RE: [council] Additional agenda item for the Council call on 16 Nov - regarding IDN working group

["Marilyn Cade" <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am speaking as a individual BC rep. 

 

Summary of recommendations on Working Group: 

 

Support completing the election to elect a single chair

Support further discussion and possible clarification of the Working Group
Charter in Council call

Support asking the Working Group to propose working methods and examine
whether and how to expand participation and input to the Working Group and
report to Council in Sao Paolo

 

Discussion :

 

Are we making this too complicated, and overlooking the purpose of the WG,
or misunderstanding it, or trying to make it more than it is? 

 

I think we have a working group already agreed, and an election underway. 

 

I would support the Council discussing asking the working group and elected
chair to undertake how to and whether to expand the working group, what
would be the purpose, etc. and whether the working group can use methods to
keep broader groups of interested and relevant individuals or entities
informed, such as through transcribing working conf. calls, et, maintaining
a public mailing list that members and others can post to, etc. 

 

This is a working group launched by Council for a purpose and is therefore
not actually the 'old' working group model, as I see it.

 

I do not want Council to lose sight of its own responsibilities for further
discussion of policies of relevance to IDNs and find the working group a
diversion from Council's overall responsibilities. It seems to me that we
may be getting a little diverted into confusion about the role of the
Working Group. And perhaps missing some points about the work at hand for
the group. 

 

I see some 

Quoting from the Chair's email/pasted in full below: "The working group is
attracting plenty of interest, but my concern is that without a clear
charter that we are setting false expectations

regarding the purpose of this working group.   We also need to clearly

establish the working group in the context of the President's Advisory

Committee, the ccNSO working group, and the new gTLD committee."  

 

Two points: I fully support the Council clarifying further the charter of
the Working Group. That is within Council's role/ however, we have some work
already on that, which led to the agreement to create Council's working
group.  So, I support having that on the Council agenda and it would be good
for councilors to have submitted written thoughts, if possible. That will
facilitate the opportunity for dialogue, rather than debate. 

 

Changing the election in process: I cannot support changing the election
process. And, further, I have not see a consensus emerging that there should
be any change in the election cycle underway.  

The election was opened, and undoubtedly many have voted. I have voted. 

 

I am not aware that elections, once started, can be stopped, unless there is
some kind of technical problem with the election, failure in the systems,
etc. so I'm not in support of changing the decision to have an election
after having an announcement of an election; getting two candidates
nominated and seconded, and then opening the election.

 

Once the Working Group has a chair, it can meet and it can take into account
the input and guidance from Council and relevant other inputs on how it does
its work, including but not limited to whether working methods are
sufficient to ensure participation and feedback from other groups or other
parties into its work, or whether expansion of membership is appropriate.
The Working Group could be asked to report back to the Council in Sao Paolo
on ideas about membership and participation. Given the diversity of the
Working Group as present, I believe that a balanced and pragmatic, and
responsible set of ideas can be quickly put forward by the Working Group. 

 

First and foremost, can we all keep in mind that this is only ONE effort,
and does not replace the work of the Council, the need to discuss policy
more at the Council level, and with the focus on understanding the working
group in the larger context. 

 

I fear that it is easy to confuse the Working group as something magical. I
think it has some hard work to do, but nothing magical. :-) 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Bruce Tonkin
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 9:02 PM
To: Council GNSO
Cc: rmohan@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [council] Additional agenda item for the Council call on 16 Nov -
regarding IDN working group

 

Hello All,

 

I would like to add an additional agenda item regarding the GNSO IDN

working group.

 

As you know, I chaired the original working group on the assumption that

the working group had a very short life.

 

Based on the last Council meetings decision to re-instate the working

group with no specific time limit, I wanted to hand over the chair to

another person.  There have been two candidates that have been nominated

by committee members - Ram Mohan and Sophia Bekele.   I have thus

initiated an email election process based on the existing membership of

the working group to put a new chair in place.

 

There are however outstanding issues:

- clearly defining the charter of the working group

- clarifying the rules for membership

 

I have received some requests from people in the ICANN community that

are currently not members of a GNSO constituency, but are members of the

general assembly mailing list.   So far I have been recommending that

these people join one of the existing GNSO constituencies to meet the

requirement of a "GNSO volunteer"   I have since noticed that the

current definition of a working group in:

http://www.gnso.icann.org/council/names-proceduresv7.shtml opens up

membership to "members of the General Assembly (GA) defined as

subscribers to the ga@xxxxxxxx, announce@xxxxxxxx or the GA voting

register".     I am not sure if this is the Council's intent.

 

The working group is attracting plenty of interest, but my concern is

that without a clear charter that we are setting false expectations

regarding the purpose of this working group.   We also need to clearly

establish the working group in the context of the President's Advisory

Committee, the ccNSO working group, and the new gTLD committee.

 

It has also been noted that perhaps we should hold off on electing a

chair until the above is clearer, and we have done a public call for

members etc.   

 

One alternative is that we continue with the current election and with

the current group of members, and that the elected chair work with the

group to finalise a charter and submit that to the GNSO Council for

approval.   I don't personally have the time to do that, hence my

interest in handing over responsibility to someone else.   We could

limit the "initial" term of the chair to three months, and then if the

working group is still operational, we could hold a follow up election.

Alternatively if the two candidates are willing, we could simply suggest

they be appointed as joint chairs for the purpose of moving the work

forward.

 

I am interested in ideas on further thoughts via the mailing list, and

discussion on the way forward at the next Council meeting on 16 Nov.

 

Regards,

Bruce Tonkin