The Rio IGF has been a great venue for raising ideas and fostering dialogue. But the managers of the Forum will have to address some severe structural problems during the next two years. The basic problem is that all of the action at the Forum has gravitated to the "edges" -- i.e., to participant-defined workshops and dynamic coalitions -- while the "core" plenary sessions have become hollow. They were mostly stilted, boring one-way communication affairs; the speakers were selected more for their lowest common denominator political acceptability than for their ability to advance important ideas. Worse, there is almost no common processing of ideas and common deliberation on what transpires at the edges. In fact, due to the competition for attention created by scheduling many workshops at the same time as the plenary sessions, the workshop programs attracted far more people than the plenary itself during the second and third days. The result is a decentered trade-show or academic conference-like atmosphere. One can sense growing frustration with this among a variety of parties.   more »