[NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy Comment Period

[Ayden Férdeline]

Shane, hi-

Thanks for kicking off the discussion on this important issue.

While I think it is admirable that ICANN has chosen a gender neutral title in “ombudsperson”, I agree it is a most awkward term… not that I can think of a better one. That said, I’m not sure that I agree with calling this dispute resolution practitioner a “public advocate” either. Who do they work for, ultimately? With full respect to the current office holder (who I have not met and would not recognise, so I am insinuating nothing), how neutral can we really expect them to be? Their salary is, ultimately, paid for by ICANN. They might be more of a public advocate than this new Complaints Officer putting a public face on emails ghost written by Jones Day, but I do not see them as a disinterested third party. Rather, they are someone with an acute awareness of the constraints ICANN has on their activities and relationships within and outside the organisation.

But semantics aside, I’m not convinced the ombudsperson is the right contact for dealing with incidents of harassment. Conflict resolution, sure. But inappropriate behaviour that could justify, say, removing someone from a mailing list or a face-to-face meeting, or where it might be necessary to involve law enforcement? No. I am sure that ICANN has HR personnel who would be better equipped to make such a call.

Also… I do not agree with listing examples of “inappropriate behaviour”. We do not have common values as a community. It is not hard to me to see how something like, “Touching that the actor may not have intended to be sexually suggestive but which constitutes uninvited touching” could be misinterpreted. In my view it is up to the aggrieved party to make the call as to whether or not they are being harassed or subject to inappropriate behaviour. We do not need a list of arbitrary actions that can easily be misinterpreted.

Best wishes,



Ayden Férdeline
[linkedin.com/in/ferdeline](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline)



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy Comment Period
Local Time: 15 November 2016 2:55 AM
UTC Time: 15 November 2016 02:55
From: shane at time-travellers.org
To: Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>
NCSG-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu <NCSG-DISCUSS at listserv.syr.edu>, ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>

Ayden,

At 2016-11-11 16:22:30 -0500
Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com> wrote:

> Thanks for flagging this. I have read the proposed policy and it
> needs serious work. So yes, I think we should submit a public comment
> on this matter as the NCSG (we cannot as the NCUC) if only because I
> believe we should provide input into all requests for public comment.

Agree on both counts. :)

> However, I am not certain we currently have a common position on this
> issue. In the months after Marrakech, my recollection is that our
> GNSO Councillors could not come together and reach a consensus on the
> proposed changes to ICANN's Expected Standards of Behaviour, and
> there were good reasons for that. Sooo... we should submit a comment
> here. But I hope the comment we submit is one which is consistent
> with the positions for which the NCSG has consistently advocated for;
> values of due process, procedural fairness, and so forth.

So... let's start?

My main concern with the proposed policy is the role of the
ombudsperson (a word which makes me cringe, BTW, surely "public
advocate" is just as easy to say and more self-descriptive). It seems
to grant complete and arbitrary power to a single individual. Even if
previous cases of harassment had been handled perfectly (I don't think
they were), this would be a bad model.

No discussion is made for privacy of any of the participants in the
procedure description. I don't have any recommendations here, but it
seems like it should be explicitly addressed.

I REALLY LIKE the list documenting what harassment it. As I understand
it, that is best practice in codes of conduct these days. It makes it
better for everyone. Clueless individuals actually have some document
they can read to find out what might be a problem, and sleazy
individuals have much less wiggle room to claim that their actions are
harmless. Also, a lot of complaints about a potential harassment policy
have been along the lines of "oh but different cultures blah blah
blah". In this case, we can say, "don't know, don't care... here's how
we behave at ICANN".

I like less the list of Specified Characteristic (which is oddly
capitalized, I guess because we like to capitalize Some Things). I
suppose it is good to give Examples of Things that are commonly Causes
of Disrespectful Behavior, but it could be interpreted as a
comprehensive list. While it is long (and unwieldy), surely this is not
a complete List of Bigotry in the world... and probably such a list is
impossible.

Cheers,

--
Shane
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20161115/48a514c0/attachment-0002.html>