[ga] Drafting Teams

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

To the GA list,

I am just catching up on the GA list after he week's meetings and will  
respond to those messages that I think were directed to me for which I  
think I have a reply.
In terms of Drafting Teams (DT - sometime called design team by  
mistake), they are not a circumvention of the PDP, but are being used  
as part of the deliberation process for which the GNSO council is  
responsible and which is mandated in the by-laws.  They are intended  
to get the discussion in the GNSO council started by putting   
suggested text on the table.  In this case the drafting team was set  
up to develop a suggested plan for how the deliberations in council  
should proceed.    One possibility that the council had considered was  
that the DT would suggest a charter for an open working group.   
Instead the Domain Name Tasting PDP DT decided to suggest a motion.     
Which was also a acceptable suggestion - the council could deliberate  
on the motion and then vote.  Or it could reject the suggestion and do  
something else.
In this case the GNSO council has asked the DT to reconsider its  
suggestion at another meeting.  It is possible that they will still  
suggest a motion, I don't know, but I expect more constituency members  
will be present at this meeting and the outcome may be different.
As with all GNSO efforts, the DT should have an archived mailing list  
open for all to read.   My preference is to keep the DTs small and to  
restrict them to constituency members so that they can produce a  
suggestion or a draft within several weeks at most.  They are not mean  
to be the open working groups that allow everyone to come and  
deliberate a policy, but are meant for framing a starting point to the  
discussion.  I think both DTs and WGs have a critical role to play in  
the GNSO council's work.  I believe that over the next few months we  
will be creating lots of open Working Groups and there will be many  
opportunities for GA list members as well as others in the community  
to participate in orderly discourse and dialogue.  As the GNSO  
improvements indicate, open working groups are the way the GNSO will  
work in the future.
I am basing the GNSO Drafting Team on the IETF model of a Design  
Team.  In the IETF, as I understand it, the Design Teams are kept  
small and while they can produce a suggestion or a draft, their  
suggestion/draft is no more important then any other suggestion/draft  
someone puts on the table.  Likewise with the DT - it is something  
that the GSNO council will consider as part of its deliberations, but  
it does not mandate the behavior of the GSNO council except that the  
GNSO council must give it due consideration.
Thanks for giving me the chance to explain.

a.