Quietly (because the relevant page of the Web site still claims to have been last updated 31 July 2006), the IGF Secretariat has been backing away from some of its commitments about facilities to be made available at the meeting in Athens.

Most notably it seems to have recanted on plans to facilitate the recording of five-minute statements at the IGF meeting to be played around the venue in a loop. It now seems to expect participants to record their own statements, saying that they "are encouraged to provide these statements both in video (specification: mpeg4 format) and in written document form", with no longer any mention of them being played at the venue.

Further, it is now merely "hoped that volunteers will monitor IM channels and will serve as proxies for the remote participants in making interventions", rather than as before stating that official IM channels would be defined and monitored. Well, I'll be doing so, via the IGF Community Site that Kieren McCarthy and I have put together, but what if I wasn't?

In fact, since it kicked off discussion on remote participation, the Secretariat have taken no action on the suggestions made, and have apparently ceded control over remote participation to myself and Kieren. There isn't even a mailing list for IGF attendees (the closed and hidden IGF Members mailing list is for the Secretariat and the Advisory Group only). Is that too much to ask?