[Fwd: Clarifications Regarding Staff Summary-Analysis of Stakeholder Group Charter Public Forum]

Mon Aug 10 14:34:03 CEST 2009

Bill:
Who exactly is seeing this exchange? All I see is NCUC-discuss being copied, which Nick is not on.
I want Aat Laarge people and others to see this. You're doing a great job of blowing their cover!

________________________________
From: Non-Commercial User Constituency [NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of William Drake [william.drake at GRADUATEINSTITUTE.CH]
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 7:13 AM
To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] [Fwd: Clarifications Regarding Staff Summary-Analysis of Stakeholder Group Charter Public Forum]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the reply.  I don't want to go on beating a dead horse, but just for the record:

On Aug 10, 2009, at 12:06 PM, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

Dear Bill:

As you addressed the question in the first paragraph to me, I'm replying, but as I didn't compose the staff summary Rob is really the better person to say what was intended by the paragraph in question, so I've copied him in.

That said, I don't believe that Rob intended (or that what he wrote actually suggests) characterises everything she said as being from ALAC - in fact it is made quite clear that her comment is a compilation of the previously-expressed views of the ALAC, and not an Advisory.

Here's the language:

Finally, although the majority of comments were strongly in support of returning to the original NCUC Charter version, ALAC favored the SIC‟s NCSG Charter that, “best meets the aims of the new GNSO Model and the Boards criteria, which we support, and believe is (with the additional version changes as at July 19th ) being essentially met.” Continuing in this vein, ALAC noted, “Maturity and development of the new design GNSO and specifically the parity and viability of the User House will benefit greatly with the „fresh start‟ this Charter in our opinion provides and it should be noted that in it we can see that the opinions and views brought forward in our processes, activities and meetings on the matter have been recognised, heard and considered.” [p.10]

Two commenters did not concur with the majority view. ALAC said, “At each of the User House Meetings since Cairo the ALAC has advised a lack of support and various concerns about the NCUC developed NCSG Charter version.”  [p. 11]

Whatever Rob intended, I think most people would read "ALAC favored the SIC's NCSG Charter" as meaning that ALAC favored the SIC's NCSG Charter, etc.

I would also note that whilst it is not mentioned, Alan's statement to the consultation period seems salutary in respect of understanding more clearly what the issues were with the previous comments made on previous drafts by the ALAC with respect to your third paragraph.

Alan's statement http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-stakeholder-charters/msg00069.html  "reiterate[s] that these comments are consistent with formal statements made by the ALAC over the last year."  I don't see a formally approved statement at http://www.atlarge.icann.org/correspondence.  I do see in the previous comment period a message from Alan http://forum.icann.org/lists/sg-petitions-charters/msg00020.html that says "The following comment has the explicit support of a number of ALAC members, but has not yet been subjected to a formal ALAC vote. It does reflect the comments that have been made by ALAC members in recent months [checking the list record, about a handful].   The ALAC is divided on the support of the proposal submitted by Robin Gross of the NCUC. Some members feel that although there are some problems with the proposal, it generally addresses their concerns, and in particular, the de-linking of Council seats from Constituencies is a very good move in the right direction. Problems notwithstanding, the proposal should receive Board approval. Others feel that the issues still outstanding are sufficient to withhold Board support at this time."

It is not obvious how "ALAC favored the SIC's NCSG Charter" can be deemed "consistent with" the earlier "The ALAC is divided on the support of the proposal submitted by Robin Gross of the NCUC..." especially given the lack of discussion, much less consensus or a formal position, on the SIC's NCSG Charter. But no matter, we all understand where we are here.

Cheers,

Bill

I hope this is helpful; I'm sure Rob will reply on his own behalf in due course.

William Drake wrote:
Hi Nick

Thanks for this.  Let me make sure I understand what Rob's saying.  CLO's personal statement endorsing the SIC charter can properly be characterized by staff as an ALAC endorsement of the charter because a) the staff summary does not purport to address every specific argument (but simply to mischaracterize them when convenient?) and b) her message was prefaced by a disclaimer stating that she was presenting a synopsis of ALAC conversations from before the SIC charter was even produced.  So ALAC did not actually have to have discussed the SIC charter, much less have reached consensus on it, in order for staff to characterize her position as ALAC's.  Do I have that right?

Interesting parallel: I asked Rob in a GNSO council meeting, and reiterated in my submission to the public comment period, that statements made in support of the NCUC version by NCUC members and hundreds (counting the Internet Governance Caucus etc) of external supporters in the public comment period ending 15 April be taken into account in the summary of the PC ending 23 July.  The reasons for doing so were straightforward: there was no reason to believe that the organizations and individuals that said they supported the NCUC model and therefore rejected the opposite model had changed their positions,  so they should not be required to all mobilize and restate their stances a couple months later, in the summer travel season (although some did).  The suggestion was not acted upon or even mentioned in the staff summary.

So: a synopsis of ALAC conversations during the previous PC period, in which it was concluded that there was no consensus in ALAC on the charters, can be cited as an ALAC endorsement of a version that was never discussed or agreed on.  But a substantial number of comments from NCUC and its supporters during the same previous PC period that unambiguously supported the NCUC model and rejected the alternative did not merit mention.  And in any event, civil society objections to the SIC charter in the July PC period should sort of be discounted because, the staff summary says, "well over half of the responses appeared to be a direct or indirect [fuzzy math?] result of a letter writing campaign initiated by Robin Gross."  Outreach soliciting the public comments ICANN was soliciting renders those comments suspect, if it is done by NCUC.

Thank you for clarifying once again how ICANN's bottom-up, transparent, and accountable community processes work.

Best,

Bill

On Aug 7, 2009, at 7:48 PM, Nick Ashton-Hart wrote:

Dear All:

As a couple of queries have come in from Bill and Adam with respect to the staff summary of the NCSG public comment period, Rob has sent along the below.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Clarifications Regarding Staff Summary-Analysis of Stakeholder Group Charter Public Forum
Date:   Fri, 7 Aug 2009 08:50:47 -0700
From:   Robert Hoggarth <robert.hoggarth at icann.org><mailto:robert.hoggarth at icann.org>
To:     Nick Ashton-Hart <Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org><mailto:Nick.Ashton-Hart at icann.org>

Dear Nick:

I understand that there have been some recent discussion within the At-Large community regarding the Staff Summary/Analysis (S/A) of the submissions in the GNSO Stakeholder Group Charter Forum that closed on 24 July.- http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#stakeholder - and particularly the reference the S/A document makes to the comments submitted by ALAC Chair Cheryl Langdon-Orr.

As the staff person responsible for that document, I wanted to make sure that I cleared up any potential confusion in the attribution assigned to Cheryl’s submission in the S/A.  At the beginning of every S/A document we clearly include the caution to the reader that:

“This document is intended to broadly and comprehensively summarize the comments of the various contributors to this forum but not to address every specific argument or position stated by any or all contributors.  The Staff recommends that readers interested in specific aspects of any of the summarized comments or the full statements of others refer directly to the originally posted contributions.”

Further, with respect to the specific comments submitted by Cheryl, I reproduced verbatim the disclaimer that she provided at the top of her submission.  Footnote one at the beginning of the S/A document reads:

“[1] The Submission by Cheryl Langdon-Orr specifically noted the following disclaimer, ‘This comment is intended to ensure that the Board Structural Improvements Committee (SIC) is aware of and takes into account in this current public comment period the previous activities, views and opinions, including Advice to the Board, and ratified Statements of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and the At-Large Community with specific reference to the development of the new structure of the GNSO, its Council and the Stakeholder Group model. This is not a formal or ratified statement or comment per se but rather a synopsis of those previously provided in various fora to date.’ For identification purposes this document uses the ‘ALAC’ initials to refer to the submission.”

If for any reason, Cheryl would like to clarify her comments or if she thinks the initials I used to identify her comments were inappropriate, please have her send me an email at robert.hoggarth at icann.org<UrlBlockedError.aspx> and I will work with the web-admin and tech-support teams to re-open the Forum record to insert any clarifications she might want to make to her submission.

Besr,

Rob Hoggarth

--
--
Regards,

Nick Ashton-Hart
Director for At-Large
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Tel: +33 (450) 42 81 83
USA Tel: +1 (310) 301-8637
Fax: : +41 (22) 594-85-44
Mobile: (Switzerland): +41 79 595 5468
email: nick.ashton-hart at icann.org<mailto:nick.ashton-hart at icann.org>
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Online Bio:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashtonhart

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
  Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch<mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html<http://www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html>
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