Re: [council] Draft ATRT2 Comments

["James M. Bladel" <jbladel@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I support this version of the draft, except for the sentiments contained in the 
section regarding making the PDP more time effective.

While I don’t dispute that elapsed time for a PDP is only one (among several) 
measure of the overall quality of the process, I strongly believe that in the 
“real world,” the slow pace of the PDP is a threat to the PDP, the GNSO and 
even the ICANN model itself.

This isn’t just alarmist thinking on my part — the multi-year average TTL for a 
PDP represents a  significant barrier to wider participation from volunteers 
(who can’t afford the commitment) and commercial organizations (who cannot 
justify it). It also provides a clear incentive for governments and other 
interests to seek faster paths to advance their agendas through ICANN, ensuring 
that urgent or controversial topics will immediately escalate to a Board/GAC 
interaction.

In my opinion, the future of the BU/MSM is entirely dependent upon a PDP that 
is timely —and– results in quality outcomes.

Thanks—

J.

From: Maria Farrell <maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx>>
Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 at 10:41
To: Mike O'Connor <mike@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxx>>
Cc: "council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>" 
<council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:council@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Subject: Re: [council] Draft ATRT2 Comments

Hi Mikey,

These changes look great to me, thanks a million.

Does anyone else plan to chip in?

We have an agenda item on this on Thursday's meeting, and a submission deadline 
on Friday.

All the best, Maria


On 10 December 2013 16:31, Mike O'Connor 
<mike@xxxxxxxxxx<mailto:mike@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
hi Maria,

here's a redline markup for you all to take a look at.  i love your draft and 
don't disagree with anything in it.  i'm trying to amplify and refine.  feel 
free to back out anything that puts you on edge.

mikey




On Dec 9, 2013, at 2:23 PM, Maria Farrell 
<maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:maria.farrell@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

Dear all,

Here are some draft comments on the ATRT2 recommendations re. the GNSO.

Mikey and David - I know you two kindly volunteered to help out with this. Can 
you particularly take a look?

Also, there's a need for a para or bullet point list summarising relevant work 
the GNSO is already doing, e.g. the SCI? or Staff paper on improving the PDP? 
I'm drawing a blank on the other initiatives. Can someone please rustle up a 
list of them?

This needs to be submitted by the 12th, so comments please ASAP.

All the best, Maria



Dear members of the Acountability and Transparency Review Team (2),

The GNSO Council thanks you for the outcome-oriented analysis and 
recommendations in the ATRT2 Draft Recommendations of 21 November, 2013. We 
particularly appreciate the time and care that went into these recommendations, 
the commissioning of useful research and, especially, the efforts made by the 
ATRT2 and its leadership to promote awareness and dialogue about the 
recommendations at the Buenos Aires meeting.

The Council’s input focuses on recommendations regarding the GNSO PDP. Broadly, 
we strongly support the call for broader and more active working group 
participation and earlier involvement of the GAC, and will work hard to 
implement final recommendations on these issues.

New recommendations arising from issues not addressed by ATRT1 Recommendations

10.1 on developing funded options for professional facilitators to help GNSO 
PDP Working Groups

While some Councilors supported this suggestion, others were concerned that 
facilitators may not always be appropriate in the multi-stakeholder model. 
Broadly, we believe this is an option that could be considered in the context 
of the ATRT2’s recommendation to develop explicit guidelines for when to use 
facilitators. Agreement should be elicited by Working Group participants to use 
facilitators on a case by case basis, and with a clear understanding of 
facilitators’ roles.

10.1 on face to face meetings during GNSO PDPs

We support this recommendation and the development of guidelines for when F2F 
meetings may be required and justified. However, we do note that there is a 
variety of ability amongst Working Group participants to travel to F2F 
meetings. Many volunteers cannot leave work or family to do so, for example. We 
suggest that if intercessional F2F meetings are used more often that ICANN 
consider adopting the IETF approach that agreements reached during F2F meetings 
are then subject to consideration by mailing list members.

10.1 on GNSO and the wider ICANN community developing ways to make the GNSO PDP 
process more time-effective

As with our comments on item 10.4 below, we are concerned that speed not be the 
main metric used to determine the performance of the GNSO. There is not one but 
three fundamental ways to judge PDP performance: time, participativeness and 
agreement. Time measures only how long it took to get to a policy; the second 
two are effectively proxy measures for its quality. Stressing too much the most 
obvious performance variable could have the unintentional consequence of 
sacrificing quality. Further, increasing the pressure of time can result in 
forced compromises that quickly fall apart or result in participants 
end-running to the Board, a phenomenon the report identifies. This undermines 
the legitimacy of the whole process.

We suggest this recommendation be revised to stress more that ‘time-effective’ 
encompasses efficient use of participants’ time – including preparation for and 
chairing of calls and follow-up activities, etc. – rather than focusing on a 
single, quantifiable metric that can draw attention away from other qualities.

10.2 on the GAC, with the GNSO, developing ways to input to PDP Working Groups

We strongly support this recommendation and are eager to work with the GAC on 
ways to implement it.

10.3 on the Board and GNSO chartering a strategic initiative to broaden 
participation in GNSO PDPs

We broadly support this recommendation and welcomed the detailed quantitative 
analysis provided in support of the need to broaden participation. We do also 
note staff’s observation that in some cases input to public comments may appear 
to be from, for example, the US but has been submitted by a US-based individual 
on behalf of a peak organization that consulted more widely.

Nonetheless, there is clearly a need to both broaden and deepen participation. 
Some of our councilors suggest that as well as outreach to increase 
participation from outside of ICANN, we should also do ‘in reach’ to deepen 
participation by individuals already involved in ICANN but who have never 
participated in a Working Group. We ask that the ATRT2 may consider this 
suggestion.

10.4 on the Board stating a process for setting gTLD policies when the GNSO 
‘cannot come to closure on a specific issue within a specified time-frame’.

We share the concerns stated by others that the couching of this recommendation 
may unwittingly undermine the multi-stakeholder model in ICANN. Policy-making 
can take longer than is predictable or desirable, but nonetheless be effective 
in its deliberativeness, output and degree of support. This recommendation 
seems to perpetuate a belief that the GNSO – the engine of gTLD policy 
development and the only part of ICANN driven by carefully balanced stakeholder 
decision-making – is too slow and argumentative. That belief can drive some 
ICANN participants to go around the GNSO and straight to the Board, undermining 
the multi-stakeholder process and ICANN’s raison d’etre. While Board deadlines 
can sometimes help overcome intractable differences, it’s not clear how to 
ensure constructive negotiation within the PDP without later recourse to the 
Board or GAC.

This recommendation seems to contradict the research report finding that there 
is both a conflict but ultimately a ‘sweet spot’ to be found between 
policy-making being sufficiently participatory and speedy. We suggest that this 
recommendation be revised to help the GNSO find that sweet spot – which will 
change from one issue to the next and is not a ‘one size fits all’ amount of 
pre-specified time. For example, the recommendation could be re-drafted to 
suggest the Board interact formally or informally with the GNSO to find out 
more about PDPs that appear to be going too slowly; to find out if that is 
indeed the case, and to constructively offer advice or encouragement to assist.

Recommendation 10.4 also says the Board should note under what conditions it 
believes it may alter PDP recommendations after formal Board acceptance. We 
support this part of the recommendation.

Recommendation 10.4 also says there should be an additional step in the PDP 
Comment Process that allows those whose comments have been synthesized 
improperly to request changes. We support this recommendation, while noting it 
will add some time to the process. Perhaps it could be implemented on an 
‘if/then’ basis, i.e. inserting an opportunity for commenters to raise their 
initial concerns to trigger taking the additional step of requesting changes to 
the summary. However, we also suggest replacing the term ‘improperly’ with 
‘incorrectly’ or ‘wrongly’, as the word ‘improper’ has connotations of 
wrongdoing rather than inaccuracy, which don’t seem relevant here.



Summary of work the GNSO is already doing

…

4.       Summarise if appropriate
Full text of the report is here: 
http://www.icann.org/en/about/aoc-review/atrt/draft-recommendations-15oct13-en.pdf



<ATRT2 draft GNSO Council response.docx>


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