[At-Large] ALAC Draft Accountability Framework and Conflicts of Interest Policy

[Veronica Cretu]

Greetings everyone! 

I would be careful about decertification of non-participating ALSs, instead 
I would rather think about a mechanism that can help us improve the 
process/situation and there are a number of comments/ideas I want to share 
here:  

1. There are parts of the world from where it is hard to get organizations 
interested to join ALS. e.g. We have now finally an organization from 
Romania that applied (APTI), but if I am to speak in general about the 
region I come from, it is difficult to get people in: the community is not 
ready yet, lack of awareness vis-a-vis those issues we are discussing about 
at ICANN level, etc. It is much more difficult to get organizations in 
compared to decertifying them:)!

2. Once we have new ALSs 'on board' there should be an "accommodation phase" 
(from 1-3 months max): period during which new ALSs go through the reports, 
reading the vast amount of information, participate in their first 
teleconferences, etc.
3. After the 'accommodation phase', ALSs can/might be asked to submit brief 
reports on a monthly basis emphasizing 2 aspects: their contribution to 
RALOs discussion/policy issues/working groups, etc. AND their 'home' related 
news: an event they organized, a publication they made, or anything else the 
organization did in connection to any user related issues/policy/problems, 
etc. 
4. If any ALS fails to report 3 months in turn, then we can discuss about 
decertification of this certain ALS. 

If at this point, as Danny said "I would guess that probably close to 90% do 
not participate at all in any exchange of dialogue" than, we definitely need 
a mechanism in place that would involve a greater participation of the ALSs 
in the dialogue. 

Do we know what are the main reasons these organizations are hesitant to any 
involvement: 
- How have we asked them (any survey done?, any interviews conducted or 
anything else), 
- What are the challenges that ALSs might face in regards to the issues 
being discussed and the way they might get invovled into these discussions? 
- How many reports have we received from ALSs so far? 
- How many and what kind of complaints have we received from ALSs? 
etc. 

I think before we start discussing about the decertification, we should 
assess what can still be done/improved. 

Any ideas are welcome ... 

Have a great weekend ahead everyone,
as ever,
Veronica 

    
  

   
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
To: At-Large Worldwide <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 16:24:10 -0400
Subject: Re: [At-Large] ALAC Draft Accountability Framework and Conflicts of 
Interest Policy


I agree about decertification, although I am not at all sure that 
lack of participation should be the driving issue. Before I decertify 
ALSs for lack of participation, I would like to see some info and 
stats about how the RALOs are drawing them into the discussions.

On participation in the gTLD session, I think that this may a bit too 
far removed from most ALSs, particularly since the announced topic 
was how to implement the existing GNSO proposals (and not re-opening 
the discussion on the proposals).

Alan

At 12/04/2008 03:41 PM, Danny Younger wrote:
>Alan and Wendy,
>
>Thanks for your work on this document.  Allow me to
>point out what still is missing.
>
>We need some emphasis on the obligation of ALAC
>members to act to decertify non-participating ALSs.
>
>At this point, that's the vast bulk of those that have
>been certified.  I would guess that probably close to
>90% do not participate at all in any exchange of
>dialogue.
>
>The ICANN Bylaws tell us that "Decisions to certify or
>decertify an At-Large Structure shall be made as
>decided by the ALAC in its Rules of Procedure".
>
>Unfortunately, whoever drafted the rules of procedure
>must have thought that they were crafting a document
>for the United Nations General Assembly, so, of
>course, no decertification process is outlined within.
>
>You're not going to be viewed as an accountable body
>if you continue to carry this much noncontributing
>dead wood on your membership roster.
>
>At the major GNSO conference that was just held in LA
>on new gTLD implementation considerations, how many
>ALSs had their reps in attendance (either remotely or
>in person)?  Just two.  That's rather pathetic when
>the ALAC claims to have 100 or so ALSs signed up.
>
>
>
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