Independent Examiner’s Final Recommendation | ALAC should be more selective in the amount of advice it seeks to offer, focusing on those issues which might have the greatest impact upon the end user community, and going for quality rather than quantity. ALAC should develop a more transparent process for distinguishing between different types of advice, and publish that advice on the At-Large website. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Issue Identified | Quality vs quantity of ALAC advice produced. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Does ALAC Support Recommendation? | Support | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
If Not, Please Provide Reasoning. | Not Applicable | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
If ALAC Does Not Support Recommendation, Does It Suggest an Alternative Recommendation? If so, please provide a suggested alternative Recommendation. | Not Applicable | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Prioritization | Medium Priority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
At-Large Comments | The ALAC already focuses on quality vs quantity and as a rule only issue comments that the ALAC believes are important to ICANN and users. This has been a very conscious policy that has evolved over several years. Records over the last five years demonstrate this.
While ALAC responses involving community input are usually quite comprehensive, a small proportion were simply supportive statements where the ALAC felt a nominal response was advisable but did not warrant any substantive effort. Similarly, advice to the Board composed just a small fraction (fewer than five such statements in the last several years) of the overall documents drafted. The ALAC believes it is far more desirable to influence the policy development processes before issues come to the Board, than to advise the Board after the fact when it may have little latitude to alter the outcome. It has been the general practice of the ALAC, that when a public comment issue arises, the ALAC will identify a penholder who, often with others, is prepared to take responsibility for initially assessing if there is a significant user-impact reason for further investigation and community consultation. If this is the case, then the writing team collects and organises data to put together an appropriate advisory statement or comment for consideration and formal endorsement by the ALAC, before the response is returned to the relevant section of ICANN. This is a time-consuming process, inviting members from across At-Large each time, to contribute to the many different subject areas for which ALAC is tasked to research and provide appropriate advice. The ALAC also encourages RALOs and ALSes to comment. The ALAC acknowledges that its web site does not always fully represent the diverse nature of its various statements. Ensuring that this does will be important as new workers become involved in At-Large. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Possible Dependencies | Availability of Staff resources | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Who Will Implement? | Staff with input from At-Large Leadership. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Resource Requirements | ICANN Staff in support of the development of taxonomy that categorizes various ALAC Statements, as well as the improvement of the At-Large website | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Budget Effects impact? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Implementation Timeline | Six months. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Proposed Implementation Steps | Staff to identify areas of the website needing improvement to be reviewed by At-large Leadership prior to implementation |
AT-LARGE GATEWAY
At-Large Regional Policy Engagement Program (ARPEP)
At-Large Review Implementation Plan Development
11 Comments
Alan Greenberg
My thoughts
Status: Accept
Comment: The ALAC currently focuses on quality vs quantity and does not as a rule issue comments that the ALAC does not believe are important to ICANN and users. This has been a very conscious policy that has evolved over several years. The importance of this will be reinforced as new workers become involved in At-Large. The ALAC agrees that its web site does not always fully represent the diverse nature of its various statements and will work with staff to improve upon that.
Sebastien Bachollet
Status: Already done by ALAC but improvement can always be made
Comment: The ALAC ((currently)) ALREADY focuses on quality vs quantity and does not, as a rule, issue comments that the ALAC ((does not)) believe are NOT important to ICANN and users. This has been a very conscious policy that has evolved over several years. The importance of this will be reinforced as new workers become involved in At-Large. The ALAC agrees that its web site does not always fully represent the diverse nature of its ((various)) statements and will work with staff to improve upon that.
Ariel Liang
ALAC Comment in the ALAC Statement on the At-Large Review Draft Report
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The ALAC supports this recommendation. It already represents the status quo. Records over the last five years demonstrate this.
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
While ALAC responses involving community input are usually quite comprehensive, a small proportion were simply supportive statements where the ALAC felt a nominal response was advisable but did not warrant any substantive effort. Similarly, advice to the Board composed just a small fraction (fewer than five such statements in the last several years) of the overall documents drafted. The ALAC believes it is far more desirable to influence the policy development processes before issues come to the Board, than to advise the Board after the fact when it may have little latitude to alter the outcome.
It has been the general practice of the ALAC, that when a public comment issue arises, the ALAC will identify a penholder who, often with others, is prepared to take responsibility for initially assessing if there is a significant user-impact reason for further investigation and community consultation. If this is the case, then the writing team collects and organises data to put together an appropriate advisory statement or comment for consideration and formal endorsement by the ALAC, before the response is returned to the relevant section of ICANN. This is a time-consuming process, inviting members from across At-Large each time, to contribute to the many different subject areas for which ALAC is tasked to research and provide appropriate advice. The ALAC also encourages RALOs and ALSes to comment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr
As pointed out this is a supported suggestion, as it is already an aim and practice (though like all quality efforts one of continuous improvement)...
Also since before the completion of the 1st ALAC Review, when I served as Chair, the ALAC has used and continued to develop a document classification / identifier system that does indeed clearly show what 'type' of advice or statement the ALAC is making at any time, if this was unclear to the Independent Examiners (as it appears it must have been) then the ALAC should review this system and explore ways of making any improvements including to its understanding by the non At-Large ICANN Community.
We should also note that with the extensiveness and considerable time commitment for a complete and engaged cycle of input identified and codified after our 1st Review <insert link> which did contribute to the extension of Public Comment period response times that the ICANN Organisation now adheres to, also contributed to the preference outlined by others here as a preference for greater and effective engagement IN Policy Development Processes wherever possible and practical.
Holly Raiche
What we do not have is a set of criteria against which we can judge whether/how to respond. Earlier, Garth produced a set of criteria against which to judge whether we comment - and it was well received. So my suggestion would be to start with those criteria (impact on end users, etc) along with a way to decide who comments/how we can support newbies commenting - and then be sure there is ample time in ALAC calls to discuss the issues. It may be an idea to have the ALT first review issues up for comment, make preliminary recommendations and then talk to those a the ALAC meeting
Alan Greenberg
Holly, we can certainly define general criteria (which would, in my mind include relevance to users, ensuring ICANN's viability and credibility), but ultimately, we will have to decide on every case on their actual merits and not whether it meets a predefined criteria. Comments come in many different forms and I am not comfortable with trying to pigeon-hole them all a priori.
Currently it is either the ALT or the ALAC (depending on timing) that makes the initial cut. If it is the ALT, I have just instittuted rpocess which gives the ALAC the opportunity to second-guess it it feels it is needed.
Holly Raiche
Thaks Alan - and I was referring to general criteria - such as whether there is an impact on end users. And of course, aafter looking at general criteria, we decide on a case by case basis. This is not to set yet more processes in place, but to suggest that there must be serious consideration on whether to respond - or not.
Holly Raiche
Just to further clarify. This ties in with the recommendation on staff support. The tension there was the extent to which staff are 'supporting'. and what we mean by that (I don't believe we have fully articulated that). But I do not agree that the dependencies are as simple as staff resources and the implementation will be up to staff and ALAC leadership. So following on from my response on 20 July, implementation should include an ALAC discussion on how we select the issues that we are to address and how the responses are developed. And we also work through what, exactly, we mean by staff support.
Aida Noblia
Modestly I think the support of the staff is very important. But I agree with Holly that in selecting which issues are important and which are not, ALAC's opinion should be the determining factor, even if it could have staff support. It may be as requirements but I think it is clearer if it is also expressed ALAC in who has to implement, not only as a support to the Staff.
Vanda Scartezini
I believe the general practice inside ALAC is not responding to every point raised by ICANN or by any part of our community. ALAC's focus on and decide accordingly for each issue if the content has relevance for At Large / users.
On how to implement a measurable way, I guess to follow Holly's suggestion to have a list of general principles to define if an issue is or not relevant in a first approach makes it more easy to be accountable to our community.
Priority - even not a first priority I believe this is easy to be implemented and can be done using Gerth draft as a point to start.
Glenn McKnight
This is a bit of a red herring, obviously one has to select a strategy on type of policy statements
G