RE: [ga] Drafting Teams

["Dominik Filipp" <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx>]

Avri,

the problem does not lie in establishing a Drafting Team and subsequent
working groups with broader public participation but the way how the
public input is being constantly ignored by the GNSO Council. We do have
the straw poll results we do have suggestions from the mailing lists and
other involved organizations putting outstanding efforts in providing
some evidence. Many of them have delivered solid analyzes of the problem
or at least have raised essential questions that have never been
answered. All this, however, does not prevent the Council, during its
meetings, from not even mentioning most of them.

The mostly supported suggestion resonating in the public comments -
elimination of the AGP - has never been seriously considered during last
Council meetings, at least in the transcripts published on the Internet.
Instead, a $0.20 fee suggestion was unanimously approved for the Board
staff recommendation in order to be, in a next minute, immediately
replaced with a NeuStar-like approach. What a masquerade! Again without
any solid-based analysis or evidence provided. One ad-hoc solution
replaced by another ad-hoc one. Jeff Neuman from NeuStar has brightly
revealed this lack of competence when depicting all that familiar
emotional speech "I feel", "I don't feel", "I'd like", "I'm a bit
concerned" of few like-minded individuals instead of providing,
considering, and elaborating on real facts.

Instead, the meeting discussions have almost degenerated to a bargaining
on various Registrar desires regarding increasing the AGP deletion cap
to 5%, 8%, or 10% and how to preserve maximum profit out of it. Ah, and
I have almost forgotten to mention eNom's tacit desire to have the cap
of at least 100%. It is really impressive how the Council is prompt all
ears to such Registrar desires and in case of a problem I often read in
the transcripts "we have to ask Registrars for further clarification of
their concerns". But where are the legitimate Registrant needs in all
this, Avri? Keep in mind that the Domain Tasting issue has been
initiated and opened due to strong Registrant/User appeals and not to
those of Registrars. Registrars themselves could comfortably and
profitably live with the tasting practice as long as the Registrant/User
community would accept it.

Such demonstrated GNSO Council's marginalization of public input is
simply unacceptable in future. I welcome the upcoming deliberation
process on the issue that could result in opening related working
groups. But the public voice of those whom the final decision/solution
is targeted must strongly be heard also during voting on particular
steps. Without this the GNSO mission will fail and as such will have to
be reformed. Reformed dramatically.

Dominik


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Avri Doria
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2008 9:03 PM
To: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ga] Drafting Teams

To the GA list,

I am just catching up on the GA list after the 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.