Participants: C Aguirre, J Salgueiro, A Muehlberg,
H Xue, S Shahshahani, P Dandjinou, W Seltzer, J Levine, J Morris, S Sandford-Smith
(Staff), N Ashton-Hart (Staff)
Absent: A Muniya, C Dzinonu
Absent with conflict: I Aizu, A Greenberg
Minutes by: ICANN At-Large Staff
Meeting scheduled start: 13:30 GMT. Called to order at 13:37 GMT.
Agenda
- Who is going to own domain names in different languages?
- new timeline for domain guide? (Staff, John)
- ALAC working structure with RALOs, other ICANN constituencies, other user
oriented organisations: communication tools/ webtools: proposals, who takes
responisbility? - problem of administration (admitting new members etc.)
- (MemberClicks Demo by Staff - when?)
- running our website - (update on getting an interim contract with Jean
for our website) - ALAC working structure:
- internal procedures (proposal Vittorio)
- budget committee (current: Jacqueline, John, The Chair)
- vice chairs (proposal Alan)
- budget committee to plan budget current and planning next fiscal year (deadline?
support of regions?) - next tel conf: always Tuesdays?
- other issues
Online discussion:
- external review: who gives an introduction? timeline?
- preparing next ICANN meeting Lisboa: who takes responsibility?
- Newsletter: who takes responsibility? Timeframe?
- report on ombudsman - Ynternet (The Chair)
- operational plan: who sets it up, what issues are up?
- issues report domain tasting (Bret/The Chair)
Minutes
Liaison reports:
ICANN Board (Vittorio)
Vittorio sent information in advance of meeting. Vittorio reported that there
had not been a lot of activity since the last telcon due to the holidays.
There was a brief discussion about why there was a need for confidentiality.
Wendy suggested there should be a bias to disclose as opposed to a bias to
confidentiality.
GNSO (Bret/Alan)
The Chair stated that neither Brett nor Alan were on the call and there was
no one else with any information.
IDN (Hong)
Hong sent a report in advance and stated that there was no action in the President’s
Advisory Committee to report.
WHOIS (Wendy)
Wendy stated that the position is the same as in Sao Paulo, the public comment
period is underway. There was some discussion between The Chair and Wendy as
to whether ALAC should take a position, Wendy suggested that WHOIS should be
abolished, it was decided that Wendy would send a note out to the regions to
gauge their position on the topic.
Call by gNSO for submitting comments on the Preliminary Task Force Report
on Whois Services until 15 January 2007 (Wendy will do as Alan is not taking
part in the teleconference).
CCNSO (Siavash)
Nothing to report.
PSC (Pierre)
Pierre stated that there was not much to report as not much has happened
since the last ICANN meeting. There should be a report before Lisbon.
Minutes
The minutes for November are in draft form at the moment. The will be put
up noted as draft. Wendy would like the various positions taken to be elaborated
upon, not just the decisions. It was agreed that minutes would be ready within
3 days of a meeting (except in the case of ICANN meetings which may take longer)
and will be posted on the Wiki for everyone to review for a period of 1 week
at which point they will be posted publicly. The committee will be notified
of the deadlines as a reminder.
- Implementation of minimum participation criteria for ALAC members*
There was a discussion regarding Clement’s participation and failure
to respond to queries from The Chair and Pierre on his level of participation.
It was thought that he has not been to an ICANN meeting in a year and a half,
Hong remembers him attending one in 2004. All were in agreement that Clement
had had enough time and notice to participate more and as had he had not done
so and he is in breach of the minimum participation guidelines all were in
agreement that action should now be taken. The Chair reiterated that as Clement
has not attended an ICANN meeting in 2 years it was her sad duty to ask for
reconsideration of his appointment. The next step is for the Chair to write
to the board with the information about his attendance asking for him to be
replaced. Staff asked if the committee wanted to use the same procedure to
replace him as for the European seat, once the notification from the Chair
had been sent to the Board; all were in agreement and The Chair agreed that
the AFRALO list would be sent an invitation to the region to nominate volunteers
for the vacant seat.
Going forward Jacqueline proposed looking at participation at the midyear
point. This would allow the following 6 months to improve participation, with
the knowledge that you’ll be replaced if you don’t participate
more fully before the end of the year. This was accepted without dissent but
Pierre did suggest that the review should take place sooner than 6 months.
New ALS applications, due diligence, next vote (Staff Tracking Sheet)
ISOC FR:
Vittorio stated that in the past they were more focused on companies than
individuals. At the same time, if they meet the criteria he thought we should
sign them up. The Chair proposed that we go offline and send a note to the
committee with our recommendation within the next two days.
ISOC Tunisia:
Pierre thought they were OK but had not discussed them with Alice. He agreed
to try to get hold of Alice right away to reach agreement.
BIIPA:
Jacqueline: LAC will get together and provide regional advice.
ISOC Puerto Rico:
The Chair requested that John and Wendy make a recommendation John agreed
but felt that the LACRALO should look at it too. Both Wendy and John noted
that they clearly meet the criteria so we endorse them.
Staff asked about Communica.ch and noted that this application had been pending
for quite some time, that voting was overdue, and noted that the Chair had
sent repeated emails to clarify the situation with no reply and asked what
the committee wished to do, understanding completely that the representative
of this candidate was a valued contributor to EURALO discussions but noting
that they were clearly not eligible. The Chair said she would to send them
another email and report back to the Committee on the reply if any.
YIELD
The Chair asked Staff if a reply had been received to the request for further
information; Staff noted that no reply had been received and the Chair asked
another reminder to be sent.
It was noted that there was a temporary problem with staff being able to post
on the library The Chair requested that Staff send round all the apps and forms.
(NB: All the forms are actually posted on the website and the access problem
was resolved later the same day)
The Chair asked for regional advice on the other 2 NA applications. Wendy
voted yes. She stated that she makes a standing approval of every applicant
who applies. John made no reply.
The Chair requested that Wendy and John get together with Alan on the two
NA apps, and the Europeans on the European apps.
The Chair proposed that Staff setup a vote to start next Monday with a week
voting period. There were no objections.
Report on regional developments/RALOs
LACRALO
Jacqueline stated that Carlton is the Secretariat. The main thing they are
working on is auto-translations of mailing list. Staff stated that he is hoping
that a system is found that can be used by many of the regions.
Asia:
Siavash reported on the last APAC telcon – the major theme was ALSes
signing or incorporating. His understanding is that people were happy to get
the MOU completed and the RALO formed and let the organisation evolve over
time. He stated that there would probably be a meeting in Bali.
He reported that they had discussed incorporation but that there was not a
lot of support for this at the moment as the region is so varied that it would
take a long time to co-ordinate it. At the moment it is proposed that the LAC
model be followed.
Hong added that things are proceeding well and that they are projected to
meet at APRICOT but that she felt more discussion was needed for incorporation
issue. She proposed to make the RALO formation information in all 5 regions
cross-linked so that the people in the different regions may learn from each
other's experience. It was agreed that documents relating to regional formation
efforts would be posted on the Wikis as they became available and a notice
would be sent to the lists once this had been done.
Staff summarised the state of budgeting and preparations and stated that we
should meet the deadline requested by Hong and Siavash of finalising approval
for the meeting on 28th February within the next week.
Africa:
Pierre reported that a telcon is being organised for the end of January with
all the ALSes with the target being that the RALO be established by Lisbon.
The ICANN staff are liaising with the regional community to find a time that
works for as many ALSes as possible and will then setup a teleconference.
Europe:
Vittorio reported that they are almost in the same situation work-wise as
before Sao Paulo. Staff suggested using the same meeting schedule for EURALO
at Lisbon as was done with LACRALO at Sao Paulo – Vittorio agreed but
stressed that work online should not cease in the meantime. The Chair endorsed
the approach of a F2F meeting in Lisbon along these lines.
The Chair reported that the call for applicants for the open ALAC seat for
Europe closes on 16th January, Vittorio and The Chair both felt that this was
enough time.
North America
John reported that they have located the ALSes and there had been a flurry
of activity, but recently the activity had seemed to slow. Staff noted that
a teleconference was being arranged to discuss next steps including a possible
F2F meeting to advance organisation of a RALO.
Proposal for studies/polls (follow up ALAC-Board meeting)
The Chair suggested this be continued later in the interests of shortening
the meeting, but that it is important that members take on ownership for these
projects, and asked for input on what studies and polls should be done. She
will send out a note asking for proposals to the list.
DNS Guide Timeline
Staff disclosed that there was no further update on this item due to the holidays,
but that further information would be forthcoming in due course. John reiterated
his willingness to coordinate the process to conclude the guide by July 2007.
Management of www.icannalac.org
A discussion of the idea of paying an independent party to take on the creation
of content and management of the same of the site was conducted. Staff made
clear that if anyone were to be paid by ICANN, this would mean that the same
process of approving the content via ICANN legal staff would need to be undertaken,
and the entire point of icannalac.org being created was for the voice of ALAC
to be independent of that approval process. It was suggested that the funding
for maintenance of the site could be for non-content-related activities, and
that the person being paid could then volunteer to do the content maintenance.
Staff suggested that considering the situation it was likely for this to be
seen as simply a way for the vetting of content produced by ICANN-funding to
be circumvented. It was then suggested that the duties previously undertaken
by Jean Polly, which were the subject of the discussion, could be undertaken
by the new Vice-Chairs. There was no final resolution on the question.
Web Tools
Staff asked if there could be volunteers from amongst the committee to review
the MemberClicks database system. There were no volunteers. Staff said that
they would circulate an email with details again about the system, and reiterated
the fact that we had no electronic and transparent system for managing records
of ALSes and individual members for regions and reminding the committee that
a review of the system had been pending since early December. The Chair suggested
that the issue be taken onto the list. There was no dissent.
Budget Committee
Volunteers were asked to participate in the budget committee. There were no
new volunteers, so the existing members agreed to continue for another year.
The committee for 2007 is therefore: John Levine, The Chair Muehlberg, Jacqueline
Morris.
Internal Procedures Development
Vittorio reiterated that he had previously volunteered to draft a first draft
of internal procedures for ALAC. It was agreed that he would put the first
draft together within 10 days.
Appointment of Liaisons
The Chair asked for comments on the proposal of Alan Levine, made on the email
list. Some were in favour of limiting the Board Liaison to a past or present
member of the ALAC, whilst others were in favour of more open recruitment.
The question was asked as to whether ICANN would provide funding for non-ALAC
members, appointed as liaisons, to attend ICANN meetings. Staff said that a
response would be procured, but suggested that it believe that this would not
be a problem.
A general consensus formed around the idea that liaisons should be sought
within the committee first, with outside persons being looked at if someone
particularly suitable from outside the committee was available. Staff reiterated
that whatever was decided, it was hoped that the community would be advised
of the rules and some comments on them solicited. Jacqueline referred to the
February 2006 meeting where some of these issues had been previously discussed.
There was otherwise general agreement with the proposal of Alan.
Election of / Responsibilities of Vice Chairs
A discussion of the roles and responsibilities of the vice-chair was conducted,
with general agreement that the position was not necessary since the only duties
that really mattered were to chair meetings in the absence of the chair. It
was decided to nominate a Vice-Chair for this purpose.
No such nomination was called for at this meeting.
External Review
The Chair asked the staff if any further information about the review was
available. Staff replied that once further information was available, it would
be simultaneously conveyed to both the staff and to Vittorio as Board Liaison,
and that further information was not presently available.
Since a number of Committee members had left the meeting, and since it was
noted that the meeting had been taking place for approximately two hours, the
meeting was adjourned without completing all agenda items at 15:26 GMT
Action Items
- Minutes in draft within 3 days with exceptions for unusual circumstances
by Staff. Draft minutes posted on SocialText with 1 week given for review.
After 1 week they’re posted publicly. - Reminders of new documents and resources made available on SocialText
to be announced by Staff both for regional workspaces and ALAC workspace. - Chair to notify the ICANN board of the need to replace Clement due to
his inability to meet the minimum participation criteria. - Minutes for December meetings to be reviewed on st.icann.org/alac for
the next 7 days, then compiled and posted on www.alac.icann.org by Staff. - Minutes for November meeting to be headed as draft and posted by Staff
on www.alac.icann.org - Regional Advice on the application of ISOC France to be provided by
Vittorio and the Chair NLT 12th January to the ALAC list. - Regional Advice on ISOC Tunisia to be provided by Alice and Pierre NLT
12th January to ALAC list. - Regional Advice on BIIPA to be provided by LAC regional ALAC members
NLT 12th January to ALAC list. - Regional Advice on pending NA applications to be provided ASAP by NA
Regional members. - Communica.ch to be emailed by the Chair for the third time about their
non-qualification for ALS status. - A Vote to be setup by the Staff, to start on Monday 15th January, and
to run for one week, for the six applications due for voting before the
end of January 2007. - The Chair to send out a note asking for subjects for polls and surveys
to be conducted to be sent to ALAC. - Budget to be finalised by the Staff for proposed 28th February Bali
Meeting NLT 16th January - The issue of the management duties previously undertaken by Jean Polly
for www.icannalac.org was continued to the next regular meeting. - An email asking for volunteers for review of MemberClicks was to be
sent by the Staff to the list. - Vittorio to complete first draft compilation of the procedures of ALAC
NLT 19th January - The issue of nominations and election of a Vice Chair was tabled until
the next meeting. - Staff was asked to forward details of the Nomination Committee appointments
to be made in 2007 to the ALAC list.