• Accept As-Is
• Accept With modification
• Reject

Rationale:

MK: Reject. It is not reasonable to ask everyone to get up in the middle of the night even though there is no one for whom the call actually takes place during the day. What would be more reasonable from my perspective is to encourage WGs to review the call times on a regular basis taking into account membership and encourage rotation where feasible and workable (rotation is a nice concept, but if the majority of WG members does not show up for the meeting because it is inconvenient, you'll end up cancelling a lot of calls).  

LG: Consider modifying the recommendation to maintain the spirit while offering more flexibility and useful means of making the calls more accessible to a diverse audience.

PDP WGs consider their meeting times based on WG make-up which may include rotation. However, it is not realistic to schedule meetings at times during which no one is available.

[To be added - other tactics being discussed or piloted to assist with participation around the world within the GNSO or other structures]

38

Paul Diaz

gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group

(Not Sure) Should volunteers in a WG all be inconvenienced even if there are no volunteers from underrepresented regions? That sounds like a sure way to decrease the number of volunteers. Why not recommend adjustments in meeting times once volunteers are found from underserved regions and then tailor the times to meet their needs? Start time rotation for meetings between different time zones should be used in accordance with the time zones of the currently active WG participants to avoid unnecessarily poor timing of WG meetings for others. If there are no active participants from certain time zones, there is no need to make time adjustments for them.

75

Osvaldo Novoa

ISPCP

(Support) Without such an approach, barriers to participation in some areas of the world will always exist.

117

Will Hudson

Google

If adopted would improve the diversity of working groups and their openness to newcomers so that the policy development process is more reflective of all stakeholders

156

Anupam Agrawal

Internet Society, India Kolkata Chapter

The Indian representation in the GNSO council or for that matter the Asia Pacific User vis a vis the representation in GNSO is not reflective enough and efforts needs to be made to improve the scenario. The same analysis based on different groups within GNSO will reflect the real picture and can be included as part of analysis. The Westlake observation in terms of diversity of participation, is absolutely correct and there is agreement in this regard.

169

Laura Covington, J. Scott Evans, Marie Pattullo

Business Constituency

We also support that PDP WGs rotate the start time of their meetings in order not to disadvantage people who wish to participate from anywhere in the world. This should be the norm for PDP WG meetings even if at first all the WG’s members come from the “traditional” regions of North America and Europe.

224

Stephanie Perrin

NCUC/NCSG

This should be the norm.

271

Greg Shatan

IPC

(It Depends) Rotation of the start times for meetings for PDP WGs is an important objective, however this must be balanced against the location of the actual active participants. If there are no volunteers to a WG from a particular region or, over time, those members from a region have proved themselves not to be actively participating then it is unfair on the active participants to make them all join a call in the middle of the night for the benefit of someone who is not present. If there is even one active member from a region, however, they should be afforded the benefit of having meetings occasionally fixed at a time which is during their normal working day. A good WG chair, supported by their ICANN staff member, should be trusted to make sensible and fair decisions about the timing of meetings. This should apply not just to PDP WG’s but also to SG and C regular meetings.

289

Amr Elsadr

This, in my opinion, is a bad idea. As a participant of several working groups, it is easier for me to manage my schedule if my weekly calls are at consistent times. Even if those times are inconvenient.

345

Olivier Crepin-Leblond

ALAC

(It Depends) The ALAC supports this recommendation, as rotation will help achieve fair and balanced representation of and involvement from regions and cultures in WGs. However, practice has shown that WG rotation might negatively affect participation from the “traditional” regions of North America and Europe, especially in the situation where the majority of those involved in the process are North Americans or Europeans. Upon such occurrence, the WG Chair might be tempted to reduce rotation. In our view, the ultimate goal for WGs is to create good policy. WGs shall try to rotate as much as feasible, but rotation must not be at the expense of creating good policy.