[EURO-Discuss] Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you?

Fri Feb 23 17:15:00 UTC 2018

Olivier

Sorry if I wasn’t clear – I wasn’t referring solely to “community” people being sent to events – I was also referring albeit obliquely at both staff and board.

Regards

Michele

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From: Olivier Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
Date: Friday 23 February 2018 at 18:13
To: Michele Neylon <michele at blacknight.com>, Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com>
Cc: Euralo <euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Subject: Re: [EURO-Discuss] Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you?

Dear Michele,

in a bit of a rush at present, but re: why so many people funded to come to ICANN meetings, it is all part of building a balanced multistakeholder community. In fact some of the people that were funded to come were also from governments and they brought back their experience to their government, which had positive political implications back there. These implications cannot be calculated by exact science, like a return on investment. But they have had an impact in other fora such as on the ITU discussions, OECD, and government stances out there.
As for funding people to go to non-ICANN events, there are two reasons:
1. the people that go to these non-ICANN events are the community face of ICANN and have managed to improve ICANN's image greatly through engaging with the rest of the world
2. the people that have gone to these non-ICANN events have managed to bring more people in the ICANN processes that ended up in leadership positions.

In fact with the GDPR we have a case in point about why ICANN needs to engage out there: whilst GDPR development was going on in Brussels for several years, nobody at ICANN listened when community members pointed out that it was important to be not only aware but engage in the discussions. ICANN's failure to address this because it was too busy looking at its own self image of IANA Stewardship Transition & ICANN Accountability, has now put it in front of a serious problem, namely that it is completely unprepared a few months from enforcement. So OK now we're working on GDPR, but what else is out there, waiting to bite us? There is a continuum of more stuff coming our way and having community members out there as both lookouts and emissaries is way cheaper than having a department of over 50 staff working on this. In fact, supporting the community to perform this task is a very economical way to do it as you don't need to pay them salaries.

But I do agree, though, that there should be improvements to the accountability of who is sent out there, with "bad actors", those who are using the system for tourism, being blacklisted so they do not continue to abuse the system.

Kindest regards,

Olivier
On 23/02/2018 13:15, Michele Neylon - Blacknight wrote:
Well I’d like to see proper data showing the value that the investment has brought.
I also wonder why on earth ICANN funds so many people to attend non-ICANN events

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From: Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com><mailto:roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com>
Date: Friday 23 February 2018 at 13:56
To: Michele Neylon <michele at blacknight.com><mailto:michele at blacknight.com>
Cc: S Van Gelder <svg at milathan.ltd><mailto:svg at milathan.ltd>, Euralo <euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org><mailto:euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Subject: Re: [EURO-Discuss] Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you?

Michele,
I agree with you  - the matter is very complex, that’s why I have difficulties in reducing it to a petition yes/no. What we need to do is to have a deeper analysis on the budget and the priorities.
This said, my gut feeling is that the cuts do not apply in a fair way neither geopolitically nor by stakeholder type. But this is a consequence of he fact that there is no discussion about the priorities. The big question is whether outreach, in particular towards the less represented stakeholder (Internet users), is a priority and whether geopolitical representation is a priority. If we fail to stand up and bringing this issue to the table, with data and convincing arguments and not just gut feeling or self-serving arguments, then we cannot complain.
Cheers,
Roberto

On 23.02.2018, at 13:11, Michele Neylon - Blacknight <michele at blacknight.com<mailto:michele at blacknight.com>> wrote:

Roberto

There’s a much deeper issue – ICANN has spent a lot of money on a load of different programmes but has very little data to measure the ROI / KPIs etc

If EURALO or anyone else wants to submit comments on the budget cuts they should be pragmatic and realistic.

There is no way that ICANN can keep spending money that it does not have.

Regards

Michele

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Blacknight Solutions
Hosting, Colocation & Domains
https://www.blacknight.com/
https://blacknight.blog/
https://ceo.hosting/
Intl. +353 (0) 59  9183072
Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090
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Ireland  Company No.: 370845
From: EURO-Discuss <euro-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org<mailto:euro-discuss-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org>> on behalf of Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com<mailto:roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com>>
Date: Wednesday 21 February 2018 at 23:07
To: S Van Gelder <svg at milathan.ltd<mailto:svg at milathan.ltd>>
Cc: Euralo <euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org<mailto:euro-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>>
Subject: Re: [EURO-Discuss] Should EURALO sign a petition? Should you?

My personal opinion is that the question is not about the budget cuts - if cuts are needed, let it be so - but how the cuts are affecting the different stakeholders. The question for me is whether the impact of the cuts on the different stakeholder groups is fair or whether there is one part of the community that is affected more than others.
Still, the question of whether a petition is in order or not holds. But on the other question, that is whether the affected communities should raise the issue, my position is “Yes, definitively”.
Andrei is right. We need data. What is the foreseeable consequence of this budget cut on internet users? My personal opinion is that in the users community most of the outreach is through the means that are now been reduced. This will simply mean that we put further obstacles to user participation. But we need more than just personal opinions if we want to build a case.
Cheers,
Roberto

On 21.02.2018, at 22:15, Stéphane Van Gelder - Milathan <svg at milathan.ltd<mailto:svg at milathan.ltd>> wrote:

Completely agree with Andrei. I oppose the signing of a petition to oppose cuts. I would add to his reasons the fact that the Board Chair and the CEO have both laid down extremely well articulated arguments for why budget cuts are needed. I would worry that a EURALO response through a petition would not only look political, it would look immature.

If we have strong arguments as to why some cuts should not happen, let’s produce them through the usual ICANN discussion channels open to us.

Thanks,

Stéphane

On 21 Feb 2018, at 21:24, Andrei Kolesnikov <andrei at rol.ru<mailto:andrei at rol.ru>> wrote:

I'm against signing any petition onchange.org<http://change.org/>, because it sounds political. If community  is against the cut, this must be articulated with facts, numbers and names. I don't like personnel cost increase, but this is another issue. --andrei

2018-02-21 20:06 GMT+03:00 Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com<mailto:ocl at gih.com>>:
Dear colleagues,

on yesterday's EURALO monthly call, the following Action Item was recorded.
:
Olivier Crepin-Leblond<https://community.icann.org/display/%7Eolivier.crepin-leblond> Olivier to follow up on the EURALO mailing list on the suggestion from Oksana for EURALO support the petition against reduction of the ICANN fellowship as well as to write an EURALO statement against the CROP elimination.

As you know, the ICANN FY19 budget is undergoing to reduction. This will mean that some programmes are frozen, whilst others are actually reduced. The current draft of the program is showing drastic cuts in community engagement and policy. The Fellowship is being slashed, and so is the NextGen program. The Community Regional Outreach Pilot Program (CROP) which was confirmed into the main budget as it was seen as being so helpful, is being cancelled altogether. It is a terrible state of affairs, as it appears that ICANN has targeted community initiatives for outreach and engagement to a much greater extent that other programmes and the cuts, as a percentage of the budget for outreach and engagement initiatives are way larger than for other programmes.

You might has seen a petition out there, entitled "Stop the ICANN Budget Cuts and Save the Fellowship Program!"
On last night's EURALO call, Oksana Prykhodko asked whether EURALO could be inclined to sign this petition:
https://www.change.org/p/icann-stop-the-icann-budget-cuts-and-save-the-fellowship-program

The signing of a petition is highly unusual for a RALO. I can recall several occurrences of a RALO releasing its own Statement. I can also recall EURALO supporting EuroDIG as a partner - and this translates to the EURALO Chair (previously Wolf Ludwig and now yours truly) being active in the organisation of EuroDIG. If my memory serves me right, the only time EURALO has signed a Petition, might be the signature for support of NetMundial outcomes. Perhaps can Wolf help with other potential occurences?

At the end of the day, there are no rules on whether EURALO may or may not sign this petition. So the decision is in your hands, the EURALO members.

Should EURALO sign the petition?
Should your ALS sign the petition?

Kindest regards,

Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond
EURALO Chair

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