Re: [council] Deadline for Public Comment

[Ross Rader <ross@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Marilyn Cade wrote:
> Perhaps the community is suffering "fatique" in preparation for the upcoming 
> meeting. :-)
Were the community at large actually involved in planning for the 
meeting I might agree :) I think its more likely that we haven't done an 
adequate job clearly identifying what we are looking for comment on. The 
links from the web page don't clearly indicate what the committee is 
requesting input on (although insiders can narrow down the options - 
comment on the report, comment on the previous submissions, comment on 
all) and I'm not able to locate any announcement via email indicating 
that a public comment period was opened and what the committee is 
requesting input on. Although some constituency level outreach may have 
occurred, I don't many indications that we successfully got a clear 
message out to the ICANN and larger community.
> Good idea to extend the comment period and republicize BUT we have several contributions via the white papers that were contributed, right? 
Yes - but all of those submissions were made in response to the earlier 
calls for papers - not in response to the most recent call for comments.
Related to the most recent call, we received 35 comments via email - 5 
were related to the topic of new gTLDs, 30 were off-topic and mostly 
submitted by the same person (he was most definitely not fatigued) - 1 
of these off topic posts was related to the topic of the Verisign 
settlement and 1 was in Portuguese and appeared to be more of a 
commercial solicitation of some sort than a policy submission (I could 
be wrong). Given the large number of off-topic posts (and the general 
quality of the on-topic submissions) there is clearly some failure 
somewhere. Based on the information available, I can only assume that we 
haven't clearly communicated our request in a broad way.
I would really like Council (or commitee - whichever is more 
procedurally correct) to consider re-opening this comment period and 
send out some *clear* instructions regarding what we are soliciting 
input on. As was mentioned in a different context yesterday, it is 
incumbent upon us to ensure that the sum of the views on these subjects 
are solicited and taken into account during the work of the GNSO. In our 
rush to meet a poorly set deadline, I do not believe we are able to do so.
Some further consideration of this matter would be appreciated.

-ross