[ALAC] ALAC/At-Large Mailing Lists

Dev Anand Teelucksingh admin at ttcsweb.org
Wed Oct 24 16:21:24 UTC 2012


Hi, Alan

the ALS Starter Kit is a document which has relevant material on the
public facing ALAC/At-Large mailing lists
https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/ALS+Starter+Kits (meaning
the ALAC_internal and ALAC Excom lists are not mentioned)

Re: the At-Large and ALAC_announce lists, I think both lists need to
be kept as these lists serve different purposes.

* The ALAC_announce list - all ALS representatives are added to this
list by At-Large Staff when their ALS is formally accredited by ALAC
and is the primary channel by which ALSes are informed on
ALAC/At-Large activity by At-Large Staff and the ALAC chair.

* The At-Large list - Anyone on the list can post on any topic
(typically ICANN policy issues) for others to comment on. I believe
that  ALS representatives and ALAC members are NOT added automatically
but can "manually' join if they know how to.

Re: ALAC Excom....a bigger question is the necessity of the Excom list
- shouldn't policy discussions on the Excom list be on the ALAC list?
IF Excom calls are open to ALAC members, shouldn't the Excom call
announcements also be on the ALAC list?

Re: creating shadow lists for the ALAC and ALAC Excom - I would
investigate the ability to have RSS feeds for these (and for that
matter all At-Large WG lists and GNSO WG lists) to make it easier for
anyone to monitor activity.


Kind Regards,

Dev Anand Teelucksingh


On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:37 PM, Alan Greenberg
<alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:
> While working on the Rules of Procedure, it became obvious that we
> needed a document describing the various ALAC mailing lists giving a
> summary of their usage and describing who must of should be
> subscribed. This list will not include RALO lists or the multitude of
> working group and committee lists
>
> Currently there are five such lists. All are archived and are
> publicly viewable except as noted.
>
> ALAC - General ALAC list used for the majority of ALAC e-mail
> interactions. Originally only ALAC members, RALO leadership, formal
> Liaisons selected by the ALAC, Liaisons to the ALAC, At-Large Board
> member and Staff were on it. More recently, it has included (either
> by accident or intentionally), selected former ALAC member, selected
> former RALO leadership, and others. (I am using the term "formal
> Liaisons" to refer to the ccNSO, GNSO and SSAC Liaisons - those to
> other ICANN or external bodies.)
>
> ALAC-Internal - Used for things that we do not want to be publicly
> viewable. Most commonly, this is travel arrangements, social plans
> and occasionally semi-confidential issues or issues where we want
> targeted ALAC feedback. Membership is similar to the ALAC list, but no "others"
>
> ALAC-ExCom - Publicly viewable list for the ALAC ExCom. Membership is
> traditionally ExCom members, formal Liaisons appointed by the ALAC,
> and Staff. More recently a few others were added.
>
> ALAC-Announce - General list for announcements. Only ICANN staff and
> the ALAC Chair (I think) have sending privileges. This list includes
> pretty much everyone in the ALAC list plus about 175 others.
>
> At-Large - General public list. This list has Most but not all of
> those onthe ALAC list (missing about 10 ALAC members and RALO
> leadership) plus about 160 others.
>
> ALAC-Announce and At-Large membership overlaps. There are 98 people
> on both lists (about 1/3 of which are ALAC/RALO Leadership), 126 just
> ALAC-Announce and 98 just At-Large
>
> For mail sent to lists from senders not on the lists, there are four
> possible outcomes, it goes through, it is held for moderation, it
> bounces or it is discarded without a reject message (moderation
> requires staff action). Based on a test, I believe that for the ALAC
> list, such messages are discarded, for the ALAC-Internal list, such
> mail bounces, and for the ExCom it is moderated. Not sure about the
> two larger lists.
>
> My suggestions for going forward are:
>
> ALAC
> - Membership for ALAC, RALO Leadership, formal Liaisons appointed by
> the ALAC, Board member and Staff
> - Membership for Liaisons appointed TO the ALAC
> - Perhaps membership to WG Chairs if not already included above
> - Membership for past holders of above categories (my preference, or
> could be receive only - see below)
>
> ALAC-Internal
> - Membership for ALAC, RALO Leadership, formal Liaisons appointed by
> the ALAC, Board member and Staff
>
> ALAC-ExCom (with a new name mapping to the ALAC Leadership Team name
> used in the new RoP)
> - Members of the ExCom, formal Liaisons appointed by the ALAC, Board
> member and Staff
>
> I think we need to discuss the ALAC-Announce and At-Large lists
> further. I am not at all sure we need two lists for this.
>
> I suggest we create two additional lists that "shadow" the ALAC and
> ExCom lists. That is, subscription open to all and they receive all
> messages that got to the ALAC and ExCom lists. This allows those who
> want to follow the discussions to receive them without the
> inconvenience of having to go to the archive. This is equivalent to
> adding the to the lists in receive-only mode, but since we have had
> regular problems ensuring that the membership of the ALAC and ExCom
> lists is correct, having a shadow list would be a lot cleaner.
>
> Please let me know what you think about these issues.
>
> Alan
>
>
>
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>
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