RE: [council] Washington meeting: NCUC position

[Mawaki Chango <ki_chango@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Bruce,

Thank you very much for your various and detailed responses. I will
make sure the NCUC hear your point. I think you have perfectly
understood our concern and objective, which was/is not to create
polemics; in any event, I personally do hope that the NCUC approach
will help the Council accomplish an even more careful and, in a way
(just in away), rigorous job.

The NCUC did not at all mean to question the ability of the Council
members to handle the current issues at a meeting to be held in
Washington. If it has been perceived so, please all accept my regrets
on behalf of the NCUC. To my colleagues who seem to reduce our
position to an argument about the location, I would just like to
recall that the issue in the first place was not the location as
such, but the opportunity of a specific agenda item. And the end of
your message below, Bruce, particularly the question (3), along with
your reference to an older practice with the "the 'General Assembly'
portion of ICANN meetings" indicate to me that the Council as a whole
may need to take some decisions or to clarify some processes - so,
hopefully, this debate will not have been useless to all of us.

Now and last, I would like to invite the leadership to proceed with
and attend to its duty (which it has been doing anyway), taking into
account our concern (whatever forms or arguments have been used to
express it), just as the concern of any other constituency.

En espérant travailler avec vous tous en bonne intelligence -
Cordialement,

Mawaki

--- Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello Mawaki,
> 
> I thank you for effectively raising the concerns being expressed
> within
> the NCUC.
> 
> > 
> > 1/ Given this particular and sensitive issue of gTLD, which 
> > has been on and on for a good while, we have heard the same 
> > arguments for and against gTLDs for years, and what is most 
> > needed is not more comment, but decisions (at least on 
> > positions and recommendations, as far as the GNSO Council is 
> > concerned). The idea that we, the Council and our 
> > Constituencies, don't know what our position is, or need to 
> > hear more, does not convince none of my constituents. 
> > Instead, it is beleived that what we really need to do is to 
> > put our heads together and come up with a common and final
> position.
> 
> 
> 
> It does surprise me to hear that we should be limiting public input
> to
> one mechanism - online comments to the website, especially when
> this has
> not really been found to be adequate over the past several years.
> 
> It is also concerning that we should be saying that we don't want
> to
> listen to people because we have already made up our minds.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > 2/ And to better achieve this, we need not to expose 
> > ourselves to further pressure and lobbying from interest 
> > groups, which my fellow constituents beleive is going to 
> > happen in D.C. In effect, we are concerned that opening this 
> > meeting in Washington to public comment turn this into 
> > lobbying meeting that will easily be dominated by Washington 
> > insiders who are far to reflect the variety of possible and 
> > existing positions on this sensitive issue of value to all of 
> > us, both as ICANN bodies and globally.
> 
> Remember that it is the Council that makes its recommendations to
> the
> Board.  This seems to be implying that you are concerned that
> Council
> members are not sufficiently experienced to judge input based on
> its
> merits rather than its source (ie inferring that the Council would
> consider a comment made in Washington on a higher basis simply
> because
> of the location where the comment was made).  
> 
> The mere fact that this issue is of concern to members of the NCUC
> -
> would imply that the NCUC Concil members will be vigilant to ensure
> that
> all input is treated appropriately based on its merit rather than
> who
> has submitted it or where it is submitted.
> 
> It seems however that in the Council teleconference we may need to
> separate the decision on a public comment forum, from the core
> objective
> which is to make progress on the policy work.   
> 
> The decisions that need to be made seem to be in order:
> 
> (1) should we hold a physical meeting between now and Wellington to
> move
> things forward on policy efficiently
> 
> (2) if so, where and when
> 
> (3) if we hold a physical meeting, should we offer the oppportunity
> for
> oral public comments
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Bruce Tonkin
> 
>