Dev Teelucksingh: Well I think we could start, I believe, yes okay; well, great, five minutes past the hour. Hello everyone and thanks for joining the Work Team D conference call. Let’s do the roll call – we have Chris Grundemann, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Dev Kissoondoyal, Olivier Crepin-Leblond, and myself, Dev Anand Teelucksingh; Rudi Vansnick, and from staff we have Heidi, we have Seth, we have Gisella. Did I miss somebody? I think I missed somebody – yes, Dev Kissoondoyal. My apologies.
Gisella Gruber-White: And apologies from Hong Xue today.
Dev Teelucksingh: Yes and I can imagine as to the reason why. Okay, so action items from the 20th of January meeting. Let’s see: Dev to discuss with Carlton the work of the proposed cross regional committee to determine policy issues. This was done and Carlton is in agreement with it. And let’s see, so that part was done. There was an action item to review the flow chart in time for the proposed presentation to ALAC on the 25th of January which did not take place unfortunately, but if there’s any input regarding this we can now discuss during this call.
Heidi, along with Beau, to make the update and the consolidation of the consumer documents a priority – Heidi, do you want to say anything to that or?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes I did make that a priority and you’ll see later in the agenda that we will be discussing this initial document. Given the timing I did not have a chance to discuss it with Beau, but I think today will be a useful chance for us to review it and to see what the next steps with it will be.
Dev Teelucksingh: Excellent, thanks Heidi. Rudi to check with ccNSO PDP Working Group regarding if there’s any material this Working Group can review and if the ccNSO’s PDP process contains a means of considering ALAC input – Rudi, do you have anything to say on this or later on in the call?
Rudi Vansnick: Well I think we can come back on this later on the call. The fact is that there is a report from the Working Group on the IDN PDP, which we can find on the website of the ccNSO, but we can go in depth of needed later on.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, great. And Dev with Seth help to reach out to Charles and Hong to get their suggested times for the Work Team D calls – I have to confess I was thinking this is on Seth to do this, so I did not achieve this objective unfortunately. So unless has Seth has something else to report on this…
Seth Greene: No, Dev, sorry nothing. I’ll be happy to do it after this call, though. I’ll keep it in mind.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, great. So those are the action items. Okay, deadlines and final reporting – Seth, what do you wish to say on this agenda item?
Seth Greene: Thanks, Dev. I just wanted to keep all the different Work Teams on the same page and it’s been briefly discussed in the other three at this point so this is the last report. My apologies for those on more than one Work Team who have heard this before, or even three times before.
I just wanted to say a couple of things. That is first, the only deadline that was actually important regarding the recommendations to the SIC and the Board had to do of course with recommendation two that’s been implemented already – the At-Large selected director. The other deadlines regarding all the recommendations for this Work Team and the others are self imposed by the ALAC and we’re shooting for the end of March. Maybe I’m talking out of school, I think there might be a little leeway in that, but I think that’s fairly optimistically what people are still looking toward the end of March.
Now of course the San Francisco meeting comes up a little before that so there will be some time afterward, however I think that it’s been fairly well discussed and established at this point that the most useful approach would be to have the Work Teams, including this Work Team of course, make its proposal, its final proposal recommendations to the ALAC in San Francisco and a good piece of time is being reserved during the ALAC and regional leadership workshop for that.
I believe finally two hours was decided upon. While granted, each Work Team won’t need the same amount of time, I actually, my guess would be that Work Team D is one that will need its full at least allocated half hour, if not even a little more, but hopefully the time will be there to get that work done.
As far as the reporting goes, I just wanted to say that while there’s really no precedence we’ll be using other than what we probably hopefully will be using, and Heidi and I are still working this out with Legal and other members of the staff, we’ll hopefully be using our own improvements report that we’ve already submitted to the SIC and the Board and suggesting to the ALAC that its final report to them is in that form, which if people remember basically is a short report covering each recommendation in which all of the details that might not be as welcomed in a first reading, at least, by the Board go into annexes in the back. But we’re going to be checking with Samantha in Legal about that; and some other people.
What has been suggested was that each Work Team prepares a synopsis of its activities, final recommendations to the ALAC – proposed next steps, things like that – that the ALAC can actually drop in along with the same synopsis from, or an analogous synopsis from each of the other Work Teams into its own final report. And I think that’s everything Dev, so thanks very much, I appreciate it.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, thanks Seth. Any questions, thoughts or comments from the Work Team? Well I see no questions raised in the chat. I think you summarized it very well there Seth, thanks. I’ve begun trying to just put some notes together and I’ll copy that in. it’s essentially following the same style of how you mention that each of the recommendations, they have a separate page and just put some bullet points as to, this is more of an outline, this is obviously not the final report in any shape or form. Some points as to what to address in the specific recommendation point – 8.1, 8.1.1 and so forth.
Okay, next – upcoming need to interact with the ALAC. Olivier or Cheryl would you like to speak on this?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I think I’ll let Cheryl on that, she’s got quite a good description of what the next steps are with regards to ALAC.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just took me a second to unmute sorry. Okay, where to begin? I’m actually rather tired of saying this, this is about the fourth time and I can’t for the life of me remember exactly I say it any other time. I’ve really had enough of saying this Olivier. Sorry. I’m also arguing with a very large and demanding dog who wants to have his stomach scratched at the same time so pardon my distraction.
Okay, upcoming interactions with the ALAC – well we’ve covered off a couple of the things not the least of which was when we had the comment on this preparation that had been done for the work flows to be looked at by the ALAC on the meeting of the 25th of January. It is most unfortunate that that did not happen, one of the things that we will ensure is that plenty of time is given to the review of the output of the work from this particular Work Team which has got some very essential input for the ALAC to consider in terms of its policy development processes and flow charts at the beginning of future agendas.
And other Work Teams have discussed the interaction at San Francisco and how we are expecting to have the recommendations presented in around a 20 to 22 minute time slot, this work group will probably need every bit of that if not as Seth said a little bit more. And the discussions there that we’ve had in other Work Teams have suggested that we keep the presentation and inverted comments to a minimum of no more than seven to ten minutes to allow sufficient time for discussion.
Also proposals from each Work Team not only with the ALAC but between the other Work Teams and ourselves, we will have time allocated on the Sunday and it has been discussed as an amount of time between 90 minutes and two hours; and I believe it was settled last time I checked to be the 90 minutes is probably going to be enough for this formal reporting.
Unlike other Work Teams whose work will have a hard stop with the reporting of the recommendations to the ALAC, and then it becomes ALAC’s business to do what they will with final reporting and the ongoing actual implementation of their report, or sorry, of their different recommendations.
The fine tuning of some of what is being proposed out of Work Team D falls into the category of no hard stop date, but the Work Team itself will have a hard stop in its final reporting but there would be expectations of continuous improvement; and with a few loops going to be part of what is an expectation of the ALAC’s to do with the At-Large community and particularly to encourage the regions, and in some cases, the ALS’s to look at how they might be able to implement or look at similar mechanisms to what is being recommended by Work Team D to the ALAC to make their life easier regionally and locally.
And I think I’ve ticked most of the boxes that I’ve run over before and I’m a missing anything Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I think you’ve done very well, Cheryl. Thank you very much and I hand the floor back to Dev. If there are any questions?
Dev Teelucksingh: Well just a comment – I think it was disappointing that the presentations from all the Work Teams was not done in Cartagena and then subsequently in the January meeting it was not done because I think there was a, well because I think the Work Teams, what the Work Teams are all doing was a possible method of outreach inreach to the existing ALS’s to find out more about At-Large and be involved in a way that unfortunately has not happened.
So hopefully in the future with other future Work Teams or that there’s enough time allocated to get the presentations in early so that there can be more feedback, because literally at San Francisco, well, hopefully there’s not too much feedback to the extent that the Working Teams recommendations changes radically, but it’s good to hear that in San Francisco 90 minutes, possibly two hours, for the wrap up, sorry I’m just looking at the chat here.
So yes, two hours or 90 minutes for the wrap up session in San Francisco so at least it can be shown for everybody for discussion and comments. Alright, any other questions? Sorry, Heidi and Olivier have something to add to this. Heidi, go ahead.
Heidi Ullrich: Well I think actually Olivier was first.
Dev Teelucksingh: Oh okay, well sorry. Olivier, go ahead.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Please Heidi, ladies first.
Heidi Ullrich: Thank you. Just to correct two points – one is that I believe that in the end yesterday’s Work Team C agreed to two hours for the Sunday session and 45 minutes, I just corrected myself, I believe 45 minutes for the wrap up session. But Seth, maybe you can go back and look at your notes for that last point. And also in order to avoid what happened in Cartagena with the unfortunate lack of time for the Work Teams to report back, we will be scheduling or placing the Work Team issues first on the agendas; both I believe even for the Sunday session as well as for the wrap up session.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, great thank Heidi. I see Cheryl, sorry, go ahead.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (crosstalk) …which means for some reason he goes to the bottom of the pile, but he’s…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It was just a very short one, thank you, Cheryl. Very short one actually we still have an ALAC call until San Francisco and if my belief is correct we will have the presentations which we were supposed to have, or the little chat which we were supposed to have in the last ALAC call put in this future ALAC call agenda. And that will actually be one of the early points on the agenda so as not to have them bumped out again. Thank you.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, that’s good to hear. Cheryl, you had something else to add to that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well I was going to actually mention what Olivier just said and I seriously wish people would stop giving people voice rights granted in the new Adobe Connect room otherwise we’ll all just have to keep putting up our hands and confusing issues that whoever gave us the microphone now has to take it away because we can’t hear that. That’s a little administrative aside.
What I was going to say was if I had the two hours and the 90 minutes, sorry about that, yes - having the Work Team reportings up first is important, but I want it on the record that I wholeheartedly object to any Work Team deciding the allocation of timing of what is a chair of the ALAC’s scheduling.
It’s up to Olivier to decide whether it is 90 minutes, two hours, or 42 hours he spends on any scheduling and agenda item either at any of his ALAC meetings or of course in a face to face meeting in San Francisco or anywhere else. And I like to jump on those sorts of assumptions even if they’re said in error.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, point taken. Any other comments on this.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Like Cheryl says…is any comment is supposed to fall after that – no.
Dev Teelucksingh: Giving everybody the opportunity because I’m seeing a lot people typing at the same time here. Okay, well then let’s move ahead to the…yes and I agree Heidi, it’s probably the tentative agenda. Okay, item number five on the agenda is the consolidated consumer document. I think there’s a link in the agenda page and I think possibly on the web links on the side there. So Heidi, the floor is yours.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, thank you. I’m just going to put the link into the Adobe Connect chat so you can take a look at that. So yes, what I’ve done if I can find it back onto my…okay, what I’ve done is basically looked at all of the consumer documents that have been prepared, most of them were prepared by Beau, one of them was prepared by staff for the consumers constituency.
What I’ve done is I’ve actually gone through all of them and I’ve selected the text that I thought really stated what it was that this Work Team and At-Large wanted to say about consumers. So, what I did was at the first part at the title of “defending consumers on the internet”, that first section of text is actually taken from the consumers constituency briefing. I’ve altered the text to obviously remove the proposed consumer constituency and put in At-Large and you can review what that text states.
Basically it talks about what the problem is; why a consumer group or individual consumer should join ICANN and At-Large in particular; what issues that At-Large actually has championed or is focusing on, that includes obviously the gTLDs, IDNs, WHOIS, trademark issues and the transition from IPV4 to IPV6. And then I link it to how to join us if you want to become a member of At-Large.
And then what I’ve done is I looked at the three documents that Beau prepared, one of them is “Top five reasons to join ICANN” and I did not actually include any of that text because I thought that the points made in the consumer briefing actually stated basically the same information. So I did not include any of that.
What I did include were Beau’s FAQs that we have made them into an annex one and I’ve updated those a little bit. That document was prepared I believe three or four years ago so it needed a little bit of updating. And then I also included the glossary that Beau prepared. Again, added some updates to that which I think maybe staff or Cheryl, maybe you could just look through those, particularly for example the NCSG and the NCUC just I might need some updating on where we are with that exactly, but I think everything else is pretty up to date.
So that’s what I did. I very much welcome your comments on is this what we’re looking for in a consolidated document? And we’re also, Seth and I we’re speaking about this earlier today, if we could just get some clarity or some more information on what the aim of this document is. Is this going to be printed? Is this going to be put onto our website for consumer groups as well as individual consumers?
As well as, is this also supposed to be a little bit more for the GNSO or is this document to be focused for the At-Large? Because we know that the recommendation, I believe 12, states that it’s both to bring consumers into At-Large as well as the GNSO. That’s what we were just wondering if you could comment on that. So I open the floor to comments.
Dev Teelucksingh: Thank you Heidi. I have to say the document is quite, I have to say it’s great. I have to say excellent work done is my initial comment. Anybody else wants to say anything? I thought I heard Cheryl was going to say something but…
Gisella Gruber-White: I’ll state for the record that she noted in the chat “excellent Heidi”.
Heidi Ullrich: Thanks Cheryl. And I also see that Dev Kissoondoyal has said that he recommend that this document should be printed and distributed to all ALS’s so that we can use in our outreach activities. So yes, this is, if this group and ALAC chooses to adopt this then this would be something that we could definitely print.
More and more internally we are fortunate to have Scott really taking an interest in the work of At-Large and in documents that support At-Large so this would be something that I would actually want to hand over to him perhaps to be connected to the series of beginner’s guides. So that’s something that we can talk about a little bit later.
Dev Teelucksingh: But yeah, I agree with Dev because I think it would be useful to be available as a PDF and then ALS’s can then print that out and give to if they meet any consumer organizations that are interested in consumer issues. Rudi, I’m sorry your hand is up, go ahead.
Rudi Vansnick: Yeah thank you Dev. Well indeed it’s a marvelous document. I have been reading the version of doc one and it’s indeed much better in the sense that it’s clarifying what the position of At-Large is in this regard; and especially when we look to what happened in the past days with Egypt being cutting off. Many consumer groups have been asking what’s going on having the internet disconnected for such a large community.
I think that’s one of the items we have to add to our statement I think, it’s trying to get some of the big organizations coming to us and agreeing on the approach so that other organizations feel the commitment of the both worlds; let’s say the internet world and the non internet world, if I may say.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, yeah. Heidi, go ahead.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes I note that Beau has put out a note on at least, not actually it was At-Large worldwide yesterday, pointing out that he and Alex Gacurru, I believe is how you pronounce her name, have worked on a new consumers constituency and they are planning on having that revised during a half day meeting on Tuesday in San Francisco.
So I’m wondering that maybe the next steps would be to send this to Beau and to Alex, have them look at it and perhaps this could facilitate their work on the new candidate for consumers constituency for the GNSO and then we could also use this, perhaps revise it and print it for use by At-Large.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, yeah I think that’s a good suggestion Heidi. I’m seeing something from Cheryl there that yes, there needs to be a couple of edits to the appendix and regarding the definitions of the NCSG and NCUC and to the definition of the GNSO needing some updates. Okay. Any other thoughts from other members of the Work Team? Chris, Dev, anything you wish to add to this? Yep, Olivier, go ahead.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Dev. I was just going to mention one thing. I had a chat with a few people yesterday regarding ICANN and their view of ICANN. They were outsiders, nothing to do with ICANN whatsoever.
And it was interesting to hear how they had the very negative view of ICANN, not by what it was doing or buy what it was not doing; but by the fact that they came onto the ICANN website and tried to find out about ICANN and about I guess At-Large and the different constituencies and they were completely and utterly lost and found the whole thing to be so confusing; so utterly confusing that they were put off quite quickly from trying to investigate any further.
So, definitely this document that you’ve got here is definitely a great step in the right direction and I hope that there will be more of that. Thank you.
Dev Teelucksingh: I agree, Olivier. Actually it’s amazing actually because I mean if you read like on the previous tech blogs like slash dot and so forth, like for example, one of the big issues, well apart from the Egypt cutting off the internet, was the fact that several domains were seized by the US Department of Homeland Security ICE Division, which basically issued a seizure order against a domain directly on the registry.
And people think the comments are all pretty much saying well ICANN is really the bad guy in all of this which is obviously not the case, obviously not true with regards to this issue. So yeah, definitely more education is needed. Let’s see, Cheryl, you have your hand raised, go ahead.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I do wish the thing wouldn’t need to tell me that my line is unmuted because then you’d actually be able to start talking faster. However, just summing up on what you said Dev, we will always have the, well until natural attrition happens I guess, the vociferous anti-ICANN camp and they tend to not just be the usual suspects, but be very busy in well read blogs and the tech world.
That’s not to say that everyone doesn’t have the right to their own opinion to express it. But what ICANN is not doing, and what we need to see that we can do for our part of the structure and those that we’re trying to influence and interact with, is have well thought out, easily accessible, easily understood and absolutely accurate information that people can equally access and make up their own minds about.
Things like this and having maybe some interview stuff and some simple presentation stuff will assist here, but you’re always going to have people who are absolutely, positively anti-ICANN and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. What ICANN hasn’t done however, is market itself particularly effectively in any way that counters that for the casual observer who’s just sort of wandering by the big shop windows, for the want of a better metaphor, looking in.
If you’ve got very little information to counter those views or if you are highly motivated you practically need a degree in web navigation to find it.
Dev Teelucksingh: Yep, unfortunately that is the case. But I mean it then gives us right, all we need to create this alternate, well a lot of misinformation and that’s the curse of social networks and so forth. It spreads information but obviously negative information can also just, or mis- or incorrect information can get widely spread and just repeated over and over like an echo chamber.
But yes, I think ICANN and maybe ourselves, At-Large, has to like try to get more involved in these discussions and try to point out now that’s not what ICANNs role is, well just set the record straight, not necessarily taking a stand on it, but just correcting the incorrect information being repeatedly propagated.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may, in my Utopian dream, I’d be able to carry a tiny little plain card which had one, if not two, URLs and at any point in time rather than spend, what Olivier probably did yesterday, a considerable amount of time and energy redirecting these oversights and assumptions and errors or in fact accepting the fact that we’ve mucked it up badly and here’s ways that you can find more information to look at. Simply looking at to pass this out or send someone to a specific single portal link and just say well have a look around there; it’ll all be revealed. That’s my Utopia.
Dev Teelucksingh: Or some sort of pressing issues, like okay, Egypt – these Egypt domains and just like two questions and answers saying, some frequently asked questions. No ICANN does not actually issue take down notices and so on; you know, that type of thing. Alright, Olivier, sorry I didn’t see your hand up. Go ahead.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks Dev, not- I just put it up. I was just going to say that last night I had an interesting conversation with Heidi with regards to the confluence website, which of course is also in the process of being built out. And one thing was of course that the front page was a bit confusing because it’s conference.icann.org – you would then click on ALAC or At-Large Advisory Committee and it was akin to taking the wrong turn at the airport and ending up in a ghetto neighborhood of some sort.
I found all sorts of links which didn’t work and everything just looked totally derelict. So I think thankfully we’re working things out there and the derelict links will be taken away and there will be a better path to the At-Large page or the official At-Large front page. And I hope that this will clear a few things, but yeah, yesterday was a bit interesting.
Dev Teelucksingh: Yeah and how much better we, the persons who are familiar with ICANN, can’t find the information easily how can a person outside of ICANN find information for the first time.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I must say I was horrified, horrified. I was trying to find the At-Large summit details and going from the confluence pages it just took me to some very crazy stuff which didn’t mean anything at all. Links that weren’t working; crashed the browser, etc. etc. the sort of things you’d find in a ghetto I will say. Thank you.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay. Well I see a lot of comments on this, there’s a few there I must say. Sorry Heidi, what was exactly to make an action item? You mean adding it to the consumer comments?
Heidi Ullrich: No sorry, I placed that twice. One was yes, Seth, if you could make the adding the consolidated document once we’ve had that revised we could add that to the consumer comments, or actually we could just add it for revision to the consumer comments, I mean send that out for a request for a revision.
And then the second point was that on the issue of fixing the broken links, which I acknowledge there still are many which IT says they’re working on, but just to keep in mind that that was an action item that they made in Cartagena for the San Francisco meeting. So yes, as Olivier noted, it is a process, which I unfortunately need to continually keep the pressure on them to hold, to remind them of that action item, but we are working on things.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, great. Now let’s head back to the agenda. But I mean great work on the consolidated consumer document; the draft, Heidi. Excellent stuff. Let’s see – review of tasks recommendations eight, 12 and 13 to determine any needed next steps. Okay, there were some points I was, when I was going through the recommendation eight – recommendation eight is the one that talks about the process for developing an extended consultation window for a 15-day extension – there’s some ideas here.
Now, right now in our flow charts there are two points at which ALAC can formally request a 15-day extension. Should there be a, now if you open up the flow chart, should there be a third point in the policy advice development schedule where an extended consultation can be requested? Like say, so if everybody could take a look at the flow chart which I’m thinking is in the web links but let me just…
Seth Greene: Dev, it’s in the web links pod on the lower left “new ALAC At-Large PAD flow chart”. If people see that they can just click on it and then go to browse too.
Dev Teelucksingh: Excellent thank you very much Seth, on that. And I see it’s been opened for everybody here. Great. Right now we have two points at which ALAC should request a 15-day extension for comments. I’m just wondering is there any further point that we should have that decision again when ALAC has to decide on whether to request a 16 day extension?
That’s my question. I was thinking, I was potentially thinking after the 23 days or 38 days, at most 23 days after the policy is available for comment – okay, I see Cheryl has raised her hand, go ahead Cheryl. You may be muted.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes I am muted. I rarely mute but with all this coughing I’m still doing I have been muting and it takes forever for the machine to tell me that I’m unmuted of course, if it didn’t bother telling me that, I’d be already talking. Yes, I support adding that in as a possibility and actually another note as well, which I’ll get to in a moment.
With the one you’re proposing, Dev, though I think it should be listed as for use in extenuating circumstances. In other words, it’s in keeping with what many of the ACs and indeed SOs do, which is unofficially get onto the staff person in charge of a public comment and say for example, in the case of ccNSO and the GO review report, the Chair for ccNSO wrote to Robin and said we’ll be getting it in a little bit later.
I’m not sure that it needs to be a 15-day extension. It might be neat to keep it to a minimalistic extension if it’s coming in at that fairly late period in the 30 day comments. But I’m a little concerned about making it mandatory moving from 30 to 45 because in some cases it’s only a matter of we have our council meeting or we have our committee meeting happening on Thursday of next week; can we have another five or six days. So if we could word its lightly differently I’d feel very comfortable.
And the other place that struck me, we could note is right up front, almost at the pre-notification to the community, as in anyone in the ICANN community, for a public comment period. There has been occasions where it is obvious, due to the time of the year or whatever, or simply the nature of the presumed interest or complexity of what is going to be asked for in a public comment period that more outreach is going to be needed or it’s in the middle of a major festival of holiday time or something.
And so there has been time, for example, in some of the IDN PDP fast track work where the ALAC, because it was on the Work Team or the Work Group I guess, but when for example the ccNSO was about to go out for public comment on something it went our already as 45 days because it had sort of set informally with it.
Now, I’m not sure that we need more than just a place holder or recognition that that’s a possibility, but if we’re going to do that I think we should also note that some of what has been recommended in the ALAC review fits into that and ICANN has now moved on and grown up sufficiently that it’s starting to do this anyway it can because if we look at what happened in the last reporting of the Public Participation Committee of the Board, it recognized quite clearly the importance of the ability for extensions to 45 days and specifically when that is triggered by something like the ALAC.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay. I’m thinking yes at the very beginning before the policy is even published, yes. That interaction where advice is given from ALAC or possibly from the proposed committee that is looking at the policy issues and so forth can make a recommendation – okay, you know what, that’s going to be very bad for At-Large because of as you say, previous holidays or our schedule and you know…
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah and that sort of loops back with the question of how ALAC inputs into policy development processes, it strength and where the opportunities are in the PDP activities of the SOs, which I know is later in the agenda. But it shows the importance of having a formal liaison of the ALAC on relevant Work Groups.
And in the absence of such a formal liaison, in such a Work Group or Work Team that the Chair has good communication with the Chair of such an SO, so that as a chartering organization it can be aware of its need to advise a Work Group or Work Team doing policy development that it will need to extend up front. And now I’ve got to mute because my dog is wanting to get out…
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well our chair has a possible suggestion regarding that, regarding that issue, but Olivier, I see you have your hand up, go ahead. Sorry about that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Dev. I just wanted to ask a question on the flow charts. Are these to be discussed here or are these final or…?
Dev Teelucksingh: Well I wouldn’t say that they’re final. It was meant to be discussed, the action item earlier was to say review this – these flow charts – because they were going to be presented in this form during the ALAC call.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh Dev, you’re going to be far too polite; let me do this. Dear Mr. Chair, if the ALAC agenda’s either in Cartagena or at the meeting on the 25th how about to bother looking at the reporting of our Work Team these discussions would have already happened and any modifications of this Work Team is now seeking from the At-Large Advisory Committee what has been done. How’s that, Dev, that alright?
Dev Teelucksingh: Yeah I think that was kind of saved for me there, Cheryl, thanks. You were saying, Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That was very well said, Cheryl. I’ll try and find a magic solution to bring more time ant to make two hours out of one hour or something. We’ll have to try that in the future. Perhaps we’ll all have to speak twice as fast. I’m not sure how everyone else will follow. Anyway, coming back to this flow chart I can see several errors…
Dev Teelucksingh: Actually, no looking at this now I realize this, what’s in the web links pod is the old version which is version four. Version six is the latest one. So I was just trying to find that because it says in the Work Team D Wiki on confluence.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Because version four has (inaudible) boxes: “Should ALAC submit comments on this policy?” and you can only say yes, it doesn’t have a choice; it has to say “Yes.”
Dev Teelucksingh: Yeah, so let me post the link here.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It’s a bit scary. With regards to, whilst you try and look for the new one I just wanted to comment on the 15-day extension for the comments. Is there a need to define how many days one would ask for? Because as Cheryl mentioned, and I think it goes without saying, sometimes ALAC might just require a handful of days to finish something, put it through feedback process trying to get input from the regions. Sometimes it might need a lot more time than that and it really depends.
And we’ve seen that ICANN has sometimes given one full further months for comments not because we were late, but because they didn’t receive any comments from anyone else. They wanted to get more comments from other constituencies and of course extended the time to a much, maybe even doubling the commenting period.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well then so what you could say then is that, well I guess the question is then, I’m trying to remember where the 15-day extension came from actually and right now my minds gone totally blank on it. So what you’re suggesting is that like at all times, like when it’s a request for an extension it’s not just an automatic 15 days, but…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yeah, it should be should ALAC request an extension for its comments.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can I suggest that there was a reason that it specified 15 days in the flow chart and that is because it’s drawn specifically from the reviewed recommendations which state “a 45 day period can be requested by the ALAC.”
So that’s probably saying the note that Dev was suggesting, that one that comes in at the sort of the 25th plus day in a normal 30 day cycle, in this flow chart I think we should be saying, we should go further than the ALAC review recommendations and indeed the current practice says that as recommended by the Public Participation Committee goes.
And that is that an extension, but not necessarily an extension to 45 days. Now that doesn’t mean it can be les or more, it’s not specifying, but the reason that this Work Team has settled on 45 days is that that’s its job. That is the recommendation from the ALAC review.
I also, while I’ve got the floor, wanted to point out that again, part of this is going to be ongoingly modified assuming that the Board takes into its implementation the various recommendations from the Accountability and Transparency Review Team reporting; where it specifically is suggesting particular changes which go a lot further than this simple extension process; because as has been in the past, an extension can mean that a whole community or a whole constituency or other support organization or an Advisory Committee itself, which has put something in on the advertised time or in short order just before the advertised time of closure for PC happens, then someone goes “Please, sir, I want some more time,” and ICANN says “Okay fine, have another 15 days or another month.”
Then a whole lot of debate and discussion happens and they’ve got to actually put in either a modified or completely new reaction into the public comment because, and this can of course trip out into a whole new loop for us, because of issues raised.
What the Accountability and Transparency Review Team suggested is a very different model where you’d have an interaction phase and I don’t think we need to discuss the ATRT recommendation here in this Work Team, but I think this Work Team needs to recognize that assuming those recommendation, or some variation of a seam based on those recommendations will be happening in ICANN; that this model is flexible enough to have another little box that says and if this happens this is how those things change.
So this is a lot of influence this brought to the ATRT table from the types of issues that this Work Team has been grappling with. So there’s nothing conflicting if the Board simply says thank you ATRT we will just make that magic happen; it will still fit in with the flows, but there will be some tweaking and indeed some advantage and some extension of time, not the least of which is those recommendations from the ATRT also asking for clearly flagged prior planning so we know what would be happening next September, not just discovering tomorrow what’s been advertised tonight.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay. Well the thing is though, now we know what the justification was for the 15-day, I knew it was somewhere in the outline or in the actual in report. So, but going back to what you’re suggesting, Olivier, you were saying that maybe you can include a variable amount of time.
And I suggest then maybe that the third point, meaning just after 23 days, well I guess the question has to then be asked – can somebody request an additional time extension even after 15 days has been granted. So like, if at early on we are at 45 days and then, because right now the flow chart say it’s only one time it can do it; it’s only for one period of extension so to speak. I hope I’m making myself clear because I’m trying to summarize it and I know we’re running out of time.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Dev, if I may say, ALAC can ask for an extension of 15 days or whatever other amount it wants to ask for, ultimately I think that the choice is not in ALAC’s hands. It would be in ICANNs hands to grant this or not grant it and grant the extension; the actual time itself. So this is why I have a feeling that keeping, I understand what Cheryl is saying with regards to that and we maybe we can have the number 15 in there, but we could also have 15 days or a number determined at the time for what is required.
You know, some requests for public comments are very, very short of time because they’re might be an ICANN meeting taking place, a face to face meeting taking place just a few weeks later and it’s extremely difficult to then grant a 15-day extension while a five day extension might be granted only. So this is why I’m just wondering why we would have the 15 in there. Thank you.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well I see Rudi’s hand is up. Go ahead Rudi.
Rudi Vansnick: Yes, well I think it’s good that we can clarify the reason why we are asking for an extension of 15 days or 10 days whatever we want to have as an extension in the sense that all other organizations inside ICANN are more or less professional organizations and structures and not working with volunteers. And At-Large, especially, is just focusing on consumers and going to consumers need much more time then going just to professional organizations. So maybe it’s something we can stress out as a clarification of the extension.
Dev Teelucksingh: Well, I have to say and true the thing about a variable amount of time makes it a little bit more harder to try to put timelines on all of these things. Something to consider I guess. And I know we are on the top of the hour, but if I may beg for some indulgence for just about probably 10 or 15 more minutes because there is one other issue I want to bring up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Dev, I’m not at my computer but can I respond to what Rudi just said? That’s the rationale of course that was used for our original extended diagram that said in a perfect world this is how long it actually takes for a structure like ALAC with its ALS’s to properly engage with community. And the outcome of that of course is something totally untenable for a policy development process in ICANN unless you want every one of them to be imbued in links and certainly not terribly nimble or reactive. The 45 days that was recommended from, through the ALAC review process is the result of the median reaction from the rest of the ICANN community as the public comments on our own review reporting was done.
So there was a huge amount of effort done by the Board Review Committee as if interactive with the wider ICANN communities looking at the comments that were being made on this aspect of our review process and recommendations whereby 45 days was seen as reasonable enough length to go over from a one month to a second month period to be sort of the mandatory as opposed to the exceptional request that we would be able to be asking for.
And most importantly, the SOs, whose job it is to do policy development of course, could live with that amount. There are times when they can live with a lot longer, but that’s why the 45 days was selected for. It’s certainly not by accident, it is by design.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay. And that’s actually another issue and maybe I don’t know, it also comes down to one of the, in the simplified outline where the review of the activities – oh dear let me go back to the simplified outline – okay, the process for requesting the extended consultation and that’s why this question has come up now. I think the 15-day extension also relates to the public comment period strictly speaking because everybody has a 30 day time for public comment.
So the 15-day extension was basically an extension for ALAC to be able to submit its comments after those public comments have concluded, was my interpretation of it. So, I understand what Olivier and what Cheryl, what they’re saying, maybe it could be variable, but i guess we will have to think about that, how best to implement it. I’m thinking that if – let me go to another topic because I think, well just I want to cover that issue as well for consideration.
This is regarding before the policy is published available for comment and I put the link in the – okay Cheryl, go ahead please or was that your hand up from previous.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m nowhere near my computer so I’m not even in the room. So if my hands up it has to be from well and truly before.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, very well. And there is one more question I should have asked regarding this 15-day extension, my apologies. Should we develop a draft form or a template of the 15-day extension, or of the whatever day extension request we develop. Similar to how the FY12 budget request spreadsheet template. Isn’t it that this working (inaudible) that proposed that particular form of that request? And so that okay, when the email goes out it’s sent via At-Large staff on behalf of ALAC to the ICANN staff person responsible for that policy out for public comment.
It should include, well the name of policy, the name of the ICANN staff person responsible for that public policy out for comment, given a reason – that type of thing. Is it that we have to then specify or propose the draft form or template for that request? You can simply just say yes or no on this, we don’t have to go into specific details on it. Cheryl or Olivier, maybe one of you want to take – yes, Olivier says yes we should develop a draft form template.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: If I may say, Dev, I’m biased on this one because obviously any template would make my life easier. So don’t expect me to say no. If you want to make a template, great.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, so we’ll work on a template than in time for the next meeting. And I see approval from Cheryl and Rudi as well on this. So good. Okay. Going back down to the public comments – oh sorry, Heidi, go ahead.
Heidi Ullrich: No I’m not sure actually if this is the right point to bring this up but I’ve just been thinking about what I believe you said just a few minutes ago about that you believe that the 15-day extension is only for ALAC after the public comment closes. Was that what you said?
Dev Teelucksingh: That was my interpretation, yes that was one of my interpretations of it.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, because basically the way it works is once a public comment closes than that staff person responsible for that public comment does an analysis of all the comments received. So that person cannot do that analysis obviously until 15 days later when ALAC were to submit their statement. So I believe how this works is that if there is a request by At-Large, or by any group for an extension for their own statements that the whole public comment is just extended for everyone. Yes?
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well that clarifies it then. Okay. So that’s what happens. So that’s why, so if ALAC makes the request for 15 days then the public comment period is therefore extended by 15 days.
Heidi Ullrich: For everyone. For example, there was a recent public comment, I think it was a strategic plan actually where one other, well the supporting organization had not submitted a comment, they put in a request for an extension for themselves and the entire public comment was extended. So I believe that’s the process. If there’s one group that officially requests an extension they just extend the public comments, again, because it’s not that that person who’s responsible for that can’t go ahead with their analysis anyway.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well thanks for clarifying that up for me.
Heidi Ullrich: I can go ahead and confirm how that works, but that’s my understanding.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well I think yeah. But I mean all of these steps have to be written into the report yeah, so it’s good to have all of these details down. So now we’re jumping ahead quickly here. Okay, let me just go quickly on the, before the policy is available for comment – I was just trying to think of a way how this could be implemented. Right now, I think we’re going to have to put some sort of documentation in to say something like there has to be a policy publish committee within ICANN to actually actively monitor the public policy publish schedule.
The reason why I say that is that just to keep maintaining the calendar, or the policy publish schedule, and also to like coordinate with all the SOs and ACs that okay, all of these policies coming out, let’s make a decision. We’re going to release it on the first Monday of each month. And we’re going to group them together so everything releases to, oh I don’t know, whatever policy issue, WHOIS, or IDNs or AOC review – we group them together and we release them all on a Monday, the first Monday of this month. That type of thing.
So and then that policy committee I should say would then also report back to the SOs on any issues that they think is important for that SO to be aware of. So I’m thinking what we have to include in this is some sort of public policy publish committee that actively monitors the policy publish schedule to keep track, to update in conjunction with all the SOs and ACs and SOs so that the release schedule is coordinated properly. Everybody agrees with that? I see Rudi is ticking that so I assume, and I see Olivier has raised his hand. Go ahead, Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Dev. I’m a little bit confused about what you’re asking here. If I get this correctly you are saying that all of ICANNs supporting organizations and Advisory Committees, so that includes the GAC, that includes everyone, should work together on agreeing to work on specific points on the Monday of each month and on the second Monday of each month and third Monday of each month. Is that what you’re saying? Coordinate all of the activities?
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, well if you look at that chart it’s showing essentially that all the support organizations update this policy publish schedule. Okay? And so that we can chop the change into the schedule, update the schedule and then also, if we wanted to, contact another supporting organization for details about what this, so if you were to say look at something on the ccNSO and the ccNSO is working on this policy, draft policy for whatever issue and we think that’s important or we need details, then we can ask them for it.
What I’m saying is that in previous meetings one of the problems, or one of the barriers has been that the policies are just released seemingly on a first in first out basis. So you might have one policy released on Monday, three on Tuesday and then one on Friday. And then all of them have different timeframes for 30 day comment, which is kind of… Yes go ahead Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I hear what you’re saying. We all agree with the sentiment of it. The issue here is this can’t be an ALAC driven outcome. What it is however, is integral to why the ATRT recommendations on the forecasting and proper prior planning for public comment and topics of public comment are what they are. I just think it’s work that we probably don’t need to do but we should be very happy to know that we were instrumental in (inaudible) noting that this is an important issue and better prior planning will in fact prevent the piss poor performance that happens now.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Let me say that this is where I was coming at the ALAC driving this seems to be something that might be opposed by many people is why I was asking.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, but in the simplified outline, I think it’s 8.3.1.1 – review internal processes on staff level to determine how advanced notice of comment periods and availability of pre-released drafts could be successfully implemented. And this goes to 8.3.1.1 - which is the “Review of activities in advance of the beginning of the public comment period.”
I guess my idea of well proposing this policy publish schedule and proposing therefore a mechanism by which ICANN would have to deal with monitoring the policy publish schedule, I think that’s why I figured it has to be mentioned at least. I don’t know if we have to go into great detail or the possible…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It’s a great concept, but I guess you have more faith in the inside organization of many of the ACs and SOs in ICANN for them to be ready for something like this; and maybe I’m wrong, but this is my personal feeling.
Dev Teelucksingh: Well I admit I don’t truly really know all the different workings of all the SOs.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It’s certainly something that the ATRT would I guess, might push. And I guess it falls in line with what should really happen I guess, but how to implement it is something that will probably require a push from elsewhere as well.
Dev Teelucksingh: Well. it’s more of a recommendation. I don’t think it’s something we can push. ICANN can look at the recommendation and say “Well, we’re not going to do it because it costs too much or we’re very efficient as it is…” They can say that, no?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Record my nervous laugh here.
Dev Teelucksingh: Well okay, so you’re saying putting a recommendation saying that okay, we’d like for this policy publish schedule and recommend that a policy publish coordinator or committee or whatever within ICANN to be in charge of that process – that should not be, this Work Team should not make that recommendation or that suggestion?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It can make suggestions. But going further than that I don’t know. I’m not quite sure, it will just have to make its recommendations with regards to the At-Large side of things and the improvement process within, the ALAC improvement process and At-Large improvement process.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, I understand that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And you know Dev, it would be great to fix everything, but what we’re fixing at the moment is ALAC and At-Large and that’s the first step. The rest, yes, it would be great if we could get on with that but I guess you also have to let the other constituencies and ACs and SOs to also fix themselves.
So we have to be very careful when pushing something like that forward, or when suggesting something like that, that we’re not telling everyone else what to do, it’s just a suggestion. And primarily this is something which we’re doing ourselves, something that you might think of doing yourselves as well. And we’re open to collaborating if such a path was developed.
Dev Teelucksingh: Okay, I get the idea of what you’re saying there Olivier. And I see Cheryl is agreeing with you. Okay. And as Cheryl has said in the chat, you can respond to that point in 8.3 – that the current state of the public, PPC, what does that stand for there? Public Participation Committee, is that it, right, and ATRT both looks at these issues. Okay.
Well I know it’s now 18 minutes past the hour so I think we might just quickly look to end the meeting. Is there any other business then? If anything I will post some of these more questions on the list and get some further discussion. Any other business? I really can’t think of any unless Rudi has anything else to add. You may be muted Rudi, but I’m assuming no.
Okay, the confirmation of the next meeting, the next two weeks, February 17th, 2011, at 19:00 hours provided that there’s been no change in time after reaching out to Heidi, sorry to Hong and Charles. Okay. Anybody wishes to make any comments, questions, thoughts? Going once…going twice. Okay, well then thank you all for taking the extra time on this. Alright. And I will close the meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier, I’m sorry if I’m asking you to become some sort of time lord, and I wasn’t specifically being mean to you as current Chair but it’s just a fact of life, the universe and everything. You can only fit so many things in the agenda. And sometimes more important things bump other things out of the way, but we do need to recognize that happens.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Cheryl, I realize how frustrating it is for everyone to do work and for not being able to actually display it and talk about it and expand on it. So the next ALAC meeting will definitely be dealing with that and obviously something else will be bumped out, but I can always bump things out one month at a time I guess.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Trust me I empathize, boy do I empathize. Can I also note just, well to you not so much for this Work Team, but it’s not unrelated, the current publication out today about the process for new constituencies to be developed in the wonderful world of the GNSO. These are huge ramifications out of this and once again, here we are. Another public comment period coming out of left field, greatness dropped upon us.
This is exactly, and it’s very relevant because of the work we need to do in our recommendation for this particular Work Team. Here we are just about to wrap up this Work Team and there’s a major piece of public commentary now required specific to new constituencies inclusive of the consumer constituencies which is relevant to the recommendations we’re looking after. And I don’t know that Heidi, did you know this was going to come out today?
Heidi Ullrich: No, in fact I’m just looking at, you’re saying this is a public comment that just came out today?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep. And as usual when our internal staff director of At-Large doesn’t even get a heads up, I mean it affects us but my heavens this is not our problem. But it is something we should make clear to the Public Participation Committee that that ain’t good enough and I would be very happy for Heidi to write to the what is left of the ATRT, it still has as list, it can collect information for the next one when we have said in our responses to the final ATRT report that what we need to do is make sure that these matters of public participation and policy development involving the public, in other words, the other sections in 9.1 C and G, that weren’t covered by this ATRT report are the focus of the next.
Here is a classic example as to why. So Olivier, you and Heidi might want to obtain a sharp and not necessarily impressive note on these sorts of things that people just working in their little silos and in this case, something as important as a huge change that had no prior planning, what we were criticizing them for, ICANN for not them, and the fact that Heidi didn’t even know this was coming out is just beyond laughable…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Did this come out of the PPC or did this come out of ICANN staff?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, this would have come out of the Board Committee.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Oh really, okay.
Heidi Ullrich: This is an SIC. Yeah.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The SIC. The black box has spoken.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The black box has spoken and this is what we’re going to get. I’ve got another call coming in, sorry guys. Bye.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks very much, Cheryl. And Heidi, I’ll leave it to you to draft something if you want you can sort of send it to me a little bit later tonight.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, well I’m going to actually, I’d like to if you’d allow, I’d like to just talk with Rob who is the staff person responsible for this and he just called a meeting today. So let me, if I could speak with him later today or first thing tomorrow and then draft something if that is, I can feedback to you, how’s that?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: One thing when I read this I immediately had a huge sigh and thought oh dear another process talking about process and dealing with more process which is likely to just not really get so many people interested and in fact bore a lot of people, especially…
Heidi Ullrich: But what this is, I’ve just now seen it so but what I’m suspecting it is, is finally after what nearly a year, the SIC has come out with their proposed process, these criteria for excepting, recognizing these proposed constituencies. So on one hand that’s a very positive step, but obviously it’s been delayed. But let me, if I could just follow up with Rob on how this came about and why I was not informed of this.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yeah because I have a fear that we’re going to see a number of these in the next few days just before the cut off time for San Francisco. This is what I meant earlier about asking for 15-day extension suddenly so much comes up before the meeting.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, let me follow up with Rob on this because we have been working together. I know just yesterday we were communicating about Beau’s call for comments on the candidates consumers constituency so I’m a little bit surprised that this didn’t come up in our conversation, but I’ll speak with him about that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thanks very much.
[End of Transcript]
