[NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Public Board Meeting - the Updatefor Prague

Fri May 4 15:18:56 UTC 2012

Here here!

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From: "Beau Brendler" <beaubrendler at earthlink.net>
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 11:12 AM
To: "Eduardo Diaz" <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>; "Bret Fausett" 
<bfausett at internet.law.pro>
Cc: "NA Discuss" <na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Public Board Meeting - the UpdateforPrague> I believe it was discussed and decided fairly quickly last week. It's 
funny, I find myself without much to say about it, because for at least 
three years now ICANN has not funded me to stay for Friday's meetings, so I 
have not attended one. I don't think they are doing away with the public 
forum, however. Though I know I am in the minority here, I find that to be a 
waste of time as well.
>
> What I have occasionally found helpful are the interactions between the 
> board and the at-large group at the three annual meetings -- sometimes 
> it's a breakfast, sometimes it's a lunch. On a few occasions it has 
> provided an opportunity to grill board members on problematic topics.
>
> However, last time, I found the interaction to be predictably scripted. We 
> spent the time talking about cross-functional teams or some sort of 
> useless topic. If this public board meeting is going to go away, then what 
> should happen -- since the at-large is supposed to represent the public 
> interest -- is that the at-large should tell the board what it wants to 
> discuss in its meeting, and it should follow up on each statement ALAC has 
> made since the last meeting to determine what the board has or has not 
> done about it.
>
> For instance, in Prague, I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting 
> of the TAS disaster. I suggest the at-large demand a full accounting of 
> the board conflict-of-interest problems. I suggest the at-large demand a 
> full accounting of what's being done to address the IANA contract issue. 
> Not be shown some pre-scripted video, but have an actual interaction 
> that's not phony. And it all needs to go on the public record.
>
> The at-large needs to take on a role similar to that of a major 
> shareholder in a public for-profit company. Executive behavior should be 
> its business; failure to execute should be its business. ALAC needs to be 
> more outside the process looking in, not submerged in process issues that 
> are essentially meaningless to the general public. If we are arguing to 
> hold on to a meeting so that we can parse the body language of 
> participants, then the entire philosophy of public interaction with the 
> board needs to be re-thought.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Eduardo Diaz <eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com>
>>Sent: May 4, 2012 8:19 AM
>>To: Bret Fausett <bfausett at internet.law.pro>
>>Cc: NA Discuss <na-discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
>>Subject: Re: [NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Public Board Meeting - the Update for 
>>Prague
>>
>>When and how was this announced?
>>
>>-ed
>>
>>On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:23 AM, Bret Fausett 
>><bfausett at internet.law.pro>wrote:
>>
>>> I am very troubled by the decision to remove the public meeting. As I 
>>> see
>>> it, this presents several issues for the community:
>>>
>>> 1) The Board meeting typically closes a cycle of community discussion 
>>> with
>>> a vote/resolution on some issue, and these end-of-meeting Board 
>>> resolutions
>>> are important. The deadline of closing an issue at a public meeting also
>>> keeps the Board on track. Do they still intend to meet and close issues?
>>> This needs to happen.
>>>
>>> 2) The public meetings became a bit of orchestrated theater over the
>>> years, but I still believe they served the purpose of showing the 
>>> Board's
>>> professionalism in addressing and resolving difficult issues. Last 
>>> June's
>>> meeting on New TLDs is the most recent example of this. Take a look at 
>>> this
>>> picture from Singapore that ICANN features on its website:
>>> http://www.icann.org/en/about That's worth a thousand words. Note the
>>> people in the foreground using their camera phones to capture the 
>>> moment.
>>> We're losing that.
>>>
>>> 3) Closing the monthly meetings while leaving these end-of-session
>>> meetings open was something of a compromise reached between a prior 
>>> Board
>>> and the ICANN community many years ago. I am concerned that the Board
>>> decided to change the status quo without any notice and comment.
>>>
>>> 4) As always, ICANN is under scrutiny with the IANA bid still to be
>>> resolved and issues of transparency at the forefront of some of those
>>> discussions. The way this was handled (was there a Board resolution?
>>> Chair's decision?) only makes the optics worse. I can't seem to find any
>>> background on how this decision was made, or why it was made.
>>>
>>>       Bret
>>> ------
>>> NA-Discuss mailing list
>>> NA-Discuss at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>>> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/na-discuss
>>>
>>> Visit the NARALO online at http://www.naralo.org
>>> ------
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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