will suggest that we have to wait, we have to send the ball to their court and wait for their response.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I understand, Juan Alfonso, that you have very strong feelings about the issue.

 Virat and Marilyn afterwards.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Mr. Chairman, I wonder if there is a way for Chengetai, perhaps, to not be on the council but be available at the meetings so that he can report in to the MAG on what the improvements are.

 And if that is a workable solution, then it's not like he's -- he's not going -- he was -- 

 Certainly not on the coordination council, but if they're allowing observers or people --

 I don't know whether -- even this is not known, whether the coordination council's meetings will be opened or closed.  That's -- open.  Okay.  

 So if they are open meetings, then I suppose many people will attend.

 Then many of the MAG members can attend in their own right and nobody can stop that, as people attending a meeting but not on the coordination.

 All these issues arise when you join the coordination council.  It will be impossible for us to stop anybody in their individual capacity, including, I have to say, you, if they want to go attend a meeting.

 It's when you're invited and you're asked to join the coordination council when all of these sort of issues stem up.

 So if there is a way to be in that meeting with 40 other people, not on the coordination council, then I suppose it's open to anybody, just as it would be to the IGF secretariat to be in the meeting and take notes and keep the members informed, if that is a possibility.  I'm just finding a via media to keep the discussion over without accept a formal position.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Virat.

 Marilyn.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Chair, I'm very disappointed to hear any conveyance that there is consensus in this room on this issue.

 I've written down every comment that has been made.  I see no consensus.  I see a number of concerns and legitimate questions.  

 Among them are the question raised about preconditions and the very valid questions that have been raised by Virat Bhatia about how it is possible to bind a group of advisors to the secretary-general of the United Nations on the planning of the program of the IGF to preconditions of this nature.

 This makes me very uncomfortable.

 I do not see a consensus.

 I think there are unanswered questions.  I think it's premature to be taking a solutions approach.  I think we can send questions.  I don't think it's fair to say those questions are going to Brazil, however.  I think those questions are going to the critter that is called "NMI," which is a composite critter.  And so I think it's fair for some of us who have concerns to ask, to have questions.

 I tend to agree with Juan that, you know, we are really expanding our role.  I understand, again, if these meetings are open, then everyone who wants to listen in can do so.  We can send questions.  And then we can take the time to consider what the answers are, and we can figure out really whether this is in the interest of the IGF.  That is what we are here to plan.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Fiona, please.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you, Janis.  

 I've listened very carefully to what everyone's said, and I appreciate all the concerns and the sourcing of all the concerns.  Especially those from national governments and governments have taken particular positions and it's very difficult to separate those.  Almost impossible in many cases.  Including, for me, I would think.

 But I do -- again, I just find it slightly a little bit ironic and bizarre and would sort of echo some of the concern Avri had made.

 We want to -- we want to sort of -- we want to move forward, we want to be progressive, we want to use technology, we want to plan an Internet Governance Forum, but then we want to fall back on process and we don't want to do something.  

 And my recollection is that over the years, the MAG chair and the special advisor, when Nitin was here -- and maybe Markus can elaborate -- did a variety of activities that involved outreach and participating in events and liaisoning with different things.  I remember seeing Markus at many meetings around the world.  And I don't remember ever those conversations coming to this group for discussion and agreement.

 Again, that being said, I do understand the sensitivity.  I think the idea of a permanent seat or a seat is problematic for many people, so would again support the proposal you put forward in terms of a liaison to understand what the process is about, to understand if and how it would impact the IGF.  Without someone there, it would be difficult to do that.  

 So again, I'm just a little -- I'm a little bit perplexed and I too am disappointed that when we want to do something that's forward-looking, we fall back on process points, and it's maybe perhaps appropriate, given the whole thing that we're in.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Avri?

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Yeah.  I want to reiterate what I said before, in that I definitely think it is necessary for us to be in attendance.

 I truly don't care what we call the role.  I truly don't.  I mean, call it a liaison, call it a member of council.  It's -- it's all a name.  It doesn't really matter.

 I think whether it's yourself as the chair or Chengetai as the secretariat, or both of you, attending, I don't think that matters either.

 What I think is critical is that we be there and that we be participating and that somebody be there to make sure that the IGF is properly represented within NMI discussions.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Silvia?

 >>SILVIA BIDART:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 As a new MAG member, I would like to say that there is -- I don't think there's a consensus on this matter, up to now.

 I have followed all the conversations, opened my eyes, my ears to each comment, because I'm eager to learn.  I really would like to congratulate all what IGF have done in the past, MAG members -- actual past MAG members.  Really, you are shifting a lot of things about the rules of the game worldwide.

 That's why I would like to propose that we -- as we are -- the spirit is open until things are not clear enough, I don't think we should call this a consensus.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Juan Alfonso, we heard you already many times.  We know where you stand.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.

 I think that any kind of -- because, you know, I'm a very simple person.  I really -- maybe I don't understand the meaning of "liaison" or that initiative that have -- councillor, whatever.  I don't care.  Maybe they have a (indiscernible) inside.

 I am in favor of collaboration and maybe this -- of course there's two things here.  There's a procedural part that maybe I can be flexible there, as has been said, maybe the procedural part of the way an invitation is done.  

 But the second thing is that to collaborate, it really doesn't have to be without any conditions.  So any kind -- either a liaison or any participation, if it's done without taking that clause out, it's a recognition of that -- of that clause.

 I remember the analogy that I put with the martians or the Vatican.  That will be unacceptable for many here that -- I don't think that the whole house here is Roman Catholic.  

 And so I think that we -- we -- I am repeating.

 Personally, I think we should collaborate -- that is where outreach is -- with all the initiatives.  Even with this recent Chinese initiative as well.  With all the initiatives, we should collaborate.  And -- but without preconditions.  We don't have to -- to part with our belief and our way of doing and they don't have to part with them, but don't put conditions to any of both parts.  Collaborate in good faith.

 I know that it's another issue, the ideological issue of the -- or the intention if this takes the wind out of the IGF's sails or something like that, if it's competition or not collaborating, but that will be prejudging in the advance.

 Let's see what happens and it's like going to a party.  If the party goes sour, then you can always leave.

 Well, not in Hotel California, no, because you can never leave okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Peter?

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I -- I think -- Peter Dengate Thrush.  I think in general, my position is that it's usually better to talk than not to talk and it's usually better to respond to a well-intentioned invitation with a well-intentioned response.

 I disagree with Avri that -- though, that the appearances don't matter and people in the room are obviously very concerned about some of those.

 And perhaps the way to deal with that is to -- is to -- and we -- we need to get across those difficulties, that we do feel there's a difficulty about having to sign up to a set of principles, we do feel there's a difficulty in the legal structure of the MAG assuming responsibility in this role.

 My suggestion is the way we deal with that is we send an observer to the meeting to have those sort of conversations, because communication is better than not communicating, and as I say, responding by saying, "We see you're set up, we see that you're dedicated to improving the conditions of the MAG but we're not going join for this reasons," that seems to me to be a little bit artificial.  

 But there are sensitivities.  So we need to go, we need to explain those sensitivities.

 And there's also a sense that sending the chair is -- conveys material -- you know, conveys an impression that not everyone's happy with.

 Well, that's why we have a secretariat.  They're our staff.  They go and do these sorts of missions, just as somebody pointed out Markus used to do.  So my suggestion is that we ask the secretariat to act as an observer until such time as the MAG has resolved, with NMI, the difficulties and the sensitivities that people have raised.

 Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Though still I'm -- what I'm hearing, that -- 

 Sorry.  Cheryl.  Excuse me.  I --

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.

 I couldn't have said it better than Peter.  I agree with his proposal and assessment.  I think keeping the lines of communication open is really important and I recognize that there are a lot of outstanding questions and that's to be expected.  This is something that's new, and so of course there are a lot of questions.  There's nothing wrong with that.

 But there are some sensitivities, as Peter mentioned, and so I think this would be a good compromise.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So I -- I think we're going down -- down the line as -- 

 So initially, Marilyn suggested that a liaison function could be established to keep this -- these lines open, and "liaison" has one meaning than "observer."

 Observer is not engaging.  Observer is sitting in the back row and taking notes.

 Liaison is engaging and can convey the message.

 And the message should be conveyed if the initiative goes in a totally wrong direction which would not support IGF, but rather sort of either compete with IGF or go against the interest of IGF.

 So I still seek sort of your understanding that we should consider sending -- or establishing liaison with the NMI initiative.  And this is what Marilyn suggested at the beginning.

 Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.

 Let me think openly with all of us about what we've heard.

 Certainly the role of a liaison is different than the role of an observer, but during the discussion, a number of very important questions have been asked that need to be answered, regardless of whether it is an observer or a liaison.

 The question of a precondition that involves what may be interpreted by some as an endorsement is a problem, I think.  

 And so we have questions.  I would like us to pursue sending a short list of questions, and start perhaps with the observer role with the idea that we can, if those questions are answered to the satisfaction of the -- the con- -- the concerns that have been raised about endorsement, overextending our role, the legal implications, the preconditions.  It is always good to engage and consult, but you don't have to go to every party that your neighbor gives in order to maintain a good relationship with your neighbor.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  So let -- 

 Fiona, please.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER: Yeah.  Thank you.  

 I actually have a slightly different set of questions based on what I'm hearing and I understand the concerns about the precondition and what's on the Web site.

 But over the last couple days, I've heard various members of the Brazilian delegation, or members from Brazil, talk about the NETmundial output and using that and having that being a basis for certain parts of IGF.

 And when that was said, there was no concern about what was the output of NETmundial.  

 So there's some slight inconsistency here in terms of being okay with doing it as a part of the conversation of the IGF but not wanting it to be part of the conversation of the NETmundial Initiative.

 I agree with the condition -- or the question about preconditions and signing on, but I do sense some sort of inconsistencies in the conversation and it would be helpful to understand that, especially as we look at intersessional work and going forward on some of the things that have been suggested earlier in the last couple days.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Avri, you're asking for the floor?  No.

 So I think I will not prolong this discussion.

 What I see is that we are not in a position to take a decision on this question, unfortunately, to my big regret.

 As I always say, the absent is always wrong.  Those who are absent cannot influence anything.  And we will -- so unfortunately, we will be absent as a formal -- as a formal sort of member.

 Neither liaison.

 As it come to observer, since meeting is open, I see no reason -- I see no reason to appoint anybody as observer because everybody can go and observe and make own decisions.

 So I will convey that to the organizers of -- or promoters of NMI.  I will ask those questions as -- that transpired during our discussion here.

 And in case the explanations will -- that will be given will satisfy the MAG, we may come back to this question at a later stage at any time.

 So the MAG will not be formally represented.  The MAG will not formally liaise at this point in time.

 That said, I will ask the vice chairman of the MAG, the member of CGI -- members of CGI, and Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca to make sure that no decisions in NMI are made which would go against the interests of IGF.  Please.

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA FILHO:  Thank you, Janis.

 I did not intervene, and I think other colleagues as well, because we want to have as much feedback as we can from the community.

 But one point I'd like to emphasize is that much of the concerns and points that have been raised have also been discussed within the Brazilian steering committee.

 And you may have noticed in the first day there was a statement coming from our part specifying what are the terms of reference that guide our participation, what is our understanding of the initiative, since the initiative itself is still being shaped.

 Tomorrow there will be this conference call.  I hope that some of those concerns that, again, are also in some sort ours as well can be addressed in the process of shaping the initiative, and certainly it will be in our best interest -- and not only because we are hosting the IGF but because we consider this is the right way to go to make sure that IGF interests will not in any way be harmed.

 So one thing that I maybe would like to propose is that in light of the discussions we will have not only tomorrow but maybe in another forum that can be agreed upon, that might address some of the concerns, if there could be some kind, let's say -- 

 I'm concerned because we are not meeting again until next May, but if there could be any possibility to come back on this, I don't know, by some platform and resume this discussion in the light of points that are being made.

 I think we are moving very rapidly in so many areas that I think maybe we have to devise some innovative ways of discussing amongst ourselves and making some decisions if it is possible.  

 I would be pained if we could lose some opportunity.  But in the end we could agree that some consensus has been addressed, that some issues have been overcome, and in the absence of another physical meeting that discussion could not be resumed.  So this is the point I'd like to make.

 And, again, to emphasize that we have tabled the -- the Brazilian steering committee has tabled this statement exactly to specify from its own point of view, perspective, what is the understanding with regard to the initiative and demonstrate this is something that's being constructed.  And I think the input from this meeting will be very important not only for us but for the organizers as well, the proposal.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.

 And, of course, everything as I said before relates to the cooperation of our being members of the council.  So that does not relate in any way in any other forms of cooperation because we did not discuss that.

 I see Internet Society, Constance.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.  And in response to the Ambassador's last comment, I would like to welcome this invitation to absolutely keep the channel of communications open.  

 We will meet physically in a few months, but we will have also a series of Webinars.  And I would suggest that since between now and our next Webinar, there will be more information, probably more clarification, maybe we address again in only a few weeks the question of how we want to articulate whether it's an observer, a liaison, something else.

 I think it would be very timely to have this discussion soon, in a few weeks from now.  So absolutely, I think we need to keep this channel of communication very open.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you for a little opening.  And I think that might be done sometime 18, 19 December, or 21, 22 December, which are the time when we could have a conference call if, if conditions will be right, if clarification will be given, if our online conversation will indicate that there might be some change in the position of MAG members feeling very strongly about it.

 So I think that this is a conclusion of this point of the agenda.  

 And let us move very briefly to any other business, general updates I believe that might be of interest of MAG members.  Slobodan, any other business?

 >>SLOBODAN MARKOVIC:  Thank you, Janis.  I just wanted to make a very short note from my perspective of a new MAG member.  Chengetai yesterday sent an email to the mailing list with respect to useful documents.  And, unfortunately, it came a bit too late for us to go through them carefully and use them in an informed debate at our session these days.

 Now, as a new MAG member, I'm learning as I'm going on how the IGF event organization and MAG works are structured.

 I have participated at a few IGFs in the past as a participant, but from that perspective, it is very difficult to perceive the totality of the process and especially internal workings behind it.

 We also went through a virtual orientation session last week, and that was useful to some extent.  It gave us some general guidelines in how to go about our work.  But that session could not prepare us for the kind of topics and discussions we had on our agenda these days.

 The Web site also is not very helpful in this regard.  Some documents are easy to find such as the terms of reference.  But some are buried deep inside the site.  Among such documents are, for example, outline of session formats or format descriptions which I found through search engines in order to better understand, for example, what the flash session precisely means or how a panel or a workshop or roundtable are defined in the IGF context.

 So to conclude, I think it would be very useful to compile a kind of a starter kit/orientation manual/key documents pack for the future MAG members.  

 And also useful I think would be to think of attaching links to relevant background documents right next to each agenda item, at least in the electronic documents in order to have better informed work sessions.  And I think that both the incoming and the existing MAG members would benefit from such a practice.

 And to finish on a constructive note, of course, I'm volunteering to participate in such endeavor if all of the undersecretariat concurs.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much, Slobodan.  

 That sounds like the task of the person who drowns as to learn how to swim.  I was trying to translate one of the proverbs we had in Latin.

 So the question is we have ten minutes and should we listen to an update by secretariat or would you want me to try to summarize and repeat what the decisions were made?  And then the secretariat would brief us through maybe email or something, something like that.  Virat?

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  I just wanted to inform the house that we put together the list of all the inputs that were received since last night on the themes, the subthemes, and the best practice forums in a compendium along with who has supported what so when we go for public consultation, whatever has happened in this room since last night, all the emails are now together.

 I just want to caution it is based on just reading of the emails.  So if somebody finds that they are represented in the wrong place or not represented, they should indicate it to the secretariat so they can correct it.

 But for starts, we already have some 70, 80 recommendations on these three issues.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Benedicto, good luck.

 Silvia, please.

 >>SILVIA BIDART:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having the capability of reading the thoughts, especially mine.  I was just wondering if we were having some kind of summary of the main decisions.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Fiona?

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes, thank you, Janis.  Before we get to the summary, I would just like to sort of get some clarification and reiterate the idea that whatever we do throughout this entire step of the process going into November, there's going to be some kind of mechanism for public consultation and get that as a principle agreed.  

 And I would like to understand what the best mechanisms for that is going to be, assuming it is agreed.  Is it going to be posting on the Web site?  Is it going to be other things?  Or are we going to discuss that at some point?

 I would like to sort of reiterate as folks start these working groups and the planning for these working groups and work backwards from deadlines the need to factor in online consultations in some fashion in the planning.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I think until now, MAG always has been working in a fairly transparent way.  Every transcript is available on the Web site.  We are asking for inputs through different means.  So certainly we will continue the same way.  If we need specifically to do consultations on every step we do, no problem with that.  That may slightly limit ourselves because that will take away time from our own actions.  But if that's needed, happy to do that.

 Peter, please.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Peter Dengate Thrush.  If you're able to give us an oral summary of key decisions now, that would be helpful.  But most of us have sat through those decisions.  I personally would rather use the time to get further fresh information and have other discussions that we haven't had a chance to.  

 And I think Fiona has raised a very interesting one, for example, which has a matter of principle behind it about disclosure and public input and a lot of practical requirements as to how we implement any such outcome.

 What I would ask for, though, is within a day or so to have a written summary.  I'm not sure what the MAG practice in the past has been, but at the very least a list of action items with responsibilities and deadlines in the usual way would be -- to me would be the most useful output than a further discussion today.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Virat.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Mr. Chairman, the point that has been raised by Fiona is an important one and we should clarify that because I think there are members in this group who believe that public consultation has occurred, including on the issue of theme since the last three months.  But there are other members who believe it is not yet occurred.  

 So if there is -- if the public consultation doesn't mean putting it on the Web, receiving inputs, putting it in the synthesis paper, discussing it and if it's different -- and it could be, and I could be wrong, and maybe others are, too -- then we should clearly understand what is being recommended.

 The second point I would request is that please, please keep in mind we will not have the luxury of 11 months every year.  So if you want to go into this public consultation, please keep in mind the time period that it takes to put that information out to receive the inputs and then to start putting it together.

 Also, please keep in mind that we will have to make decisions based on public consultation inputs online.  And we haven't done very well as a group in making decisions on several issues in the last three days even face-to-face.

 So first we must reach a common definition of public consultation.  And, secondly, we must weigh against the time which is available, which is on the average seven to eight months and not 11 months that we have this year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Fiona, would you like to maybe clarify what's your understanding of the consultations.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Sure.  I'd be happy to.  I think the idea that you do a consultation once and it is done is probably not a good work method.

 I think there's certain standards and expectations for different institutions and organizations and groups like this involved in Internet governance.  And we require those of other institutions.  And I think that the same things we require of other groups and processes we need to figure out how to do here and to do it a bit better.

 So my suggestion was that if we're going to create these working groups and people are going to be leading these working groups, the first thing the working group chairpeople have to do is map out a work plan, and that should include a form of getting further input.  

 So while there has been input coming into this meeting on themes, there have been additional themes that were suggested over the course of those three days and if there's going to be a way to aggregate that or compile that and make a decision, there should be an opportunity for those not physically present or those not participating in the process to weigh in.

 Again, it is sort of a mapping and a planning exercise.  But the idea that you get comment once and you're done getting comment doesn't seem consistent with the general sort of belief in the system of Internet governance and the principles that guide it, as I understand them.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  We have remaining four minutes.  We need to be cognizant of the time.

 Virat, please, and then Avri.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Mr. Chairman, I want to present everybody who is not in the room had three months.  The secretariat might want to clarify when was that notice was put out.  I don't have the exact date, but it is at least three months old.  And the inputs that have been received have been online for a month and a half.

 So I'm -- and we've already said the working group will do exactly the same.  

 So here's my request.  Since we're still saying "day and night" and not saying "it is evening and afternoon," if there is a different process, then please put it specifically to the working groups because we do not wish to be accused of being opaque after having gone through all this process because I firmly believe what we have in place is as transparent as it gets.  

 But we are certainly open to improvements, but we should have specific recommendations on what they would like us to change.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Avri will be last and then I will maybe make a suggestion and still do one conclusion saying good-bye to all of you.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I think that as a MAG, we have to be accountable to the IGF community, which means we get some input.  We do some work.  We show our work and we get comment on that work.

 So we came up -- you know, we got some input from them and now we talked about it for three days.  We added a whole bunch more.  Now we go back and we say, "Okay, how did we do?  Did we miss anything?  Do we add anything?"  It doesn't need to be a three-month consultation.  It is something that can be done in three weeks.

 But accountability, the MAG is something that has to be accountable, which means we have to keep going back to our community and say, "Did we get this right?"  And that's, I think, what we're saying about not just transparency but accountability.  Perhaps we need a session at the IGF to figure out what IGF accountability is.  But it has to be accountable to the community.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Of course, we are.  And actually since many of the MAG members were nominated through the community consultations and Secretary-General took that into account, of course, we are accountable at least to our own communities.  But that's obvious.

 Again, I don't think we have in mind to work behind the closed doors.  Everything we do is online in realtime.  The transcripts will be published, maybe except the joke about the State Department that I will ask to take out for political reasons.  Again, I'm trying to joke.

 [ Laughter ]

 But my suggestion -- and, again, that stems from the experience I have many years working in multilateral diplomacy is to open working groups to everybody who wants to follow the work and contribute to work, and then that resolves those questions.

 Of course, we need to communicate as well.  And since I do not have time to do formal closing and list everything we agreed upon, I will try to sum up in writing.  Of course, that is very painful for me, as you know.  But I will try to do my best.

 So my advice would be to all coordinators, when you start planning, please put every meeting -- I mean, every working group is open-ended, and all those who are interested can join at any time, contribute, and so on.

 Of course, that does not exclude putting the results, time to time for public observations, comments, and getting feedback from the others who cannot participate on daily basis.

 So 30 seconds for ICC and 30 seconds for Lynn and that will bring us to the end of the meeting.

 >>ICC-BASIS:  I just wanted to support the secretariat and the MAG so far in terms of consultation process.  ICC-BASIS has a lot of experience going through consultations, both with our members at a global level and at a national level.  And I think that it's important that each of us around the table working on the IGF collectively representing different stakeholders and communities recognize that we each have a responsibility to bring a consultative perspective and that is an important part of the process.  It might not eliminate every other step where we might want to check with the wider public such as posting things on the Web site as Chengetai does.  

 But I think each person who is representing a group should recognize that that consultation process also comes at an individual organizational level.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Lynn.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chair.  I won't abuse the last few seconds by thanking you and first-time MAG member comments and all that, but it will be on the mail list.  

 I just wanted to point out that a number of us have talked and said it might be a good idea to try and get an informal dinner together for any of the MAG members that are actually still here.  

 The Internet Society very helpfully found a reservation for all of us.  It is in your mail accounts.  It is the Cafe du Centre in the Place du Molard at 7:00, 7:15 for anybody that is available.  

 As I said in my note, this would be a good opportunity for us to do some cross-community building internally to the MAG.  

 So thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Let me close by thanking all of you for engagement and hard work during these three days.  It is always difficult to start the new year.  But I think we have progressed maybe not as far as I would like to see us progressing but still we made significant progress and will continue that in upcoming weeks until we reach the point of sending out calls for proposals.

 I would like also to -- on our behalf to thank our interpreters.  Thank you very much for helping us and doing --

 [ Applause ] -- more, even more than you are normally supposed to do helping us with the Spanish translation.

 Also, I would like to thank also scribes who diligently followed our discussions and transcribed everything we said, including jokes.  Thank you very much.

 [ Applause ]

 So next engagement might be -- not necessarily, might be in mid December when -- if any development will happen with the NETmundial Initiative.  Otherwise, we will be proceeding to the work we agreed to do, and I will communicate -- remind what those decisions were.  

 And certainly we will meet in mid January to conclude our conversation about themes and subthemes and work stream that will be managed by Benedicto.

 Thank you very much, Benedicto, for helping me throughout the process and looking forward to working and preparing the IGF meeting in Brazil.  Thank you very much.

 And safe travels back home.

 [ Applause ]