Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, if we’re all here, then let’s get started. First cab off the rank, where are we – the action item from the 28th of September. Now, if people would stop Skyping, actually, then I would like to get to – there we are. Two action items, first of all the Cheryl to work backward on developing the ALAC officer election schedule for discussion during the next excom mid-month call. Cheryl has done absolutely nothing on that, but it is on our agenda, so we’ll need to deal with it.
Heidi to investigate the why the $60,000 allotment for At-Large improvements still does not include the expense of staff as the ALAC Excom was initially assured. So, Heidi, anything back on that?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, and I did remind the powers that be about that. I showed them the summary of the all the reports of the At-Large improvements that the Board passed, so yes, that is now – everyone has been reminded and we will continue forward on this assumption.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So we’re sorting this lot out? Is that what we’re doing?
Heidi Ullrich: I was trying to be diplomatic, but yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, diplomacy is not my long suite at this hour of the day. Some might say it’s not my long suite at any hour of the day, but yeah – that’s good to know that that’s – I think we might leave that open, that one, until we get final resolution. Okay, now the action item from the --
Alan Greenberg: Excuse me?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes?
Alan Greenberg: My hand was up, and it got changed to a microphone. I don’t know who did it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I didn’t do that, otherwise I’d have noticed. Sorry, Alan. If I’d have seen that message then I’d have noted it, but I had a Social Text on top. It’s all yours, go ahead, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: I was going to make a statement similar to yours, excluding the time of day part. The part about lacking diplomacy, and for that reason I was going to say thank you very much for making sure I’ll now remember it, what kind of process do we have here which allowed it to be forgotten? I don’t expect that to be answered, but someone should perhaps take note that – I don’t want to use words like underhanded or sleazy, so I won’t --
Heidi Ullrich: It was not meant as that, it was just purely – it was oversight.
Alan Greenberg: I know, but it’s an oversight like spending your money for your children’s food on gambling or something like that. They promised us that for real things, and then someone along the way said “Oh, we’ll just use it for staff.”
Heidi Ullrich: Well, I can assure you that the discussions I’ve had on reminding everyone on this, there was not at all any kind of – like that, at all.
Alan Greenberg: Then it’s a good thing I didn’t use any of those words.
Vanda Scartezini: I love the ALAC – we are all laughter all the time. It is fun.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s either that or run screaming from the room, Vanda. So it’s probably better to laugh. Okay, well I also would like to just note the use of oversight. Of course, if one has proper oversight, these things wouldn’t happen.
Alan Greenberg: Why can’t we use every word with multiple meanings, though?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, moving on to the action items from the main meeting which is one that we still need to finalize. Unfortunately Chuck did not get that to me until the last couple of days, with regard to the GNSO deliberations. I might ask Alan to talk to that to some extent when we get to that in the agenda, but the matter of the ATRT issue was raised at the ATRT meeting, so I didn’t write to ATRT, I raised it directly at the ATRT meeting that – it was noted, and in our recommendations coming from the ATRT about better access to Board books. It was noted that we can’t make any sort of prediction on what would be expected in these Board books when we’ve only ever seen one, and that was heavily redacted.
Vanda Scartezini: That’s why before this meeting on the 28th , they call on the 28th of October the workbook, inside the (inaudible 0:12:57). And that was the same request that the GNSO has made, and (inaudible 0:13:08) and ALAC and so on.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think it’s worthwhile noting that the ATRT is also asking that we would appreciate that in response to our recommendations going out to public comment, if we got community input from the matter of why should the Board book not be made available to the community when it is made available to the Board? In other words, before the meeting. We expect some push back from legal, in their regular way, but we’d like to think that the community, if it’s asked for that, would be supportive and certainly would be happy to put a final recommendation through – that challenges the ICANN Board to be far more transparent than it currently is. (inaudible 0:14:07) I wouldn’t drop the ad yet. Sebastian, go ahead.
Sebastian Bachollet: Just to make sure you can hear me well with this line.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, we can hear you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, next one the role of staff, until we get to the bottom, so do you want to cover all those in one lump, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I’ll go through them very quickly. Basically, there all finished, I’m just going to do a few exceptions. We’ve organized the call on recommendation six, we’ve done that. It’s, I think, closed now. We are in the process of getting regional input for Evan’s recommendation six Working Group, the one on proxies needs a little bit of clarification, Cheryl. As I mentioned to you earlier, if you could get more clarity on which of those proxy settings this action item is referring to.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I believe it was the WHOIS proxy study that was following the one that’s just been put out for public comment, but I notice Alan’s hand, so perhaps he has more information on that.
Alan Greenberg: No, my hand was actually up to talk about the Board book issue, but let’s – you want me to do that now or just wait until the end?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, go for it.
Alan Greenberg: As Vanda said, assurances have been made that the Board books will be published prior to the next meeting. That is the assurance that’s been made, that is not the practice. The Board book has not yet been published for the August meeting, even though the last meeting was several weeks ago. So it would be nice if we, in fact, had the practice, not just the assurance.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, if they say we will have this, they should change it, because even inside the Board people will still complain about why things are not posted timely, as we ask them to do that.
Alan Greenberg: But I’m pointing out that Kirk, in the GNSO meeting, says that Board books are being posted. He said it as if it was already happening, but it is not happening.
Vanda Scartezini: It’s not.
Alan Greenberg: I’ll also point out it’s not just that. The Board, in the last meeting, approved the GNSO implementation budget, that budget has still not been made public. There’s a link to be inserted --
Vanda Scartezini: The $300?
Alan Greenberg: The – whatever the implementation budget, I don’t know the amount of it, it’s not in the document. It’s the first item on the Board motions from Norway.
Vanda Scartezini: But for the new tld?
Alan Greenberg: Pardon me? Yeah, the new tld.
Vanda Scartezini: The new TLD, it was $300,000. I put in to the report for you.
Alan Greenberg: The point is, the Board approved the budget, the budget therefore, exists; it shouldn’t take four weeks to redact it before it’s published.
Vanda Scartezini: It was supposed to be posted on the Monday after the meeting.
Alan Greenberg: Well, it isn’t. Or if it is, they haven’t told us where it is.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s well hidden, if it’s anywhere.
Alan Greenberg: Well, it may well be posted somewhere.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Bottom of Kirk’s filing cabinet, perhaps. Heidi, back to you on the --
Alan Greenberg: Yeah, sorry.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so the other ones relating to staff have been completed. I’m going quickly down, Facebook, the vanity Facebook URL was announced by staff, we’ve done the five to seven day vote on the three recommended ALS applications, they reached quorum, so we have 129 ALSs now. We’ve very excited about that. Okay, the one of staff to give ralos a heads up on the new budget cycle, we’ve just heard about that from Kevin. I don’t know if the schedule we’ve heard is actually now still on schedule, given that there was supposed to be a call, or there was supposed to be an invitation to the ALAC chair, which she has not received yet, so I think that is slightly behind, so I’ll follow up on that. I could give the schedule that I had been given during the retreat to the Work Team C group, which consists of members of the ALAC sub-committee on finance and budget.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And others.
Heidi Ullrich: And others, of course. And then the other ones, I checked with Vanda, on the Board report, it’s been posted. Thank you, Vanda. The white paper schedule, what we’ve done instead is actually – in talking with Cheryl and legal, we’ve agreed to the schedule for the At-Large direction selection process, the election process as well, and I’ve just received back a diagram from our graphic designer, so we’ll go ahead and once Cheryl approves that, we can send that out with the other diagram that was drawn from Olivier’s original diagram.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, Heidi, if you’ve sent that out I haven’t seen it yet.
Heidi Ullrich: I sent it this morning. Just – it’ll be probably at the top of your in box.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah, okay.
Heidi Ullrich: And skipping down to the last three, well, the last two on staff, but yes, those have been completed.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Terrific. Okay, we now, of course, after the security, stability, and resiliency call have more to do on the Cartagena scheduling, but that’s okay. I think we can do worse than have a flexible agenda for that. Coming up to the followup on what was JAS recommendation six, the matter in which the Board dealt with those reports during its retreat was a matter of considerable concern to our communities and those Working Groups. The GNSO, I gather, Chuck had decided it was all a little too scary to become too friendly with the ACs, and therefore resolved not to join with a single letter of concern, particularly with the reaction to the JAS Work Group, but also to some extent requesting more information including who was briefed in what way. What was the angle taken by staff, etc., etc., in briefing the Board on the recommendation six Working Group as well. I only recently got the response from Chuck, which I did copy through Executive Committee that said yeah well, everyone go do their own thing, but Alan, you could speak to that now.
Alan Greenberg: Sure. There was a lot of push back in the GNSO. Not so much because of jointly asking for the details of this particular briefing and what happened, there was no problem with that, the concern was more with a line in the note that you sent, and I don’t remember it verbatim, I could dig it up, as you could. Which says we hope this current experience will allow us to work collaboratively more times on policy issues. And there’s a feeling among some GNSO counselors, and I state some, that this is a threat to the --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sanctity of PDP process being firmly in the SOs range?
Alan Greenberg: Something like that, and to the extent that the GNSO works collaboratively on policy issues, which direct 6.1 was deemed to be not policy issue, by its definition, nevertheless – it weakens their case for claiming it’s their sole territory.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But their case to claiming it’s their sole territory is in the by-laws.
Alan Greenberg: Well, yes. And as I pointed out to them, the GNSO has sole responsible on formal policy issues, which are sent as the result of a pdp to the Board and the Board has -- is on a different onus to respond to them, or not to respond, but to enact it, they need a super majority to defeat a GNSO formal policy, and it has to do with consensus contracts and contracts with the contracted parties, and that, they do have sole responsibility. Now, ACs and individuals have access to the Work Groups, that decide these, but it is run solely according to GNSO rules. And the argument here is that the outcome of a GNSO policy process or anything vaguely related to a policy process should not be subject to charters approved by other groups and rules approved by other groups and such.
(crosstalk)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, Vanda. Go ahead.
Vanda Scartezini: It’s difficult to understand it, because for me the letter from Cheryl means nothing related to take over or participate in decisions or something like that.
Alan Greenberg: It did use the term policy, or GNSO, or gTLD policy matters, or at least just policy matters. If one takes that statement and extrapolates, you can see where the concern comes from. I believe it’s totally unfounded, but that is the concern. I’m just passing it on, not claiming it as my position.
Vanda Scartezini: I saw the report.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, all I can say is what a pity, opportunity lost, and what I’d like to know now is certainly we need to write, and I will do, because we’ve been asked to by the ALAC in our last meeting. It was subject to whether or not it would be actioned jointly or severally with the GNSO, but we’ve only heard back from the GNSO. Do you want me to pursue the GAC and see where the ACs, particularly with the recommendation 60, because the GAC wasn’t particularly involved in the co-chairing or chartering organization for JAS. I would have been fascinated to understand the rationale, Alan, though I doubt that I would, other than paranoia, as a reason, not a rationale, of something that is clearly co-chartered between the ALAC and the GNSO, which JAS Work Group is, to being of such concern.
Alan Greenberg: Well, as I said, the concern was not with the request for co-signing a letter to the Board, in this case, the request was for the tone or whatever of the peripheral statement, which said we want to be involved in policy matters with you in the future. And that particular part was taken as an affront by – at least by one person, maybe more.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, I understand that, Alan. I’m just saying that in the scheme of throwing babies out with bathwater, well done GNSO.
Alan Greenberg: Indeed. In this particular case, yes indeed. And there was a general will, amongst some of the counselors to say ‘well, there’s no reason not to endorse this particular request to the Board, even if we don’t like the peripheral language in the cover letter’, but that was the way the decision was made.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep. Well that still leaves my question. Should we, now, approach the GAC at least with the basis of asking for more clarification, background information, and what we fear is a possible misdirection of the Board in the staff briefing on the recommendation six?
Alan Greenberg: I’m not sure I would put the misdirection of the staff in it, but yes, I have no problem – I would support approaching the GAC and seeing if they want to do anything jointly. I’m not sure the GAC is in the position to act quickly on such a request. Maybe you both more than I do, in this particular case.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, they cannot act so quickly. I don’t know. They need the – they only act in the face to face meeting.
Alan Greenberg: Well, the GAC is --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Changing.
Alan Greenberg: The GAC is changing.
Vanda Scartezini: But that was what Heather was talk with me in the retreat.
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, I certainly have no problem with you approaching Heather and seeing or even asking her what form should such a request take.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, that’s about the second sentence, is the --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, we’ll pop that as an action item, but we will still draft the one directly. Now, one of the reasons this is taking us a little bit longer to discuss, of course, is that it also comes back to the basis of the Board book. And what I would suggest, with your agreement, is that we explore the matters of the Board books and the lack of transparency and indeed, lack of follow through on promises and undertake it on what the Board has already stated to the community and to the ATRT would be one of the mechanisms that would assist us in understanding how they’re briefed and the manner in which they are briefed. I, Vanda, I have spoken at length with Heather, and she is limited in obviously, what she can tell me, from a Board meeting.
I think it’s important that the Executive Committee and you to know that as someone who was an integral part, even though she was working through Frank, Frank kept her fully appraised and briefed, as someone who understood quite well what was in the report, what level of consensus and in some cases full consensus, but near full consensus on a number of the 17 recommendations that recommendation six implementation recommendations were about, it was her opinion that the briefing you all, as a Board, got, was not leading you to a full and proper understanding. I had an opportunity to quiz another Board member yesterday, I spoke to Bruce Tompkin, and it was equally clear, while he was saying “Good job done, what an excellent exercise, and what a lovely report,” it was very, very clear that he neither read nor understood the mechanisms we had gone through, the degree of community support that we had, for a number of the recommendations, and what it meant – a scaling system of near full consensus and full consensus.
And to that end, Alan, I think that’s something that would be smart to get back to the PPSC as well. The Board did not read or understand nor were they briefed on what level of consensus any or all beyond the need to change the name. It appeared to be trivialized, from my analysis of what Bruce was saying. And if it’s as large and as important as Joint Co-operation and Joint cross community deliberations that we went through and the recommendation six can be trivialized in such a manner in the presentations to the Board, I believe we have some very serious issues to deal with in the next 12 to 18 months, indeed.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, I do believe that we didn’t go deeply into the analysis. We work with some parts of the recommendation and went back. The idea was to give more time for most of the points, not consensus, did not get consensus to have some time to do that. But most of the points inside the morale and public recommendations was to be, in my opinion, accepted. But it was quite important for the whole community to push a little bit to avoid other voices, to get strength in this decision.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, it’s interesting, because Bruce also indicated that he felt what the Board had resolved was that it should come back to the cross community Work Group and for us to gain and reach consensus on the matter. I pointed out to him the level of consensus where a single voice was considered against something, it was considered to be not full consensus, and educated him, and I suspect we now need to educate the wider ICANN community on exactly how much near consensus and indeed, higher than super majority, if we were going to take those measurements, agreement there was on almost all those 17 recommendations. So I maintain that the Board was not wisely advised on this matter. Alan, go ahead.
Alan Greenberg: Did I just hear you say that the impression Bruce gave you is that – I’m not sure it was Bruce, or you or Vanda said it – that the Board wanted to go back to the group to get further details?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s what Vanda said, and that is also what Bruce told me.
Vanda Scartezini: To finish – some points. Because most of the points, from my view, inside the Board, there is no disagreement.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, but are we – that was the exact statement that I – that Kirk Pritz used with regard to the JAS one. That the JAS Board resolution said ‘things are unsure, we’re keeping the fee the same.” I quote, almost verbatim. The – that’s what part of it said. What Kirk said is “because the criteria were not yet established or proposed, the Board could take no action, but the Board was certainly willing to talk about it again, once some criteria were being raised and discussed.” I hadn’t heard that in regard to the Rec 6 one, and in fact, the Rec 6 --
Vanda Scartezini: This is related to the (inaudible 0:35:22) strength.
Alan Greenberg: Well, not quite. Because the Rec 6 one used wording in the resolution which looked like it talked about things, but in fact, wasn’t. And that one sounded like a very deliberately worded resolution to me. To avoid answering the real questions, and I have heard nothing from Kirk or anyone else, or at least not in the GNSO meeting that said the Board is looking for further direction on that. They said they were looking for further direction from staff.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s right, but nothing --
Vanda Scartezini: They said that we ask the staff to get all the issues that are under consensus and the majority, and we organize it to be approved as part of the issue. And our decision over there was to give it more time for the group to do so. And to finalize the issues, there is no consensus or majority.
Alan Greenberg: I know this Board meeting was held on short notice, but you need – the Board needs better drafters of motions then, because what the motion said was you’re going to staff to find out which parts of the recommendation from the Working Group fit within existing processes and there are no existing processes, so that’s an undefined term. And it said nothing about clarifying the consensus issues. Existing processes are --
Vanda Scartezini: I don’t remember exactly words of that---
Alan Greenberg: I do.
Vanda Scartezini: Sometimes out to go to the hospital. But anyway, this one was as I make my notes, it was what do we decide. It’s good enough that we have consensus on this and that, the staff could put all together and let’s give some time for the group to finalize the work.
Alan Greenberg: That is not what the resolution said, that’s not what Kirk said, and that’s not what the group is doing, because the group is disbanded, at this point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The Board’s intentions appear to not be reflected in the resolution.
Alan Greenberg: I’ll tell you, what disappointed me most was the large number of Board members who approved that motion, as it was worded. I would have expected, at the very least, far more abstentions, if not far more votes against.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan, if we can, I’d like some of what we’ve discussed here, in this call, to form some of the words for our letter to the Board. I think what we’ve done here is tease out a few specific issues which I think we should be putting in our letter. I’m just wondering what the best way of capturing some of this would be. Seth, how extensive is your note taking? Or however is doing capture here?
Alan Greenberg: We’re between 30 and 40 minutes into the call, we will have a recording.
Seth Greene: Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Seth.
Seth Greene: I think that my notes are probably not adequate for what you’re asking.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thanks. In which case, we’ll just have to time stamp this and do a little bit of transcription.
Alan Greenberg: How do you relate this letter you are talking about to the comment we are going to be making on the report? And presumably, therefore, on the Board resolution? There is a gTLD Working Group , in theory, activity going on on this.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, Alan. I don’t understand that question. Maybe it’s just me.
Alan Greenberg: I believe we asked the gTLD Working Group to come up with a response.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: For the public comment, yes. Well, the Rec 6 stuff is still going to public comment, that’s not a problem. That’s almost a parallel action to what we need to do, which is work out why what we are hearing was at least some members of the Board understanding of their intentions, and what we can read and what follow up is or is not happening.
Alan Greenberg: The draft comments, so far, and only Evan and I have worked on it, is largely focused not on the report itself, but rather on the Board response to it. So there may well be some overlap, but --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It sounds like there’s a huge amount of overlap, and I would have thought that putting a piece of – it sounds to me like the gTLD Working Group is missing its target, because what it should be doing is making public comment on the report, from the Rec 6 cross community Working Group.
Alan Greenberg: That’s probably my fault, because my reaction has been mostly on the resolution.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And the resolution – well, what I’m saying is we need to fill this out – because the resolution issues are an ALAC follow up, with or without GAC now. But what we need from the gTLD Work Group is the additional minority report issues, etc., that Evan was bleating on about during the process and felt that we needed to pick up on, as well as affirmation or otherwise, an extension of other regional and ALS views that can be integrated into how much general community consensus there is, on any of the other recommendations.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, I guess that’s my fault for misdirecting it. Because I personally didn’t think there was a lot of point of flogging dead horses at this point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It sounds like we can resuscitate a horse. I think we can create Frankenstein out of it. It’ll be fine.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Alright, I do need to move to the next agenda item, unless someone wants to – I see some hands still up. Seth’s got a microphone, Alan’s got a microphone --
Alan Greenberg: I don’t know who lowers them, I can’t. At one point I used to be able to lower the microphone, but I can’t anymore.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, well. I can’t do anything with Seth, he’ll just have to exercise his own microphone.
Seth Greene: Cheryl, I don’t think I did that. It’s not supposed to be a microphone.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I’ll just ignore it, you yell if you need me.
Alan Greenberg: Why don’t we just leave them as hands? We can lower them ourselves.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We can indeed. Okay, right. So, Carlton, you’re on the call?
Carlton Samuels: Yes, I’m here now.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fantastic. And we’ve got this little additional public consultation of things coming at us. What have we – we’ve got five of them.
Carlton Samuels: I’ve looked at them, I’m waiting to hear what the comment is, but I looked at what has been submitted and the allocation of numeric only single digit domains and .TEL and the companion one, the ASCII TEL domain names one and two character ASCII TEL domain names. I look at the preliminary determination from ICANN, that’s all. The issue for those is whether or not they’re significant, competitive – anti-competitive behavior, that might have been seen. The ICANN information is that there isn’t. I would imagine that it would require some kind of economic analysis, which we don’t have access to. So unless somebody, one of ours is insisting that there is some – we have some way of analyzing, economically what the recommendation is, then this is one of those that I am inclined to recommend that we sit on our hands.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The first two?
Carlton Samuels: Yes.
Heidi Ullrich: I didn’t hear that. Did you say you recommended that ALAC does or does not --
Carlton Samuels: ALAC does not. ALAC sits on our hands.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Does not.
Carlton Samuels: We just don’t have the expertise to determine one or another, whether they are anti-competitive.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay.
Carlton Samuels: And if we can’t independently declare them – if we can’t determine independently that they are anti-competitive, I would recommend that we simply don’t say anything.
Alan Greenberg: Well, we could say that it makes us uneasy, if indeed it makes us uneasy.
Carlton Samuels: Well, yes. It would mean that you have done some principle – I didn’t see a basis for saying we couldn’t tell. But I am, again, saying that unless somebody says that this is – that would be my recommendation.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan, do you believe we should say it makes us uneasy?
Alan Greenberg: No, no, to be honest I haven’t even looked at them. It’s not my area of great understanding. I could look at them quickly, I’m just saying we don’t have to back our statements up with an economic analysis, if indeed, we have a thought on it.
Carlton Samuels: That’s true, well you’d be guided by what they – well, I’m guided by reading what the ICANN objections report says. And it says it sees no reason why they shouldn’t be granted as requested, and I can’t say otherwise.
Alan Greenberg: I was giving not a specific statement in this case, but a generic one, saying we could just object, if we felt it was important. But I’m not saying we should, in this case.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alright, so those two slides. What about root zone scaling?
Carlton Samuels: Root zone scaling. That will require some more information. I think this one is one that we should send to the Technical Committee for some help. So unless there is significant opposition to that. This one, I think, merits some kind of look, deeper look, from the Technical Committee.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I certainly agree we should be doing something with it, and I think you’re right. The Technical Committee is the right place to do it. Sebastian? Go ahead.
Sebastian Bachollet: (inaudible 0:46:31).
Carlton Samuels: Sebastian, you’re breaking up badly I’m not hearing a thing you’re saying. Did anybody hear?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, it’s quite difficult. Vanda, you have your hand up, while Sebastian – he might be going to type into the – yeah.
Carlton Samuels: Yeah, he’ll write it out.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Good. Vanda, you’re hand is up?
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, just about the technical issues, that we already have, now, a very clear point from the technical group from the first rounds we can grant you (inaudible 0:47:52) or some number like that, 946 new TLDs in the first round, so there is some -- I believe it was published in some place, that could be interesting to read, and to get all the information from that. I’m not sure you could distinguish or not, but I could take a look.
Carlton Samuels: Oh yes, the original – remember, about six months ago, the something was published, and if my memory tells me right, the old friend in Europe, did have a look at it, and his comments were actually posted. This summary, as I understand it, includes that document, that original document, and then a summary of what was said from the committee on two separate documents, so this is a summary document now, and what I’m saying is that there’s some additional information that’s added to the document, I would recommend that it goes back to the Technical Committee to give us --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Another pass through. That makes sense.
Carlton Samuels: Yeah, another pass. That’s the expression. Let’s have them have another pass at it, before we say anything.
Alan Greenberg: Before we go on, Heidi, the links in the agenda here have unique URLs, but all point back to the agenda. Or at least all get you back to the agenda, so there’s something broken in how that’s set up.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, Sebastian’s point was right, the numeric in .TEL could be a point of possible confusion with ENUM.
Carlton Samuels: Yeah, that was raised very, very much earlier in the game, but remember that the ENUM, there’s a prefix qualifier that comes with it. So the entire URL qualified should not raise an issue – a confusion issue, because you would send a fully qualified URL.
Alan Greenberg: Carlton, that makes them unique, not subject to confusion by human beings.
Carlton Samuels: Yes, that makes them unique.
Alan Greenberg: But still subject to confusion.
Carlton Samuels: You are absolutely right, Alan. But if you put it in a machine, it wouldn’t have a problem finding it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I must say confusion is something I think we are overreacting about. I’m not overly confused when I put it something and it takes me to the .net as opposed to the .com space, because I’ve made that error. I work out fairly quickly whether that is or is not where I need to be in order to get to --
Carlton Samuels: Well, that’s precisely the tenor of what I’m saying, Cheryl. If you type in to it, it seems to transfer quickly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly. Sebastian, any more on that point? I’m sure you’re right, if that is the case. So Carlton, back to the root zone scaling. Yes, Vanda?
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, just because I’ve got my notes on this morality and public, and one thing that I am seeing here, the point that was huge debated was the recommendation that was made to the Board for all objections to go to the Board and we could not, not to an independent disputed resolution or something like that. That was something that was not decided by the Board either way, because it’s not for the Board to decide each one of those problems, because it’s too day by day work.
So the idea was to have an independent group and process to make it working, and that’s the only one that we – that was consensus that we have a difficulty to understand why and why we should put every – all those work to the Board and not to an independent group that could be more controller. So that was the only others, even points like you know, change of words or something like that, it was all (inaudible 0:53:57) to be effective. So that was one important point that we --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Vanda. I wonder if, with your permission, we might quote some of the points you’ve made from your notes there. Alan, go ahead.
Alan Greenberg: Yeah, again, I’ll say if that was the decision of the Board, it was not well reflected in the motion, that’s number one.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, I understand.
Alan Greenberg: And number two, again, I can’t speak to the words that were in the report, I don’t have the report in front of me. The tone and the concern from the Working Group was very much that an application should not be rejected based on the view of an outside party without the Board taking positive action to review that rejection. Now the final report may well have said acceptances or rejections, but certainly the discussion focused around rejections, and that is – the Board cannot delegate the rejection.
Now, interestingly, in another resolution, the Board said they were delegate the staff, again the word delegate, we’re using two different ways, they would delegate the examination and approval of new TLDs. That resolution did not say they would delegate the staff the ability to reject. So the implication, if that resolution is taken verbatim, and worded – based on the other ones, I’m not sure how carefully that one was worded – is that we got what we wanted. The Board has not delegated to anyone other than the Board the ability to reject. But the wording in the Working Group was very much that the Board, if ICANN is going to reject TLDs based on the former morality objection, that it be done at the Board level.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And quite clearly, the Board did not understand that.
Alan Greenberg: And that might mean that an objection filed on those grounds goes to an outside group, the outside group says the objection is crap, and the TLD gets approved. I don’t think that anyone is going to raise concern that that – gets positive reaction. So either the staff who presented this did not understand it, or did not represent it well. I don’t know which.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And either, we need to find out about. Okay.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay, just to give to you my notes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be fantastic, thanks Vanda. Carlton, while we’re on the matter of delegation and my breakfast is arriving --
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, can we go back to the previous one?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, you can, but I’m not at the computer right now.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, I just want to ask one question. Have you considered, in any of your discussion with other chairs, that we not only ask for the Board briefing books, but ask for a transcript?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, say again? I was at the other end of the room.
Carlton Samuels: He wants a transcript, Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I’m back again.
Alan Greenberg: The question was, in your discussion with other chairs, has the issue been raised of not only asking for the Board books, and the briefing, but the transcript of the discussion?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We haven’t discussed that, but if you want me to there’s no reason why we can’t. I think we’ve got a snowball’s fat chance in hell of getting it, but --
Alan Greenberg: I understand.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, back to the subject on the current agenda.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Delegation --
Carlton Samuels: Okay, delegation raise scenario. This one is quite an interesting one. This one is that we have all of these applications and new gTLDs, there is a process by which they get through and then accepted, and what they’re talking about here is how soon do they get to the root, so that you can find them. They are published and you can find them if you look up the URL. That’s the issue of this one, and they’ve done some work, and they say “Well, it depends on how many of them we have, and it depends on how long it takes, and if they’re straight forward, or if they have some problems.”
The idea is – the concern is, the ability of the roots. Updating the roots with so many, so often, it increases the workload, etc., etc., from compliance, etc., etc. It’s interesting. It’s an interesting intellectual study, I should think, as I look at it. But I am not sure that we could come up with anything other than the good guess work that is here. But I certainly think that we should at least have a look, have a discussion about it, so that we might send out a cautionary note, about the stability issue. That’s my thinking, and so this is another one that I think probably, I don’t think it should be given to literally Technical Committee, I think our committee as a whole should – we should have as broad based a group as possible looking at this one, and looking at the stages that are provided. And see if we can come up with a common cautionary note to the Board on this one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because it’s new gTLDs, and we have a new gTLD Work Group, should we not perhaps ask the new gTLD Work Group and the technical Work Group to work together on this one?
Carlton Samuels: I am suggesting that, yes. You’ve defined it a little bit clearer than me. I don’t think it’s just one committee that should look at this. That’s what I’m suggesting that we do. We send it to at least these two committees to look at. There are too many issues there. There’s the new gTLD in the process and so on, and then there’s the stability issue, which is a technical matter.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Carlton Samuels: That’s my recommendation.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Any discussion on that, or should we just make that so. Sebastian? Alan? Alan, your hand is up?
Alan Greenberg: No, I’m happy with it. That’s my hand from before. My apologies.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, no problem. And Dave agrees, excellent. Sebastian agrees. Public participation committee – now, I do appreciate a good public comment as much as the next person, but – (laughter) sorry. Go ahead, Carlton.
Carlton Samuels: I looked at the basic information again, and this is one of these meeting things, I think, because public participation is something that we – it’s part of the strategic objectives, broaden public participation. We should be at least on record to support any information or any activity that is intended to broaden public participation, so I say we should at least put in a pro forma comment here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I think that’s --
Carlton Samuels: That’s my recommendation.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I just think it’s --
Carlton Samuels: And if you want, I could look at the – I could volunteer to look at the base and look at this in a little more detail and try to craft something.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, that would be fantastic. It doesn’t need to be extensive, but --
Carlton Samuels: No, it’s not an extensive thing. That’s not what I’m suggesting. Not an extensive comment, but something I think we should be on record, at least, saying we see it and we voice our support one way or another. Something like that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Keep up the good work, well done thing. Right. Now, to the deep and meaningful issues of items for decision for today, which is the ALAC officer elections, development of the schedule. We probably need to work backwards. What’s the latest that we can finalize these, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: I believe it’s a month prior to the 10th of December. I’m just taking a look at the rules of procedure, and I think it’s number nine that states – if I may, Cheryl, read that rule 9.1 from the ALAC rules of procedure. Okay, 9.1 states “No earlier than one calendar month and no later than three weeks before the beginning of an ICANN meeting, where an ALAC officer has to be elected, the current chair of the ALAC will send to the public ALAC list an election call message, giving officers that are to be elected at the ICANN meeting, asking for nominations, and stating the deadline according to the following paragraph, 9.2”
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So, under that circumstance, I want to run backwards from the latest is what? The 10th of December? Is when the ICANN AG is, that’s the finish of the meeting, so we need to run backwards from there, because the election will take place at ‘the ICANN meeting’.
Alan Greenberg: I think it says no later than three weeks before.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s when you put out the call. Yeah, that’s when you put out the call. So we want to have the opportunity to get to know the people, for them to present to us – so there might be new people who want to put their hands up. Do you want, then, to conclude the vote – my problem with the five to seven is that we would have to be in vote mode at the beginning of the week, and I don’t think that’s really practical. There’s nothing that says in our rules, correct me if I’m wrong, that we cannot do a secret ballot, which is not electronic, or that is a hybrid of electronics for those who are not face to face at the meeting, and paper or proxy or electronic for those at the meeting, but for it to run just for a day.
Alan Greenberg: In the past we’ve done it at meetings, and telephone if the person wasn’t there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s right. So if we set that for the Thursday, which is the 9th ? Let me have a look.
Heidi Ullrich: It’s the 9th, Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. If we run our election on the 9th, it means that we can report the outcome on the 10th, which is the last day, during the then current chair’s, my final report. Alright? So if you’re all happy with that end date, and that mechanism, I’ll work backwards with that on Heidi, which voting will begin, at sort of the stroke of midnight of the 8th , and finish at whatever it time it is suits us on the 9th . and then we’ll work backwards on the exception of nominations and the nominations closing and all. I think it’s easier to schedule work backward from that date. Are you all happy with that?
Alan Greenberg: I think that’s reasonable. In the past, there’s been some worry that the officers should be elected by the new ALAC, not by the old ALAC, but that implies that it’s not done until after the meeting, and that means that some of the existing officers may not be ALAC members any more, and I think that’s more problematic. So I support what you’re saying.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Dave, are you alright with that? Good. Carlton, happy with that?
Carlton Samuels: Yes, I’m good with that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastian? Good. Tip from you Sebastian, or? Can you tell me the officer?
Carlton Samuels: He may be at – he’s typing.
Alan Greenberg: We’re talking about the whole list of officers. That is the election for the next year.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly. Yeah.
Alan Greenberg: Right now, I believe we’re talking officers, not liaisons.
Carlton Samuels: Officers of ALAC.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah.
Carlton Samuels: Chairs, Vice Chairs, etc.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. Basically what makes up the ExCom. And then what it allows us to do, on the 10th, or late on the 9th, is also then sort of co-op the fifth member of the Executive Committee, depending on the vote. Okay? Now we also tend to run the liaison elections and appointments at the same time. Why does Sebastian disagree? Please tell us, what’s the problem?
Carlton Samuels: I don’t think he’s disagreeing here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, he’s got a big red X next to his name.
Alan Greenberg: Well, in the chat he said he thinks it’s the new ALAC that should select the ExCom, but I don’t believe that’s what our rules of procedure actually state.
Carlton Samuels: That’s what he says, the ExCom. I’m not sure there’s a – what is the distinction here, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: The distinction is whether the vote is taken before the end of the Friday, or after the end of the Friday.
Carlton Samuels: Ah, okay. I now follow what you say.
Alan Greenberg: And conceivably, if we follow, if we were to change the rules to do what Sebastian is suggesting, I don’t believe the current rules of procedure say that, then we might be without an ALAC chair for some significant period of time.
Carlton Samuels: That’s the risk, you see.
Alan Greenberg: So I-- Certainly in the past the process has been the previous group selected the officers for the next one. There was only one officer at that point, typically, but nevertheless. Now, that may be something we want to consider, and change the rules, but I think we would have to consider it carefully, if we did.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, we certainly would. Alright, well we note Sebastian’s concern over that. We’ll put the draft schedule out, and the rest of the ALAC can respond as well. Okay. Right, next step for reference we’ve really discussed on Rec 6, so I think we’ve covered that one up, so let’s just move to the At-Large meeting schedule. Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, you click on that. I’m hoping that that link is fixed here. There you will see, in confluence, the At-Large Cartagena schedule. So what we need to do today, please, is just to confirm the meetings. We do not need to conclude or agree to the agendas. That can come later. But what I’d like to have is a confirmation of the actual meetings that we’re holding during the Cartagena meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Have we added in the SSR for Tuesday, Heidi? Or not yet?
Heidi Ullrich: My understanding was that that was going to be --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Briefings. Staffing briefings, okay. Not a problem.
Heidi Ullrich: So I’ll add that shortly. The only question now is would you like that in policy discussion part one or part two? But that’s up to you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, wherever it fits would be my response. Okay, people’s views on that.
Heidi Ullrich: Should I go through that, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, please.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so starting on Sunday, we have the traditional full day workshop for ALAC and regional leadership, that is from 9 to 1800. Then on Monday evening we will have the NORALO monthly meeting, at a time to yet be determined, but we also know that the LACRALO showcase will be on Monday evening between 1800 and 1900, so we’ll update that. And also then on Tuesday, between early in the morning, 730 to 830, there’ll be an APRALO meeting, and we’re hoping that that will be in the conference center, despite the conference center normally opening at 8.
Then on Tuesday, we have the traditional 90 minute sessions for ALAC policy discussions. I have them beginning at 9:00, so it’s 900 to 1030, then at 1030 a coffee break. But I’m thinking that as everyone changes, gets up to get their coffee, we can then immediately come back and start the second session. I can also see if coffee can be served in the room.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would help. Or just outside the door.
Heidi Ullrich: Exactly. You can see we are in the room Pegasus, which is on the ground floor, it’s a very good location. It’s off the major foyer, which overlooks the water and the old town, through some double doors, and it’s right there, so it’s a good location.
Then on Wednesday, we have the At-Large regional secretariat’s meeting. Again, the time for that is yet to be determined. We also have, on Wednesday, I’m assuming, though I have yet to confirm this, the ALAC lunch with the Board. and then on Wednesday we also have a meeting with the registrars, and I believe that was going to be around 1500, but I have to confirm that one too. Then I don’t know if – this may have just been there from the last time, I don’t know if we want this consumer meeting as a followup from the meeting that they had in Brussels.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think we probably will. I think there’s considerable interest on that.
Heidi Ullrich: Cheryl, I’m going to follow up then with Rosemary. And then we can maybe get a call with Aubrey, Beau, etc.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Aubrey, Evan, Beau, Rosemary, me, Holly, Rashik, you know, the usual suspects. I happen to know Rosemary is penning a report on the last meeting at the moment, so that should be out soon, too.
Heidi Ullrich: We weren’t sure about that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I discussed it with her last night.
Heidi Ullrich: Excellent. And continuing, on Wednesday we have the LACRALO monthly meeting, and that’s 1700 to 1830. I’m still waiting for confirmation is that’s billed at a GA or not. Thursday we have the ALAC mutual leadership raffle, and that’s 90 minutes, no, I’m sorry, that’s two hours, because there’s going to be an additional 30 minutes for a sum up from the At-Large Work Team chairs, co chairs. That’s why that traditional 90 minute session is going to be two hours. Now we also have – I’m not sure if you would like a separate session, normally Kevin speaks at that session, and I don’t know if you want a separate session with Kevin just on the new changes that will be happening in the fiscal year 12 budget development process.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, my view is yes, but what does everyone else think?
Carlton Samuels: Yes, (inaudible 1:17:13).
Heidi Ullrich: I think that from what I’m understanding of the changes this year, including a template for budget requests, I think it would be useful. Also the timelines stipulate that by Cartagena it would be useful to have draft templates ready to go. So that is very much earlier than normal. I’m going to write down a separate 60 minute session with Kevin if that’s okay.
Alan Greenberg: Given the ongoing discussion on general assemblies and funding and making sure it doesn’t miss the boat this year around, I think it’s important.
Carlton Samuels: Absolutely.
Heidi Ullrich: So we’ll put 60 minutes on fiscal year 12.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can we see if we can also get David available, or at least in directive, or whoever it is?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I can ask him about that, and also hoping to get Akram, the new COO, to help with first session.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m sorry, the first session on Sunday?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Heidi Ullrich: So I’d like to have David and Akram come to that session, for maybe 30 minutes or 45 minutes.
Carlton Samuels: This is on Sunday?
Heidi Ullrich: This is on Sunday. And now we’re going into the agendas. But just also, in addition to David and Akram, I would like to be able to confirm that Barbara Clay and Scott Penthon would like to speak with you as well, on Sunday.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, when are we going to fit that in?
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, well if you move – that confluence Wiki bit, if we take that out for a separate session, Cheryl, I think you said you wanted that later in the week?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would prefer it later in the week, yes.
Heidi Ullrich: I think that would be good, so you could guarantee to be there, so if we take that one out and put that into a separate meeting as well, and then we can fit Barbara in to Sunday.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Happy with that.
Alan Greenberg: Is that lunch, or --
Carlton Samuels: Where would we put the confluence Wiki thing, and why are we doing it again?
Heidi Ullrich: I think we would have to have that meeting on Thursday, but once the larger schedule comes out, then we can move things around.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Carlton, it’s not training, it’s actually what else needs to be done, what other pages, what other tools.
Carlton Samuels: Okay. Alright.
Heidi Ullrich: And Cheryl, it’s basically telling IT --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What we want.
Heidi Ullrich: Where should we be, basically. So I think that would be a very useful session.
Alan Greenberg: So even though it says training in the agenda, that’s not what it is?
(crosstalk)
Heidi Ullrich: So, the last set, so we have two additional meetings that we’ll add so that will be a 60 minute session with Kevin on fiscal year 12 budget development, and the second one will be moving this confluence down to probably Thursday. I can call that a confluence review. And then on Friday we have a two hour Executive Committee. Currently that’s from 1600 to 1800.
Alan Greenberg: Heidi, the Sunday lunch, is that a working lunch, or we all go off and find a restaurant?
Heidi Ullrich: That’s up for you to decide.
Alan Greenberg: I would think that given that we’re trying to add more stuff on to Sunday, that is we make it a catered lunch, it doesn’t take more than 15 or 20 minutes or so, and then we have an extra hour to work.
Carlton Samuels: That’s a good idea.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, let me look into that. What we can do, if we can’t do catering, is that we can arrange for some kind of take out menu to be passed around.
Alan Greenberg: The GNSO always seems to manage. If our rooms are somewhat nearby, we can even share the same buffet, and it doesn’t have to increase that much.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I’ll look into that.
Alan Greenberg: I know we don’t like having a huge amount of unused food, but it’s a huge amount of time to lose. Not only do we lose the hour and a half for lunch, but people never come back in time, and it’s another twenty minutes before we really get started. Every single time.
Heidi Ullrich: We also need to request that all coffee breaks be served in our rooms.
Alan Greenberg: Well, it depends where they are otherwise. Are they a half a mile away, or are they just outside the door?
Heidi Ullrich: That I don’t know. I can ask.
Alan Greenberg: We’re not trying to generate expenses that are unreasonable, but on the other hand, if they’re going to be far away or they’re going to be rigidly time controlled, then it’s worth having it in the room.
Carlton Samuels: I don’t think it can cost anything more to have it in the room.
Alan Greenberg: There’s always a significant amount unused, and therefore there’s extra cost for doing it that way, on the other hand, to be able to get a coffee in the middle of the meeting is important. And if they’re going to be using coffee gestapo where they don’t let you drink until the appointed minute and shut it down thirty minutes later, to the second, then in the room is important.
Dave Kissoondoyal: Are we going to have the meetings for the Work Teams?
Heidi Ullrich: Dave, this is Heidi. They are still deciding. I think that you could just confirm, but I believe that two out of the four have said yes so far. One has said no. And the fourth one has not yet decided.
Alan Greenberg: That sounds right.
Heidi Ullrich: So we’ll confirm that. Two have confirmed --
Sebastian Bachollet: One is missing.
Heidi Ullrich: I’m sorry, Sebastian?
Sebastian Bachollet: (inaudible 1:23:18.5) the meeting of the B?
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, there’s no meeting of the B set, can you confirm, or --
Alan Greenberg: Sebastian said there’s no meeting of the B. Yes, there was no meeting that weekend of policy retreat. The next meeting we’ve gotten a bit behind on. The next meeting that’s available to us is, in fact, this Wednesday. If the team would like it, there’s going to be an email later today to the chair, to the entire team, actually.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, just to confirm. I just heard today from Walt and Olivier for the EURALO meeting, they have decided not to hold it during the Cartagena meeting, and instead have it on the 14th of December, which is one week prior to the normal schedule for the EURALO meeting. Okay, on the coffee, I just heard that actually coffee, we’re just one level above where it will be served, and there is a back elevator, or lift for people who don’t want to take the stairs. Apparently the trip is two minutes long.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we can take our coffee back to the room if we need to?
Heidi Ullrich: Well, I’m sure. Yeah.
Alan Greenberg: And is it going to be under strict time constraints?
Heidi Ullrich: Let me ask.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Probably. Dave, go ahead. Dave, you’ve got your hand up?
Dave Kissoondoyal: Yeah, sorry. I already asked the question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, okay. Well, subject to the feeding issues, are we happy with this schedule?
Alan Greenberg: I think we’re reasonably happy. As happy as we can be, since we’ve just seen it and haven’t analyzed it. Yeah.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, I mean the agendas are still to come, and that’s really where the major details are. I don’t know about a meeting with the GAC. We do that every second meeting, and we had one at the last didn’t we?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Which means the answer would be no. Unless there is an extraordinary reason to do so, and that’s likely to be more informal, with the sub-committees. Excellent, thanks, Heidi, for the update. Heidi, do you need anything else from us?
Heidi Ullrich: No, not for that. Cheryl, I will be in touch with you as we start filling out the meeting confirmation form.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, not a problem. Okay, ExCom, anything you want to place on the agenda for the 26th? Is there anything we haven’t discussed today that we need to put on the agenda for the 26th? Right. If you think of anything --
Alan Greenberg: Something tells me there is, but for the life of me I can’t think of what it is.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, well if you think of anything, put it through to the list. That’s great. And now Vanda, anything from the upcoming Board meeting agenda?
Vanda Scartezini: Well, if we’ll have some (inaudible 1:27:24).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s not done yet. Okay. That makes it very difficult.
Vanda Scartezini: Yeah, there are some issues with (inaudible 1:27:38) because they are going to have in the next week a retreat, to fix the agenda. The time to finalize, but only one has the approval by law, to allow the ALAC to --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right. The only thing I would suggest, Vanda, on that is assuming that the Board is going to take the SO recommendation and it’s still going to go ahead, you should know but not table at the meeting when you’re discussing that, that we will have already established our final slate. The BCEC will have their final slate, and all but ready, just not formally signed off, on the 28th . The BCEC was most concerned that it would not flag its listing of people publicly or even near publicly before the Board came to its decision on the resolution to the by-laws. So it is not that we are not fully geared up and ready to go, we are, in fact, absolutely geared up and ready to go. The BCEC meeting following the meeting of the 28th , correct me if I’m wrong, Heidi, the 2nd of November. Or 3rd?
Heidi Ullrich: 3rd of November.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that will be the point where the slate is formally endorsed and becomes public, along with all the other details. We’ll then have a fortnight of people you know, being able to promote themselves, we’ll do community calls and things. Then the vote will be -- we’ve got time table, and it’s just important to know that we’re not stopping and waiting, we’re ready to go.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, two things, with regard to what you just said, is it a given that anyone who is on the final slate who is not otherwise going to be at the ICANN meeting will be given transportation there, or that is to be discussed, or not to happen?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s not likely to happen, because the election will be known before we go to Cartagena.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, but way past the time which new Board members are normally known, therefore we’ve passed the ICANN travel rules.
Heidi Ullrich: Cheryl? May I add to that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Heidi.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I have been in touch with constituency travel, repeatedly on this issue, and just last week told them that it won’t be till the 19th that the candidate will be known. So they are aware of that , and they have indicated that should not be a problem.
Alan Greenberg: So you’re not doing it with the candidate, but you will do it with whoever is selected then?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s correct.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, sorry.
Vanda Scartezini: I think that because of the time they will give the elected member will not participate and then all the others --
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All we can do is thank the Board for that. We can thank the Board and the structural improvements committee for dicking around so bloody long.
Alan Greenberg: Or you can invite all candidates. You’ll know their names in a day or two.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What are the dates of the retreat, Vanda?
Vanda Scartezini: It starts on November 3rd and end on November 6th . On Friday.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, my original question however, was related to what you were saying about the timing. If you read the comments on-- the response to the comments, which by the way, Heidi, you can pass on to our legal counsel that they were very well done. They, in response to Jani’s concern that the public may view the ALAC merging the six months plus the three years into a single apartment, could be viewed as ALAC taking unilateral action, and the response was “Well, the motion from the Board could mention that as something that is allowed,” I would like to see something else mentioned in that motion, and that is specifically that the actions that have been taken by the ALAC in preparation for selecting the person, are valid, even though they happened before the by-laws.
That’s not the legal wording, because one of the strongest criticisms we have gotten, ever since this process started, was here we are running a process and it’s not in the by-laws yet. And therefore, there are people who have said that any of the actions we have taken, leading up to the final election, are not valid. So even though the final “election” as it were, will be afterwards, it would be really, really useful if the motion acknowledged that the ALAC has taken motions ahead of time, and that is approved and valid and legal and all that good stuff.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay, I’m writing this down.
Alan Greenberg: Okay. I can put this in writing on an email, if you prefer.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: I think it’s crucially important that the Board motion say that, because that’s going to be the strongest single argument questioning the validity of the selection.
Heidi Ullrich: Alan --
Vanda Scartezini: You can send it to me.
Alan Greenberg: I’ll send it to the ExCom list.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alright. Anything else? With the discussion on the Board, or matters on other issues? No? Any other business?
Carlton Samuels: Not for me.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. We should note Vanda has finished her retreat report. Thank you very much, Vanda. And if we (crosstalk).
Vanda Scartezini: I send to you properly to make sure we can read that, and define if we should put everything into consideration all the issues, and what is not completely defined, and just (inaudible 1:35:11) for you to decide.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thanks for that. Now I call for any other business.
Alan Greenberg: Sebastian has a question on the list that I’m not – not on the list, on the chat. He said the 22 candidates. I assume that’s your response to the Board---
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: He means the SOIs.
Carlton Samuels: No, it wouldn’t be 22.
Alan Greenberg: Well, 20 whatever the number was.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, his question is “Are the 22 confirmed and reviewed SOIs, when will the 22 candidates’ names be published?” The same time the slate goes out.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, and by the way, the Wiki still says within 48 hours of receipt.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I’ve asked staff to explain to me why when it was explicit that was to change when the BCEC made its change in that, why it is still there. So now I’ll ask again, having done this on email, please take note of my tone.
Heidi Ullrich: It’s been noted, Cheryl.
Carlton Samuels: Oh, this is something that Sebastian says. Candidates to come to the retreat. That’s not a bad idea.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, for God’s sake.
Alan Greenberg: What I meant was the slate, not the candidates. And it was tongue in cheek, anyway.
Carlton Samuels: I didn’t want the 22, I only wanted the final selection process.
Alan Greenberg: But that won’t be selected by the time of the retreat.
Carlton Samuels: Ah, yes. That’s – you’ve got him there. The timing’s all wrong.
Alan Greenberg: If there was anyone going on the retreat, it would have to be the whole slate, and that’s – it’s not going to happen even if
(crosstalk)
Carlton Samuels: I wouldn’t think that would be necessary anyway.
Alan Greenberg: It was not a serious comment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastian, I gather you’re talking about the ALAC officer elections, and we noted your disagreement with us, following what is in the rules of procedure. We will be putting the timing out, or I will be putting the timing out for the wider ALAC comment, and I am quite sure you will comment there, as will the rest of the ALAC. Is there anything else we need to deal with before we wrap this meeting up? I’ll let Alan debate that until --
Carlton Samuels: I think there’s time enough we put it out to look at it again, because -- you know – we’ll have enough time to look at that.
Alan Greenberg: I’m sorry, I had to go away for a second. What was that? I heard my name mentioned.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastian has mentioned that he’s still concerned about the way the officers will be elected, and by whom. He’s not sure that it is a contradiction within the by-laws.
Alan Greenberg: I will look at it and comment.
Carlton Samuels: We have time to look. I don’t see anything wrong with looking at it again.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alright. Then thank you very much. I’m sure I’ll talk with you all soon.
End of Transcript
