[RAA-WG] Introductory Comment

[Seth M Reiss]

Hey, of you guys could somehow shrink your discussion, maybe I would have a
chance of catching up and providing input!

-----Original Message-----
From: raa-wg-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
[mailto:raa-wg-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Brendler, Beau
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 9:20 AM
To: dannyyounger at yahoo.com; raa-wg at atlarge-lists.icann.org
Cc: At-Large Staff
Subject: Re: [RAA-WG] Introductory Comment

Danny (and others),

If you want to go this route, probably best to work with staff/Cheryl and
divvy some of this work up, and/or elect another chair -- perhaps even spend
some of the limited ALAC budget and hire a professional meeting facilitator.
Even if I were getting paid, I don't even have the time to read to the
bottom of this note, let alone attempt to address some of the process issues
you raise.

BB

-----Original Message-----
From: Danny Younger [mailto:dannyyounger at yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 2:30 PM
To: raa-wg at atlarge-lists.icann.org; Brendler, Beau
Cc: At-Large Staff
Subject: RE: [RAA-WG] Introductory Comment

Beau,

I'm normally not big on process but it is advisable to set some housekeeping
rules:

1.  Normally the membership of a WG is spelled out in the Terms of Reference
-- for example, neither I nor Michele Neylon are ALAC members, and some
participants might not be designated members of an ALS.  Is this WG open
only to those that self identify as at-large members, or will it be open
only to credentialed ALS members?  Will it be open to constituency members
(such as those from the BC, IPC, NCUC etc)? Will it be open to GAC members?
Will it be open to the general public?  Will some participants be designated
as "observers" without voting rights, or will all have rights?  This is a WG
established by the ALAC that should be setting down some participatory WG
ground rules that govern how decisions are reached.  Will we vote? or will
the Chair declare when consensus has been reached?  Is the Chair empowered
to communicate WG results directly to the Board, or will WG results be
necessarily vetted by the ALAC that may reword whatever Statement  emerges?

2.  Suggestion to increase the WG size:  after arriving at Terms of
Reference and a timeline for the project, the Chair or ICANN Staff should
send a personal email to each of the contacts noted on every single
accredited ALS application form asking for their participation -- a notice
on an ALAC announcement list alone is insufficient.  This should be coupled
with a prominent notice on ICANN's home page noting the formation of a WG.
Additionally, the Public Participation Manager should be engaged to
facilitate spreading the word broadly.  I would suggest limiting
participation to no more than the first 120 that apply for WG membership
(otherwise the WG may become unmanagable).

3.  With regard to regional participation, the ALAC should ask all regional
secretariats to post a WG formation notice on each RALO list, and as the
issue of rights is prominently being discussed on the IGC Governance List
whose members hail from all over the planet, a notification on that list
would also be of help.

The following prior work on DNSO WG establishment/structure etc. may be
informative:

10. Procedures for working groups

10.1 Definition of working group

A working group is a group established by the Names Council (NC) of the
Domain Name Supporting Organisation (DNSO) of the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at its own initiative or by way of
considering a petition from the General Assembly, and charged with a
specific task.

10.2 Objective

The objective of a Working Group is to:

formulate positions on policies,
facilitate the development of consensus support for policies produce a
report to the NC highlighting these positions and level of support.

10.3 Membership

Working Groups are open to all DNSO participants defined as follows: -
members of the Names Council - the Names Council secretariat - members of
the ICANN Board - the ICANN officers and staff - the GA Chair and Co-Chair -
members of the General Assembly (GA) defined as subscribers to the
ga at dnso.org, announce at dnso.org or the GA voting register.

Persons new to the ICANN process who wish to participate in a working group
will be asked to join the ga-announce list to qualify for membership.

Working Group membership is open throughout the life of the Working Group.

10.4 Criteria

Before establishing a working group the Names Council will consider the
following criteria: a) whether the issue is relevant to the mission of the
DNSO b) the need for a consensus policy c) whether the issue overlaps with
that of an existing Working Group d) whether there is sufficient interest
within the DNSO in the issue and enough people willing to expend the effort
to produce the desired result e) whether there is enough expertise within
the DNSO on the issue.

10.5 Terms of reference

The Names Council will nominate an individual or establish a small interim
committee to draft terms of reference (a charter) which will at minimum
specify:

a narrow and achievable objective
a timeframe for achieving the objective
a set of interim objectives by which to measure progress a member of the
Names Council who will act as a Supervisory Chair a short descriptive name
for the Working Group The draft terms will be posted to the NC list and the
DNSO ga-announce mailing list as a public notice that the formation of the
Working Group is being considered. After a review period lasting at least a
week the NC, after reviewing comments, will approve the original or modified
terms. Following this the DNSO secretariat will establish:

a mailing list or such other electronic forum a procedure for subscribing
and un-subscribing to the Working Group a dedicated web page on the DNSO web
site (www.dnso.org) an accessible mailing list archive

10.6 Supervisory Chair and WG Chair

The Supervisory Chair has five key functions:

to be responsible for the initial establishment of the WG to act as
returning officer for holding elections for a WG chair. These elections
should take place early but not too early once WG participants have got to
know one another. Specifically, a vote to choose such a person from early
group participants whose chairing abilities may be unknown should be
avoided. The Supervisory Chair may themselves stand for election in which
case another NC member will supervise the election to take on all the
responsibilities of the Chair especially including the start of substantive
discussion, until the election is complete to provide frequent liaison with
the Names Council to ensure the WG Chair is fulfilling his/her
responsibilities

The WG Chair's key functions are:

to be responsible for fulfilling the terms of reference in the time
specified, to be responsible for working group discipline, focus and
achievements, to prepare and chair face-to-face and on-line sessions, to
ensure that the Working Group operates in an open and fair manner, to ensure
that discussions are relevant (the Chair should propose a set of topics for
e-mail subject headers), to intervene to stop off-topic communication, to
summarise outcomes of each issue, to achieve interim and final objectives in
conformance with the terms of reference.
And for face to face meetings the WG Chair is required:

to ensure an attendance list is made,
to publish a short report on the session within 10 days.
The WG Chair and the Supervisory Chair report to the Names Council.

10.7 Removal of the Supervisory Chair or Working Group Chair

In the event that the WG Chair:

acts contrary to these rules and procedures or beyond the scope set forth in
the Working Group's terms of reference, or fails to achieve interim results
then the Supervisory Chair after consultation with the Names Council, upon
the reasonable request of one or more Working Group members, shall have the
authority to remove and hold elections for another WG Chair.

In the event that the Supervisory Chair:

acts contrary to these rules and procedures or beyond the scope set forth in
the Working Group's terms of reference, or fails to fulfil the
responsibilities of a Supervisory Chair, as set forth above, then the Names
Council shall have the authority to remove and appoint another Supervisory
Chair.

10.8 New Ideas

New ideas that are on-topic will be made in a new thread with a subject
heading that succinctly and clearly identifies its subject matter. Ideas
that are off topic will be pointed out by the WG Chair and stopped.

10.9 Procedural questions

Any member of the Working Group may raise a question to the WG Chair or the
Supervisory Chair that relates to the procedures of the group (a point of
order). Any procedural question which is not answered to the satisfaction of
the person asking it should be directed to the NC Intake Committee for
consideration. nc-intake at dnso.org

10.10 Voting

>From time to time progress will be advanced by holding straw polls to
determine the majority view. A motion to approve a draft proposal or report
(or any section thereof) may be made by any member of the Working Group.
Once seconded and approved by the WG Chair, such motion shall be put to a
vote of the Working Group members. In such an event, the WG Chair shall poll
the Working Group members. Motions that receive a majority of votes cast
shall be deemed approved.

Consensus. Because of the diverse nature of open working groups the results
of any vote will be taken solely to assist with progress within the group. A
majority vote of a working group should be described as a majority vote of a
working group. No claim to DNSO stakeholder consensus should be attributed
to such a vote.

10.11 Real time work

Working Group members or subsets of the group may meet in real-time (in
person or via a form of electronic conferencing). Decisions reached or
drafts developed during real-time meetings must be reviewed on the mailing
list or other forum.

10.12 Proposal development

Groups drafting position statements should publish them to the WG. Groups
submitting interim position statements should be free to revise those
statements after reading the reports or others. Working Groups should
publish the position statements for a period of comment, specifically
seeking comments not only on the substance of the positions but also on
impact and cost issues. These positions papers should not be the end result
of the Working Group's efforts, but should serve as tools for finding common
ground and addressing concerns of specific groups. Working Group members
should strive to make compromises when appropriate.

10.13 Disputes and role of an interim report

Many conflicts can be resolved by simple votes. The majority view goes
forward and is documented in an interim report. However, where in the
opinion of the WG Chair, there is a significant minority proposal, this
proposal should also be documented in the interim report of the Working
Group. The interim report should contain:

an abstract of all proposals which achieved a meaningful level of support, a
clear statement of what is being proposed and its underlying rationale, an
analysis of who and what systems might be impacted by the proposal, the
specific steps that would be necessary to take to implement the proposal,
the costs and risks, if any, of implementing the proposal and how they would
be borne, and a statement of which stakeholders have been consulted about
the proposal and what support the proposal has in the various stakeholder
communities.

10.14 Draft final report

The goal of the Working Group process is to produce a Report containing
recommendations for submission to the NC.

The Report should contain the following sections:

Executive summary of not more than 1000 words Terms of reference Conclusion
- a clear and concise statement of the proposal discussed in the Working
Group and the conclusion reached Impact analysis - a full analysis of who
might be impacted, including other supporting organisations, and in what
ways, by such a policy Constituency impact reviews - a summary and analysis
of evidence provided by DNSO constituencies Record of outreach - a record of
outreach to any segment of the Internet community that might be affected by
the proposed policy Minority reports - a fair statement of points in
opposition and a substantive analysis of their merits and the intensity of
the opposition Supporting arguments - a summary of the best arguments for
adoption of the policy Risk/Cost analysis - an analysis of the risks and
costs of the proposed policy

10.15 Publication and comment period

The interim report should be published to the General Assembly, Names
Council and Constituency secretariats for debate, comment and criticism and
the resulting feedback incorporated into a Final Report. The Working Group
shall provide such comment period as is reasonable considering the
complexity, importance, and urgency of the policy under consideration.

10.16 Final report

The final report shall be submitted by the WG Chair to the Names Council
within the time frame specified in the terms of reference.

10.17 Termination

Working Groups will be disbanded automatically on completion of their task
or disbanded by the Names Council earlier if deadlock is evident.

10.18 Revising the terms of reference

The terms of reference may be re-visited by the Names Council on the request
of the WG Chair or the Supervisory Chair.

regards,
Danny







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