[whois-sc] Position statements and their supporting documentation

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello All,

Just as a point of procedure for ongoing operation of the steering
group.

It would be useful for each GNSO constituency representative or Advisory
Committee Liaison to provide a short description at the end of each
posting of a constituency/advisory committee position, documenting what
outreach was conducted, and whether a formal procedure was used to
formally endorse the position.

For example, "The issue was discussed at a meeting of the y constituency
on (date), and the attached position statement was endorsed by a vote of
the x members on (date)"

I expect that the amount of outreach etc will vary depending on the time
available to provide input and the amount of organisational
infrastructure available to each group, but the level of
outreach/decision making should be documented for the public record.

Committee members are of course at any time free to provide their own
personal view but this should be clearly identified.  E.g "Personally I
believe x ...", or "From my personal discussions with constituencies
members, I believe x ...".

The GNSO in its reports to the ICANN Board on policy needs to document
the processes used to arrive at decisions, and this in turn relies on
the processes used by the constituencies of the GNSO to reach positions
on important issues.  

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin