[ALAC] Summit WG3, and the ALAC position on gTLD guidebook

[Thompson, Darlene]

You know, perhaps what ALAC needs to do is to break itself up into
working groups for each of the items on its agenda.  Assign people to
head them up and make them responsible for TIMELY responses.

I totally agree with Evan that we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT let the momentum
that we have achieved piffle out because of lack of leadership at the
ALAC level.

Cheryl, when I say "lack of leadership" I don't mean you.  You do an
amazing level of work.  It just needs to be evenly distributed out to
the rest of the ALAC.  If there are ALAC members that are NOT involved
in WGs, then their RALOs need to know about it because it means they are
not doing the work that they were elected to do.

D

Darlene A. Thompson
Community Access Program Administrator
Nunavut Dept. of Education / N-CAP
P.O. Box 1000, Station 910
Iqaluit, NU  X0A 0H0
Phone:  (867) 975-5631
Fax:  (867) 975-5610
E-mail:  dthompson at gov.nu.ca
 

-----Original Message-----
From: alac-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
[mailto:alac-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Evan
Leibovitch
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2009 3:23 PM
To: Cheryl Langdon-Orr
Cc: At-Large Worldwide
Subject: Re: [ALAC] Summit WG3, and the ALAC position on gTLD guidebook



[ By the way ... as someone who receives far too much cross-posted mail,
I am intrigued to understand the thought process behind taking my
original message and cross subscribing it to a number of redundant
mailing lists without permission. That is conduct I expect from Jeffrey
Williams, not from the ALAC chair; if you want to widen the audience of
a discussion it's the most basic courtesy to ask first. ]



Cheryl Langdon-Orr wrote:
> 1. We need to establish that there is unanimous agreement within the
> ALAC (because that is an important 'statement' in itself) as to how
> the excellent work output of our  Summit is to  be taken forward into
> future ALAC Statements and work...
> 2. ALAC needs to agree on a timely and transparent process by which
> this is to be done...

ALAC moves at a slow trot at best -- especially when held up against the
accelerated pace we were able to witness at the Summit. It was a massive
undertaking and we had a huge level of participation. You have people
here who are energized and eager to help churn policy -- more
importantly, many people doing so for the first time.

DO NOT LET THIS OPPORTUNITY WASTE by creating a dragged out process to
integrate their work into ALAC proper. There are many within my RALO who
already believe that ALAC is an obstacle rather than a catalyst, and I
am urging ALAC to help me prove them wrong. 

> The answer is that I believe we want to ensure that to the maximum
> extent possible, in my utopia, all ALAC Advisories which are adopted
> should incorporate the views of the entire community to the extent
> that is humanly possible in any given circumstance; and as you know,
> each statement was drafted by a group of people from the community,
> but due to the available time during the Summit it was not possible
> for the wider community to review and provide input.
There was much discussion within the WG3 mailing list that would have
easily incorporated the offline input of anyone not in attendance.

I urge you not to risk the dwindling passion of those who have been
active, in order to accommodate those who have not cared.

> (after all two of the ALAC members were, due to Visa issues, not able
> to even attend!)

Given a real world in which sometimes even achieving a quorum seems a
difficult feat at ALAC meetings, having an event with only two regrets
is hardly a source of complaint.


>    1. As soon as the Declaration incorporating the statements is back,
>       we post the individual statements for comment by the whole
>       At-Large community, for a reasonable amount of time (taking into
>       account the public comment windows).
>    2. The officers of each working group take the comments received
>       and incorporate them into the statements.
>    3. The ALAC then vote to ratify them as Advisories to the Board.
>

"As soon as the Declaration is back"? From where? The envelope given to
Paul Twomey? The Summit declarations have been available -- at least in
English -- from the day they were delivered. What is anyone waiting for?
If the stumbling block is translations then say so. But some progress
should have already been made.


> The procedure I'm suggesting is basically the same as what has been
> done in the past if a working group in At-Large produced a draft
> statement.

Of course, this "draft statement" is already in the hands of ICANN's
board and management as a *final* declaration of the Summit, a
collaboration that has brought together more (and more-diverse) At-Large
people working on policy than has ever been assembled. If there are
instances (such as WG3's) where an expedited integration process is
required because of looming deadlines, there must be room for some
accommodation.

> The one open question is the scope of application of Working Group 2's
> statement - if it did not incorporate the new drafts from the PSC
> which are now out for public comment, then it seems that we would want
> WG2's members to review that new text and make any amendments that
> they think appropriate in light of the new text, and then allow the
> community to comment on the resulting revised text.

I can't speak for WG2. I can say that WG3 worked with documents that
were introduced to us on the first day of the summit so we considered
our work to be fairly timely. In the case of WG2 -- as a standing
committee it would have an ongoing mandate to stay on top of the
progress of documents and policies, not just a Summit snapshot.

> It is my intention that this process should be discussed during the
> ALAC meeting and deadlines for comment set at that time, so that we
> can move forward as quickly as possible.

I await a timeline that will allow for the WG3 statement be submitted as
ALAC policy in time for the April deadline.


> With respect to the working groups themselves, what I am discussing
> with staff is the modalities by which we can constitute them as
> standing committees - this is especially important, for example, for
> WG1 in connection with the ongoing ALAC review process, and for WG2 as
> we head towards the conclusion of the JPA - one could easily come up
> with similar examples for the other working groups too of course.

Um, why are you undertaking this yourself? Should the WGs themselves not
be involved, or at least invited?
And why does staff need to be involved? Does ALAC not know enough about
its own workings to understand how to integrate the WGs?
All that is needed is -- at most -- a method to evolve the specific
targets of the WGs into slightly more-generic standing committee topics.

No need to make this more complex than required.

- Evan
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