[ec-tf] gov't attendees at meetings

In message 
<f65fb55e0711090601w216ba919saabdc9d40c9e3f79 at mail.gmail.com>, at 
17:01:29 local time, on Fri, 9 Nov 2007, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> 
remarked:
>Hi Roland,
>
>On 11/9/07, Roland Perry <roland at ripe.net> wrote:
>> In message
>>
>> First of all, when I look at the spreadsheet the count of 15 "Govt"
>> people is apparently from the list for RIPE55, and the 7 from RIPE 42.
>> So on that basis alone, your conclusion is incorrect.
>
>It was a hypthesis, not a conclusion ;-)

It seemed to me that you were concluding that there were fewer Govt 
representatives at RIPE55 than RIPE42, but if the figures are 
transposed...

>> So I think we need some better input data.
>
>clearly,  I took them from the website ;-)

We must also be looking at different websites, as the RIPE55 one I see 
from here (at the airport now...) has the four members of the Commission 
that I mentioned earlier, missing from your spreadsheet.

>> >there are difficulties determinig about whois biz vs. gov vs CS.
>>
>> Yes. There aren't really enough different categories. I see you've put
>> RIR colleagues into "CS", for example.
>
>Yes, which I, and others in the "Internet Technical Community have been
>arguing is have been arguing is actually the case.  Now that we have
>status as a 4th stakeholder group in the IGF, if I had made 4 columns,
>there would have been only 2 CS attendee at both meetings I looked at
>(2 from a human rights group in Nepal).

It's difficult to tell which RIPE attendees are truly CS, and which are, 
(eg) former Net Entrepreneurs/Engineers who are "resting". What category 
should they be? I do think that a separate category of "Internet 
Community" is overdue, for RIPE meetings and IGF stakeholderism alike.

>> As for "Govt" attendees, these also traditionally include people working
>> in "Civil service" roles within academic networks and cctld operators,
>> as well as other research and CERT-type activities.
>
>yes, it was not easy determining if an NREN or ccTLD was a gov or CS,
>as some (NRENs in particular) were chartered by a gov, then became
>independent.

For the analysis of RIPE meetings, I would recommend that all of those 
are excluded from a "Government" category, if the objective is to 
determine who at the meeting is a candidate for promoting "enhanced 
co-operation" from the government side. What they need to go into is a 
"[Government funded] Internet Community" category.

-- 
Roland Perry
Public Affairs Officer, RIPE NCC