[NCUC-DISCUSS] Case Zuan Zhang aka Peter Green

Sun Apr 23 13:47:02 CEST 2017

++++1 With your commments.

It was what I stated yesterday : Procedures for that must/should have been
be in placed and followed in a transparent  manner. Otherwise we keep
speculating  in philosophical discussions.

Best Regards
@__f_f__
about.me/farell
________________________________.
Mail sent from my mobile phone. Excuse for brievety.
Le 23 avr. 2017 11:00 AM, "Tapani Tarvainen" <ncuc at tapani.tarvainen.info> a
écrit :

> Dear all,
>
> Now that we have seen the statement from former EC members as well as
> Zuan's response, it is time to review what happened and how, try to
> understand what went wrong and why, and what lessons we could draw
> from it.
>
> I must admit I find a big puzzling suggestions that we should not
> discuss this any more. Surely the point of making statements to the
> membership is to allow members to review and discuss them. And there
> clearly are open questions, issues that have not been discussed
> anywhere near thoroughly.
>
> Zuan was removed from the EC and by now his term would've expired long
> ago anyway, in that sense the case is closed - but it's only been just
> opened for analyzing what happened.
>
> ******
>
> Transparency and due process are our core values, issues we keep
> pushing for in ICANN. I may be naive or idealistic in that, but I do
> believe we should try to live the way we preach as much as we can.
>
> And in this case transparency and due process did not fare well.
>
> Of course, being human we all make mistakes. I sure have made my share
> of them. And errors are always easier to see with hindsight.
>
> But when we do make mistakes, we should not try to forget them as soon
> as possible. Instead we should try to learn from them so we can do
> better in the future. It really isn't enough to say it "could have
> been handled better" without any suggestion as to how, or to note
> transparency concerns without actually addressing them.
>
> My intent is not to blame or accuse or embarrass anyone or determine
> guilt or anything like that. I see no reason to assume anyone acted in
> bad faith, and I will not name any potential culprits. Rather this a
> story of how even with the best of intentions things can go awry, and
> as far as I can tell the fault lies largely in the process, lack of
> proper procedures, and that's the main reason why I think it is
> important to understand what happened: we need to fix that, write up
> procedures so that things will be better next time.
>
> So, I'm not so much concerned with the who or even with the what but
> with the *how*.
>
> This discussion is particularly timely because NCSG EC has been
> working on detailed member removal procedural rules as per our charter
> 2.2.6., and we're planning to it bring out the first draft for the
> membership to review within a few weeks. Having a precedent to reflect
> on should be most useful there.
>
> As for whether or not Zuan was actually ineligible for NCSG or NCUC
> membership at the time, I've refrained from taking a stand because as
> NCSG Chair I would not want to prejudge it in case it came to NCSG EC.
> But for the present purpose it doesn't matter much: it is sufficient
> to note it was not totally obvious, a foregone conclusion, but one
> where reasonably people could disagree, one in need of both
> fact-finding and rule-reading before reaching a decision.
>
> Another issue is if NCUC EC had (has) the right to expel or suspend
> its members. While there's no such right in old (current) bylaws, it
> can be argued it could be derived from some general principles, but
> surely that is not altogether obvious either.
>
> I do think there *should* be a way to remove EC members and I'm glad
> it's been taken care of in the proposed new bylaws. I don't see,
> however, how that could somehow vindicate actions taken under the old
> bylaws. If anything, the need for such a change could be seen
> indicating the old (current) bylaws did not give such right to the EC.
>
> But what I'm most worried about would be just as worrysome even if
> Zuan had been utterly and obviously ineligible and even if there had
> been explicit right in the bylaws for the EC to expel him (even though
> in that case things would probably have happened differently).
>
> ******
>
> Let's take a look at what happened, as far as is publicly known.
>
> A brief timeline:
>
> (1) July 2016 (uncertain): One or more people complained about Zuan's
> eligibility to someone in the NCUC EC.
>
> (2) July-August 2016 (exact dates unknown): EC members, excluding
> Zuan, discussed the issue in a private email exchange and concluded
> that Zuan was ineligible to NCSG (or NCUC) membership and that
> therefore he should be removed from NCUC EC.
>
> (3) August 2, 2016: Zuan was notified of this by private email,
> stating it was NCUC EC conclusion, demanding his immediate
> resignation.
>
> (4) August 3, 2016: Zuan contacted NCSG Chair (me), having interpreted
> the message as an official decision to expel him from the NCSG as well
> as from the NCUC. I told him that NCUC EC had no right to make such a
> determination about NCSG membership, as that belongs to the NCSG EC.
> I also wrote to the NCUC EC members in question expressing my
> disapproval of the process.
>
> (5) August 8, 2016: the letter sent to Zuan was published on this list
> and it sparked a discussion that went on for some time.
> http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/2016-August/019065.html
>
> (6) August 12, 2016: Zuan announced he'd take the issue to the Ombudsman
> and
> discussion on the list soon subsided, waiting for Ombudsman's actions.
> http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/2016-August/019114.html
>
> (7) August 19, 2016: NCUC EC had a normal, recorded meeting to discuss
> the issue. Zuan did participate, and the EC decided to suspend him but
> did not replace him, instead leaving his seat vacant.
> http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-ec/2016-August/002991.html
>
> (8) April 10, 2017: Former NCUC EC members statement about the case
> was posted to this list.
> http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/2017-April/020478.html
>
> (9) April 13, 2017: Ombudsman posted Zuan's response.
> http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/2017-April/020521.html
>
> ******
>
> Observations and questions:
>
> While current NCUC bylaws do not have anything about expelling members
> from the EC anymore than from NCUC itself, NCSG Charter does.
> Indeed the letter sent to Zuan only referred to NCSG rules, and in any
> case the elibility rules for NCUC are essentially same as for NCSG.
>
> So why wasn't this referred to NCSG EC? The initial complainants
> might well have been unaware of these legalistic details, but
> NCUC EC members certainly should have known them and notified
> NCSG EC about the situation.
>
> Second, if it was concluded Zuan was ineligible for NCSG (or NCUC)
> membership, why only remove him from the EC? Wouldn't it have been
> their duty to remove him from the entire NCUC (and notify NCSG EC so
> he could be removed from NCSG)?
>
> Third, the big procedural irregularity: why was the decision
> made in a private, still not published, email exchange?
>
> The only explanation given is that raising the issue in public "could
> have been construed as an intimidating public attack on Peter".
>
> While that's a fair reason as far as it goes, and I'm sure it was a
> real reason, there must've been something else, too, as it begs the
> question why Zuan was not included in the discussion earlier, indeed
> from the very beginning.
>
> He thought he was a member of the EC, equal to others. Then he is
> being told that others have met in secret, without him, and judged him
> without his participation and found him guilty, and are saying they
> made an official decision about him - a decision of the EC he's
> supposed to be a member of.
>
> It shouldn't take much psychological insight to predict that would not
> go down well. And trying to follow up by inviting him to defend
> himself in an official meeting after he knows he's already been judged
> and found guilty wasn't likely to help much either.
>
> Equally puzzling is why NCSG EC was not involved. If the case for
> confidentiality was good, there should have been no reason to assume
> NCSG EC would not accept it as well.
>
> We don't know what took place in that email exchange, so we can only
> guess why all those decision were taken that with hindsight seem so
> strange. And while I don't think we can force them to be published, on
> the other hand I do see any reason why people involved couldn't
> publish them if they so chose, and it might help us understand what
> really happened.
>
> I won't argue people should not have private conversations, but it
> does become problematic if such secret discussions become de facto
> fora for decisions that should be made publicly.
>
> Especially so in a case like this: expelling a democratically elected
> member of the EC is just about as momentous as decisions get, and
> given that it was indeed unprecedented and that there were no explicit
> rules about it in the bylaws, a public discussion would have been all
> the more important.
>
> But what is really unacceptable is to make and implement official EC
> decisions in secret. It is really beyond the pale, it is what really
> shocked me when I first learned about this.
>
> You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you make an official
> decision it should follow all the rules and have all the trappings it
> implies, including proper documentation. If you only have a private
> conversation, its outcome is nothing but personal opinions, and
> shouldn't be claimed as anything more.
>
> ******
>
> Analyzing in any detail the motivations and thoughts of people involved
> is beyond me and probably would not be constructive either. But I will
> offer one speculative suggestion:
>
> The real problem was (and remains) lack of trust.
>
> It seems pretty clear that at least some members of the NCUC EC
> distrusted Zuan, some distrusted NCSG EC and/or Chair, some people
> didn't trust NCUC EC, and some distrusted the process, didn't trust the
> rules we have to be good enough to handle the situation properly.
>
> ******
>
> Finally, what could and should we do about this?
>
> Trust is notoriously difficult to build and to maintain. I don't have
> any magic solution to that. But there are things that can help there,
> and things that can ameliorate the bad effects of distrust.
>
> This will be important when we discuss the NCSG member removal
> procedures later in NCSG-DISCUSS and consider the impact of various
> procedural choices in detail.
>
> For now I'll conclude with the observation that it would help to have
> better, more explicit rules, and realistic rules, such that take into
> account human weaknesses, including the need to save face. In
> particular, if we think there're issues that should be discussed in
> confidence, and there might be, we should make rules about how and
> when it should happen.
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> --
> Tapani Tarvainen
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> Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>
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