Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, right. Well, good morning, good afternoon and good evening, everybody. This is the ALAC Executive Committee teleconference. It’s an ad hoc teleconference on the sixth of January, 2011. The roll call is probably the first thing that we’re going to be doing just to make sure everyone is here. And I will pass the microphone over to whoever it is who deals with this today.
Gisella Gruber-White: I’m happy to do so. On today’s call we have Olivier Crepin-Leblond; Cheryl Langdon-Orr; Tijani Ben Jemaa; Evan Leibovitch; Alan Greenberg; Carlton Samuels will be joining shortly. From staff we have Heidi Ullrich; Matthias Langenegger; Seth Greene and myself, Gisella Gruber-White. Over to you, Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you very much, Gisella. The time is 14:06 UTC so I gather we’ll try to do this all in about an hour; we might run over for about 15 minutes, if we’re lucky. We’ll see. And we’ll follow directly to the first standing agenda items, the number one being the review of the action items from the 10th of December, 2010 ExCom meeting. And there are five action items in there and we’ll go through them very quickly so as not to lose any time.
The first one is the next ALAC call will be scheduled for the week of the 25th of January, and I think that’s been done. OTL to continue to monitor tone and At Large lists, and particularly the NARALO list. Yes, I’m doing such a thing; I can confirm this. Staff to send out Doodle to set up ExCom week of 21st of December; ExCom agreed to reschedule to first week of January. I’m not quite sure what this is supposed to mean. If someone could explain this sentence.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, during the ExCom in Cartegena, it was agreed that there would be an ExCom meeting the week of the 21st, I believe, and then during that week it was agreed to reschedule it for this week or to have it early in January. That was my understanding.
Seth Greene: You mean like today?
Heidi Ullrich: Sorry?
Seth Greene: You mean like today?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, well, sometime this week. That was my understanding.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m not quite sure whether that’s actually correct. The idea is to have an ad hoc meeting this week, and then continue with having a normal ExCom call which will take place after the ALAC call next week. I believe that’s the…
Heidi Ullrich: It’s normally twice a month and I think that that is… So I think that in Cartegena we were not sure whether you wanted to have an ad hoc meeting this week or just the regular twice a month. So now we’re sorting this out, so…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, well, I wasn’t aware, so it’s good that I know finally so we can have it as a regular meeting, I guess, because we’re not going to have three meetings this month. I think it’s a bit of an overkill. Except if we just sloughed it off to each other. I’m sure we do as well. Anyway, having said this, I think we will just move on. Fine. This is also in place then.
And then the next one is members of the new ExCom to send instant messaging and telephone numbers to each other to allow 24/7 communication, and it seems to be the case. I certainly have not had no communication for any of you for more than a couple of hours which is great. I’m sure everyone else keeps very much in touch with each other as well. We’ll probably all end up having… well, knowing each other by the end of the year. We probably do already actually, come to mention this.
And then the next action item is the staff to set up the Skype and mailing list for the new ALAC and At Large members and it seems to have all been done. So these are the action items. Any comments on the action items from anyone? No comment. Okay.
We’ll then have to move on to the next thing if I can find my window again. Items for discussion and the first item for discussion – we have two main items for discussion. The first one is the next steps on the 2011-2014 Strategic Planning Developments; and the second one will be the next steps on the [ADAT] Working Group, whatever that will mean. And I guess that Evan will be able to tell us about this. But the most important item for the day today is the next steps on the 2011-2014 Strategic Planning Developments.
We have three links on our meeting page which are the one, first link on the public comment on Strategic Plan; the second one being the ICANN Strategic Planning Development Community Workspace which has been very kindly set up recently, as recently as, was it yesterday or the day before; and the third one being the ALAC Statement on the Draft 2010-2014 Strategic Plan, v. 0.01, which was put up last night.
I’m not quite sure how we wish do this, but what I was going to suggest - and I’m open for other suggestions as well - what I was going to suggest is that we first have a look at the Strategic Planning Development 2011 Community Workspace and come up with any feedback on that since this is the page that we are going to advertise with our RALOs and the more confusing that page is, the least likely it is that we’ll get an input. So we’re trying to make it as least confusing as possible and I’m taking comments at the moment.
Evan Leibovitch: Olivier, there’s two things that stuck out to me about the Strategic Plan that basically were important to me. The most important was the inclusion for the first time of issues of end user rights as being an actual action item within the Strategic Plan. Out of all the things within the Plan, that stuck out to me as an absolute milestone of policy because that essentially becomes… it’s not justification - I don’t think we need a justification – but essentially it means we have almost management endorsement of policy moves to try and bring this about.
What’s been a lot of frustration to Alan, to Carlton, to myself trying to work in previous instances with other stakeholders and trying to assert end user and registrant rights into the DNA of ICANN so to speak, have been very, very difficult. Having them in the Strategic Plan right now means that if we try this initiative now, we have an ability to ask for staff resources and to not have other people tell us that this has no place in ICANN.
So in any statement we do, personally, I would love to have an explicit acknowledgement that this was a really, really good thing to have in there.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Right and I see agreement from Alan on that. I think it’s a very valid point, but before we do all this, I first wanted to look at the structure of how we are going to write this and then we will be able to fit the content we were going to put in there and maybe have it written there in bullet points, so as for all these good ideas and these suggestions not to get lost in the whole discussion that we’re having. Cheryl, you have something?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I just wanted to ask since you identified there was considerable confusion, at least from the original incoming site. Believe it or not, we were talking about methods that were outlined in the text of the (inaudible 0:08:47) change, this is outlined in plan and budget, which is all the people had been making comments on in the main. Has there been an outreach to the region to help them with that Wiki page or what are your plans going to be here? I had not seen anything go out to the regions but that’s probably because it’s 1:00 a.m. and I haven’t done my emails yet. I just want to know what the approach is going to be.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The plan was to have the regions receive an email in order for this to, for the input to be connected from the regions. I believe that the email was sent out, was it not?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, two days ago it was sent out with an urgent subject line and the deadline of Friday at 23:59 UTC given.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All the comments that have been coming in first, they’ve all been talking about face-to-face meetings and operational and budget costs and comments on the Strat Plan.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perhaps we might need to resend a new email to be more precise, perhaps, about what we’re asking for?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, Tijani, tell them how much of the AFRALO statement is directly linked to mentions of the three main areas outlined in the Strat Plan documentation as opposed to operational and budget planning. We need to take out, for example, the AFRALO input. AFRALO isn’t going to redo what they put together. We need to work out how it’s going to be put into what Olivier has started drafting. That’s what I’m talking about.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Can you, Olivier, please give me something of what she said because I didn’t hear her.
Evan Leibovitch: Cheryl, you’re very, very faint.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: It’s very low.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The question was, how much of the AFRALO input works with the starting points document that I had put on the Wiki for the time being. Is that correct, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Which document? The document that ALAC comments, or the document of the ICANN Strategic Plan?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Right. There are three documents on the Wiki at the moment. Well, two main documents on the Wiki. The first document is the ICANN Strategic Planning Development 2011 Community Workspace Wiki page. There is a link from the agenda which is there, and when you click on that, you will reach which basically is the call for input from the RALOs.
The second page is an ALAC statement on the Draft 2011-2014 Strategic Plan that is a Wiki page which is a starting point for us to start filling and then for us to continue filling with the RALO inputs.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, so what she means exactly? She means is it relevant with which document?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The AFRALO document which has been sent – how much of the contents of this document goes in line with the four strategic focus areas of the ICANN Draft 2011-2014 Strategic Plan and how does it work together with it?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: They are exactly in this scope and it’s exactly… We took the proposed Strategic Plan and we comment on it and this text for Strategic Planning for 2011-2014. It wasn’t a reflection like this in the air; it was a comment on the Proposed Strategic Plan.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly correct. That’s RALO. Let me see if I can get it. Is it any clearer now that you’ve got the email?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m sorry, Cheryl, I don’t hear you. I hear you mumbling like this, but not clear words.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’ll type.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Can we try and push the sound up on Cheryl’s line please?
Heidi Ullrich: I’m not sure if they can do that and Olivier, there is a little bit of noise which they still think is your connection, but we’ll work this out.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay. I’d like to understand the question of Cheryl. It’s very impossible.
Seth Greene: Cheryl, if you can try it again, I’ll try to amplify for you.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, there’s a (inaudible 0:14:40) thing that they can try and call Cheryl back.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, Heidi, did you heard the portion of Cheryl?
Heidi Ullrich: No, I’m also having difficulty hearing.
Alan Greenberg: I thought she said that AFRALO had written a statement on the Strategic Plan already and asking how will we integrate it.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No, I will integrate it because I was waiting for the comments of the ALSs and yesterday we finished everything because we had our telecon. Today I will integrate it. It will be done today.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, so you’re going to be doing it?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yeah. No problem.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Right, so, before we dig more deeply into this, I wanted to have a look at the statement and the starting points, v. 0.01 which I put on there, on the Wiki page, which is entitled ALAC Statement on the Draft 2011-2014 Strategic Plan v. 0.01. The first question that I have for all of you is whether it should be structured the way that Obstructure did so far – with comments on Content as part 2 and comments on Process and Structure as part 3. Or should we completely miss out the comments on Process and Structure? That’s one question I wanted to ask.
The next question I want to ask, you will notice under the 2.1 output, 2.1.2 Strategic Objectives in Community Work, Strategic Projects in Staff Work – that actually takes on the sub-sections of the Strategic Plan page itself. Or under 2.2 we’ve got different numbering which looks at the ICANN Identified Strategic Objectives and takes each one of the ones which are mentioned in the Plan itself. There is a discrepancy in the ICANN Plan itself between the table that they put on and the actual explanations that they’ve done afterwards. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I haven’t looked at what you have in detail at this point; I just saw it a few minutes ago. My inclination is to say that what you have is probably far, far more detailed than we’re likely to need in that we’re not likely to have comments on most of the sections. And the overall length is probably comparable to what we want in the final document and right now it’s just outlined.
So I suspect what you have is overkill, given the amount of time we have to write this and the input we’re likely to get, and the fact that certainly from my point of view, it’s important to focus on the important issues and not have a comment on everything which will not be substantive enough to really input into the process.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: This is exactly the sort of answer that I want to hear.
Alan Greenberg: I haven’t read what you wrote, but just looking at the level of detail and the size of it, that’s my reaction.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: No, it is an overkill and one of the ideas - and just hear me out on this one - one of the ideas was to have all of these sub-categories for the time being, and as we start filling in the RALO input on there, we will find out that there is no comment on several of these sub-sections because we don’t need to make a comment. We agree with it, we have no points commenting about internal staff methods, for example or some internal staff matters. And so we will then just strike those sub-sections off, and so we’ll therefore be able to concentrate on the points that we need to concentrate on. Is that a valid way of doing it?
Alan Greenberg: Sure.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Just trying to look at a method for us not to miss anything basically.
Carlton Samuels: This is Carlton. Well, you know my position is going with Alan. Instead of trying not to miss anything, what we should do is focus on the things that we can today import and simply comment on those. I, for example, would want to see a comment in the areas of Consumer Competition Trust and Innovation because that affects the end user population so much.
I would want to see comments on the area of strategic community work. But to do that compromise, I think that at least some comments would be important because they contain issues that we have been working on over years; some of them still outstanding, like the registrants’ rights charter and so on. So that’s what I would do. I would simply laser in on those areas and make comments that are substantive there.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you, Carlton. Tijani:
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, if the intention of this meeting is to re-draft the comments, I don’t think it is possible to draft a comment during a meeting like this. Perhaps we need to define how we will do to make our comments and to start it immediately because we don’t have time. But we cannot, it is not possible according to my point of view, it is not possible to draft during the meeting.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you, Tijani. Well, according to what Carlton said, it appears to me like many of us have got specific points that we would like to see included inside our response. And so what I would suggest – this is just a suggestion – is that each one of us starts drafting a list of what they want in there and maybe even start writing about that so as for us to cover all the points that we want to cover. Is this something that… a method that can be pursued?
Carlton Samuels: Yes, I don’t think that… I think that’s a good one in a community page or in a collaborative space we could do just that. But I would like to see one other thing. There should be consensus about the area that we will commence on and then we can begin to draft it in a shared collaborative space. I think first thing is to get agreement on what and where we would recommend to ALAC where we may decide to comment.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perhaps that’s one decision that we need to reach today.
Carlton Samuels: Yeah, I would think that that is it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Rather than actually drafting here. I think drafting is something which is very time-consuming and we’d probably end up wasting the hour on that.
Alan Greenberg: If I may intervene, is the intention that you have to have this ready to send if not to vote on for the 10th?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It appears so, yes.
Alan Greenberg: Which is four days from now.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I know.
Alan Greenberg: So I think whatever you decide to do has to be in that context. We’re talking ready to dispatch and to put it to a vote next Monday and it’s now Thursday.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It needs to be done very fast. Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, one thing that seemed to work for me in previous instances is to put up a skeleton of what we want to put in, even if it’s just a whole pile of just subject headings. And essentially, anybody with editing privileges can add to the Wiki page wording to suggest. If they don’t have wording or if they may not just be good at wordsmithing but have points that they want to do, then they leave it as comments to those pages and then the people who are in charge of it try and turn that into usable wording.
So the idea of being is that you put up the skeleton with all of the headings, with all the sections there and we basically see what people add in. I mean, it’s one thing to say, “Well, we don’t want to miss anything,” and that’s why you have the list of headings, to make sure that people are aware of all the things that are being discussed. But we are basically limited by what people are prepared to contribute to.
So essentially the idea of putting up a Wiki, letting people with editing privileges contribute what they’d like, letting people that don’t have editing privileges or wordsmithing skills to leave comments at the bottom, and then essentially giving us a little bit of time. We take all of that together and just make it coherent.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan, if I may ask you, when you say let people having editing privileges edit this, who do you mean by that? Do you mean ALAC, do you mean the regional leads, do you mean members?
Evan Leibovitch: At this point, I would say ALAC and regional leads because, remember, this being a Wiki, it’s very, very easy to go back to previous revisions if you don’t like what has been added. So even if people add and even if you leave editing privileges wide open, it becomes easy to come back and redact that. Having too many people have access to the page in the initial stages is not going to be a bad thing because there is revision control; there always is the ability to go back to previous versions.
So, I personally don’t have a problem almost leaving it wide open to anyone within ALAC, regional leaders and even people who are designated within the RALOs as having editing privileges - and by that I would say the EURALO Board - and just have it as open as possible for people being able to edit the page, leave comments, and then after a while, the people designated by ALAC or the ExCom to actually have the final pen would then go in and edit that into a submittable document.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I must agree with Evan, but not totally because I would suggest a Wiki on which one person would have the right of editing that we can depend on this command. And all other people will comment on it so they will use the comment possibility to give input. And then someone has to compile those inputs, so that’s why I prefer that only one person will do that, as we did previously. Last year we did like this. It was Sebastian did it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, first of all, is it clear enough that people can hear me this time? Otherwise I’ll give up entirely.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I can hear you fine.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. Okay. I wasn’t going to go through it all a second time. When I broached it early this week and suggested that we put things out to the region and we got them to start putting their comments in to the Strat Planning Wiki page, we’re all in rampant agreement on how it should happen. What I was trying to say before, and what is in agreement with what Evan said, and to some extent picks up on what I was trying to ask Tijani before. In the absence of any other region other than AFRALO specifically making any comments in any way that is directly related to the Strat Planning document, right? AFRALO has told us it’s not on the Wiki page. So we need to fix that.
Is it possible using the version 0.01 which has, as was pointed out, more detail than is needed. Can we shuffle in. in a different color or label, AS next to it “comments from AFRALO” as a starting point. Add into those for example, my initials or anybody else’s, what particular points other people are concerned about.
And a high route between getting input from the rank and file and wider group that avoiding the confusion of too many people holding the pen, which is what Tijani was pointing out we’ve seen and yet in the past we’ve done it both ways. Last year it was Sebastian who held the pen. In previous years it’s been other people have held the pen and certainly in the very first one- It was, as I recall not in the Strategic Plan, but in the version which was then looking at the operational planning in the 2008-09 and prior to that we had direct regional input. So we’ve done it three different ways at least, but the issue is getting it done.
I’ve also put, I thought the ExCom list points under, for example DNS stability and security. We should be quite concerned, for example, that the wording still talks about the DNSCERT as a fait accompli. Is that a white board and is it going to be possible to do that in a timely way? Unless we get from the regional leads at least and the ALAC members, you might as well say “Just ask one person to hold the pen,” cause then we go back to who’s who and whose statement is it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, Cheryl, thank you. May I ask you a question with regards to the form of it, or the structure of it? Would you say that the input from RALOs would go under the four strategic focus areas?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I think they need to. I think if you’ve got that much more fulsome - you’ve got, for example, in yours, in the (inaudible 0:31:00) you can put the paragraph from the AFRALO in the comments with definition quite nicely into that. Alright? And put your initials there. Now it might be that EURALO and APRALO and LACRALO just so you have two it might also be that they might say, “We particularly are concerned about the IDN issue,” for example. We’re more likely to see that coming in from parts of Europe and APRALO. Or we can ask the ALAC to look into their crystal ball and make an assumption from what they think are the concerns of the At Large public.
That, however, isn’t how it’s meant to be. That’s how it used to be done and I think it’s important to get the regional input. We’ve gotta get the regions to have a look at the briefing calls they’ve had and they’ve responded to the briefing calls that put forward context and looked at operational aspects. They have not in the main discussed the Strat Planning document.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s correct, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We could go back to the (inaudible 0:32:26), the Q&A on the briefing where we did have questions raised by certainly you, me, and a couple of others on this call about things like why is the DNSCERT is doing this, and we would pick up those key points there. To me that clearly should be filed. But we have very little time and we’re rapidly losing more.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: This question has been asked earlier and there was a question I think it was to Matthias, whether we had the transcriptions from these calls.
Matthias Langenegger: Yes, I received the email and I forwarded it to [Gisla] who is dealing with the transcriptions. I think she’s not on the call at the moment. I am expecting an answer from her on this question.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The alternative is to listen to these calls. Sorry, Cheryl, you were about to say?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was going to say it makes it a lot easier if they’re in for transcript and you can cut and paste the relevant piece, as opposed to having to listen to an hour, an hour and a half of this call when most of the presentation material that is little or no relevance to the job at hand.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Entirely my feeling, Cheryl. Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I want to remind you that we are three days from the deadline and also we need to approve, ALAC needs to approve the comments to be officially ALAC comments. So we really don’t have time and we have to go very, very fast.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I think this is a feeling that we all have and we understand, Tijani. This is why we’re trying to really now have some progress on the structure of how we do this and what we can ask the regions to do. Certainly deadlines are something which we know and we’re well aware of.
But, you know, on my side, for example, I have tried to get the EURALO Board to come up with anything; I have not had any feedback whatsoever from anyone in EURALO. It appears that many people are still away. They’re not back from holidays and so we’re in a position where we will only have partial input due to the timelines that we are subjected to at the moment. It was very unfortunate that we had Cartegena and before Cartegena we had huge amounts of work related to other methods; and then after Cartagena went straight into the holiday period and some people still are in this holiday period. So what I suggest, then- Yes, Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I am seeing a comment from EURALO from (inaudible 0:35:32) on the Wiki page.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And also from APRALO but they’re not relevant to this matter; they’re relevant to operational and budget. We need… And I understand that the email went out two days ago, but when it went out, this webpage page was still misleading people.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So an action I think to send a follow-up email right away really and to get people not to be mislead on this and perhaps to explain what’s going on in the current email that should be sent out. Is that a good idea?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If we can have the bits, if we can have the (inaudible 0:36:27) appended to the Wiki page, their comments in total as text, and preferably on the draft put in - the paragraph on DNS Stability and Security from the AFRALO comments should go into the version 1 draft in the proper place. Same thing should happen on consumer’s choice, competition, innovation; same thing should happen on IANA and same thing should happen on healthy internet ecosystems. I would encourage us to reshuffle the skeleton into a more detailed skeleton at least, together, Olivier, into a four-pillar approach if possible.
I think that will be easier for the regions to reform to any and all in part. I also think that that would better allow the approach that Evan was suggesting for the ALAC members, so the bits I’ve been carrying on about; for example, what the hell is DNSCERT still doing in there? It’s saying that it’s going to follow the ICANN community-led process but it’s preempting what that process may, in fact, come up with.
So those words which I outlined on a chart somewhere – I think it was to you, I thought it was actually to the whole of executives though, Olivier – I think it needs to be deleted from both the Executive Summary and from the section on DNSCERT in the Strat Plan. And the Consumer Choice Competition and Innovation we, ALAC, need to recognize the issues that were raised in the region Cartegena meeting where we had particular work identifying what some of the terminology is and what the meaning is as put in the Board resolution we have to do before the San Francisco meeting.
So if we take what AFRALO has started to put up there and make clear from an ALAC point of view that there is a community, cross-community and SO and AC being done and this work is what has to be fundamental, and what has to be operational plan that will be out of the Strat Plan for the 2011-2014 period. Am I making any sense at all?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: To me, absolutely.
Carlton Samuels: To me, what you think, Cheryl, is what I earlier said. If we decide on the areas of focus and we put those up and invite others to make comments in those areas, then it should be fine and that’s what we should do. Because all of those things that you’re saying in detail would just drop right out of that, you know?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, and obviously it will need some final (inaudible 0:39:52) and that can happen on the Monday as long as it doesn’t get pushed to 23:59 on the 10th that’ll be fine.
Carlton Samuels: Yes, I think that is possible if you take that approach.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we do as we’ve done before. And I know it’s not our objective, Olivier, and I know it would be nice if it had been voted on before public comment had closed, but the things that have already opened in the period, we can’t retrospectively fix those. I think between now and probably the end of January we’re just going to have to put things in as ALAC responses to public comment and that undercurrent vote so the drafting is completed in the time it’s put in on the day the public comment is closing, but it’s on their current vote, which usually only takes 24-36 hours within the given day for it to do. It usually collates within the first 24-36 hours after it goes out. I think it’s doable, but we just need to get it done.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I wasn’t sure whether the posting/voting was doable and if that’s the case then fine. I’m happy with that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s not desirable, but it certainly is doable. And all it means is that it goes into the public comment forum and a final draft takes undercurrent ratification. And we jump in, here we go, here’s the vote results, it is now ratified and has now become an ALAC statement. And it goes back to the fact that ALAC doesn’t actually have to put in any results in the public comments. If we want to get really nasty the only thing ALAC has to do is advise the Board that that’s maladaptive and not productive, and doesn’t help the RALOs and the ALSs get their voices heard.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Are you saying that we might be able to obtain a reprieve from the task; in other words, an extension for a few more days?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would look into that. I’ve been most of the regions with the exception of APRALO have had other calls. It is unfortunate that the presentations that have been made have been misleading. They have not focused on the Strat Planning text. They’ve focused on the all singing, all dancing, “This is how we’re going to be doing our planning operational budget and strategic planning context over the next few years. Look at the pretty circle diagram.” And they throw up the four-pillar table, where in fact what we need to be responding to is the four-page document and the four-pillar table.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, so if we look at our version 0.01, would you then say that we would scrap point 3, Comments on Processes Structure altogether?
Evan Leibovitch: If this is just a preliminary thing, Olivier, let’s just toss it out and see what kind of feedback comes back.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’d go for more- And it’s easier just to do that than wait till the last minute if need be.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Because what I’m trying to do is to clean the structure first because as I understand we said we’re going to have a structure there for RALOs to be able to input their work, and then we will reword it and wordsmith it on the last day. This is what I heard. So if we have a structure that is complicated and that is confusing, we will not receive very positive feedback from any of the RALOs or very to point feedback from the RALOs, are we?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: This is why I would really like AFRALO’s commission to first of all, cut up their document and put it in orange, whatever color with AHS written next to it. It’s a relevant piece from their statement into the draft and then say, get Matthias on the phone or sending smoke signals to each of the regional leads, “Here is where AFRALO’s part has been plotted in. What do you want to plot in and where?” It’s much easier for people to edit something than to create something.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Did she propose that we submit what we did and we build on it?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s correct. Slice it up into the different sections.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No problem. I can send it immediately to the list if you want or to the staff and they can create a page on this page. We can put it on this page to be enriched by people. No problem. But we need someone to finalize the text every time.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m ready to hold the pen.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very good. So I will send it immediately on the list.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. The question then is do we scrap all the sub-sections – 2.1.1, .1.2, .1.3 and all that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I wouldn’t.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I did it more simple than that. You will see it will be maybe four areas of work. Area one, area two, area three, area four and you have the comments inside it. I didn’t do numeration of some (inaudible 0:46:22).
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: But these areas work in hand with the four strategic focus areas, that’s correct, yeah? They don’t go across two different areas at the same time. Tijani? The areas that you’re saying that AFRALO has worked on go hand-in-hand with the four strategic focus areas which are on the Strategic Plan.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, exactly.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. Perfect.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: You will see that we are not commenting everything as we said before.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s fine, Tijani, there’s no need to comment on everything. Others will comment on their bits. I’m seeing that ALAC has to see this thing be populated and to populate itself with whatever each region feels strongly about and I understand some regions are a lot more competent than other regions on things because they’ve actually been working a lot for a long time on some specific issues.
And then there are also some issues which are cross-regions issues in which all the regions will want to add something on to it. The important thing for me as I see it, because of the time thing is that we need to get this out ASAP and we need to make the framework that is on this page as simple and straightforward as possible because the last thing we want is for a region to look at this and get confused and then decide to discuss this three days from now when we won’t even have as many as four days that we have now.
So I just want to get this thing rolling, basically, the ball rolling. The reason why I wrote that document yesterday was to actually get the ball rolling. It is a lot nicer to look at a page with even a few headings than at a blank page to start. Looking at a blank page you get a writer’s block.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, can you all now look at the draft document? I have just put in the Security and Stability section from the AFRALO document when it’s finally got its say, into what I think is the right place in the draft. If we continue doing this with the AFRALO stuff – you’ll notice I even made it pretty orange – and we can actually put in APRALO, EURALO, LACRALO, in the right color so they don’t have to worry about working in rich text or Wiki markup.
And if they are to do it directly onto the Wiki page or Matthias can only sleep here, we can sit on the phone and Hong can say “Syed and I believe that what APRALO’s concerns are to do with this and to do with that,” we can make the notes and he can shuffle in at the relevant bits. But I just don’t see any other way of this happening.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perfect. I like the way it ends. This method is good. Perhaps we should even assign colors to each region. And I say that because one region, I know, is in yellow and that will not be helpful to them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, we can have a shade of it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m saying that because with Tijani we had a similar question with regards to swaps on WTC and we’ve also had the question of colors, so…
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Cut and paste what’s there and put a sharp color for each of them and I’ll let you get back to your agenda and I’ll hop in as required.
Okay, so Tijani, I’m going to cut and paste what AFRALO did into the right text.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, you have now our comments on the…
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’ve got your comments. I’m more than happy to do this while we go on…
Carlton Samuels: Who did you send it to, Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, I sent it to the ExCom and to the staff.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, it’ll show up in a minute. Okay. Thank you. Okay, may I then ask everyone who is on this call to also add their own bit prior to the regions or in conjunction with the regions as well. I understand, Cheryl, do you have a very good view of many of the issues at the moment?
I’d like to have Matthias or Heidi try and find out about those transcripts. We need those transcripts from the discussions that we had. I cannot believe we spent hours on the phone and in real meetings and we don’t know what we said back in those days. I have vague memories of what was said, but a transcript is a lot more reliable than a memory from two months ago.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, Olivier, I’ll follow up with Katina right away.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we did specifically ask for transcripts in that call.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: We did, yes. I remember that as well. And I remember Carlton asking questions, I remember Eric Williams asking questions, I remember several people suggesting things and I hope it doesn’t go to waste.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I didn’t shut up and neither did you.
Oliver Crepin-Leblond: Well, there you go. So fine, so at least we now have a method on how this thing can work. Is this all clear, Heidi, on what staff needs to do?
Heidi Ullrich: Yes. My take-away is that staff send out another notice to the Secretariat and I think I’ll go ahead and add all regional leaders to this note. I will send that once Cheryl has incorporated the AFRALO comments and once Olivier has said that he’s satisfied with the current state of the draft. I’ll follow up with Christina on where those transcripts are and we will then also post Tijani’s AFRALO, the one he just sent to the workspace and we will then also post the revised ALAC Strat Statement to that workspace as well.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: And also now on the workspace you have the AFRALO comments and the box of AFRALO.
Heidi Ullrich: You just posted the new ones in. Is that correct?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes.
Heidi Ullrich: Excellent. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, perfect. What I will do – switching my hat very quickly for a brief moment to a EURALO hat, as EURALO Secretary - I will get on to our Chair and find out and track him and track the rest of the EURALO Board and try and get some input from their side as well. And now I’ll slip back to the ALAC Chair.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, Olivier, since AFRALO’s taken care of and you’ll take EURALO, I’ll follow up with LACRALO, APRALO and NARALO.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. Evan, perhaps, would you have…
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Has there been any movement on that in NARALO?
Evan Leibovitch: None of which I’m aware.
Heidi Ullrich: I’ve seen nothing.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: This needs to be driven and we’re all from the different regions, irrespective of the RALO leadership; we need to get onto RALO leadership if we’re not part of the RALO leadership and we need to get things moving.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, there’s been a lot of discussion on various things, but none specifically in context to the Strategic Plan. I can take a snapshot of where NARALO’s own priorities are and put them in that context but, obviously, it would be helpful if NARALO itself would push that. So I can get that ball rolling. The next NARALO meeting is Monday, which I guess is too late.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Correct. You have an email list, don’t you? Or is there not much going on in email?
Evan Leibovitch: Absolutely. So I will send something out and I’ll also try Beau who probably just needs to put it on his radar.
Heidi Ullrich: Thanks, Evan.
Carlton Samuels: Can I ask a question? Am I looking at the wrong community workspace here because I have not seen… I see where the draft is directly from the list, but I see none of those comments that I’ve heard talked about.
Heidi Ullrich: If I may answer that, Carlton? So basically the current ALAC draft is on the ExCom workspace. After today’s ExCom meeting, I will then, once we have agreement on what to do next, I will then post that to the Strategic workspace, so that will be available…
Carlton Samuels: Okay, now I understand. I get it.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, I will ask again. Do you think the ExCom draft, as it is at the moment, is not confusing for anyone starting to read it?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, I think it’s reading perfectly. What I have a problem with – can I just mention while I have the microphone? I have the devil’s own job and it’s been a problem every time I’ve been editing in this Confluence Wiki so it’s my computer, I’m afraid. I can only cut and paste in Wiki marks and then I have to go back to rich text to make any other edits to the format. I’m sure it’s not meant to be that hard.
So Heidi, I’m obviously missing out on some skills and if I’m missing out on the skills, I see if a regional lead who probably had less practice with Confluence than I have. We might need to nurse maid and it may very well be a text even if it is just in email form in response to the outreach will have to be put in by someone else.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, thanks, Cheryl. I have not experienced that, but we also noted in the email that people could either edit it or add comments.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, but it’s taking me three times as long as it should because whatever the jam is that’s going on in my line anyway.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, any other comment on this? I think we have now a clear plan of how we want to get this done. We know that we have to do it quickly.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: How quick it is, Olivier, the plan?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The plan, Tijani, is to keep the ALAC statement on Draft 2011-2014 Strategic Plan Page v. 0.01 as it is at the moment and have the RALOs put their input in their text under the four strategic focus areas – the DNS Stability and Security; the Consumer Choice, Competition & Innovation; Core Operations Including IANA and the Healthy Internet Ecosystem parts. It’s up to the RALOs to make sure that their input is under one or the other or many of these focus areas, just as what’s happened so far with Cheryl who has cut some bits of the AFRALO inputs and brought them in its color in there. So that’s a good example.
So AFRALO will be doing this and EURALO would be doing this, each one in their own color. And for those RALOs and RALO leaderships that do not have the ability to do that because they don’t have the knowledge on how to use Wiki or they have a problem with Wiki, they would be able to email this over to ICANN staff, At Large staff, for them to be able to help them in that. Is this correct?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: And this will take how long?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: This will take, from whom, from ICANN staff? I should imagine they know how to do it so they’ll be pretty quick. As far as the RALOs are concerned, this will take place until, I believe, the 9th and hopefully we have something by the 10th. If we don’t, then we’re just going to have to also work on that. And I guess it’s something we have to pursue ourselves. So there are only three days.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, so, Olivier, what I’m hearing is that the original deadline of tomorrow, 23:59 UTC is now going to be extended until Sunday.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s correct, yes. It’s impossible to get something back in less than 24 hours. Already for a vote at EURALO, we have had our heads bitten off because they need to have five days to be able to make up their mind on a vote, so we’re talking here about an ALS requiring five days to make up their minds. So you can imagine with regards to input, having input in 24 hours is definitely not even worthy of listening to.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So by prime time, Olivier, the four regional and individual members and ALS input on Strat Planning has been up since December. But what we can do, it would seem, that if we can get the transcript of the call, that will help. Many people think if they contributed to a call, if they put statements in, if the RALO has made a statement of the call, that’s work done and we shouldn’t have to recreate it. And so we can try and play catch up, but I do think we can argue with any of the negativity, if it comes back from the regions, that we haven’t given them enough time. We just want to recognize that while they’ve had plenty of time to formulate their thoughts, they may not have had enough time to formalize their statements yet.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m not worried about thoughts; I’m just worried about the actual statements, getting the statements from them. And so the more time we give them, the more likely it is that we’ll get some statements. And the more time it gives us to go and hunt them out and find them where… actually get something from them. So, Tijani? Let this conclude please, Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Pardon? May I ask a question, Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: If I understood, Heidi told you that the deadline would be extended by 10 days. That means that the deadline will be on 20.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: No, I never heard that.
Heidi Ullrich: No, no, sorry, Tijani, I said it will be extended until the 9th, which is Sunday, which is two days.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, right. I think we’ve got a plan on this now and I can always follow up with each one of you afterwards if there is a requirement to do so on Skype and using emails. We do have hard stops for some of the members here and I think that we should therefore move on to the next part. We’re already fifteen minutes late in this call and the next part is Evan to speak to us about the [ADAT] Group. Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: Hi there. Okay, [ADAT] is basically just meant as a pronounceable acronym, but the intention here, [ADAT] stands for Applicant Guidebook Alternative Text. And the intention is to respond to the Board comments from Cartegena and to the GAC comments from Cartegena saying that they want to have some revisions to the Applicant Guidebook.
Right now it seems like everybody’s saying, “Okay, we need to fix something,” but nobody’s being very specific at all about what they want. The Rec 6 Group has made some incredible progress, but appears to be almost – I won’t say at an impasse – but it almost seems like it’s exhausted its mandate in that it’s gone as far as it can in terms of coming up with some high-level areas of consensus, but a complete inability to translate that into, “Okay, what is the actual wording changes?” There’s also some ambiguity in the nature of the consensus such as we found. Things like the Dispute Resolution Service Provider concept, something with which At Large strongly disagreed.
Staff was able to interpret the consensus points of the combined working group as to say, “Okay, you still want the DRSP.” And so on one hand the consensus for this reach has been very laudable; on the other hand, the plausible ways to interpret it have gone in an number of different directions and I believe both the Board and also the GAC are trying to figure ways of how to take what they want or what they’d like to see resolved and express that in a way that they can work with.
So the intention behind putting this [ADAT] Team together was to actually try and craft some actual alternative wording to the Applicant Guidebook. Not talking high-level issues; not talking generalities or philosophies, but essentially get down to the nitty-gritty and say, “Okay, here are the mechanics of how we see things should be working.”
The intention is to – there were some jokes when I mentioned this to a couple of people on emails – the intention was to try and make the Board’s life easier in saying, “Okay, here is a potential drop-in replacement,” rather than a philosophical discussion. And I guess the idea being that nothing like this would actually make their lives easier; I don’t think that’s possible. But at the same time, the intention is to cut right to the chase, not deal with the high-level issues – take the high-level issues that a chief consensus within the combined working groups and then put them into specific wording in a manner consistent with what At Large, and I believe other members of the community have been advocating.
So the intention right now with [ADAT] is to also make this cross-community, but a little bit less so than the existing combined working group. The combined working group right now has basically failed to achieve consensus on a number of the components that are required to be able to take this from high-level philosophy to actual wording of the AG.
So essentially what we want to try and do is get the At Large together with, I would say, friendly members, OGNSO, hopefully a couple of people from the GAC at very least as observers, to try and literally do the penmanship of taking what we’ve been advocating all along saying, “Okay, this is how we would change the Guidebook.”
At that point then the onus would be on those who don’t want to change that way to say why they don’t like it and propose alternatives. But essentially what we’re trying to do is to drive this in a way that (1) shortens the time of resolution by offering up some very specific wording, and at the same time making clear the way our interpretation of the consensus is to be interpreted.
So on one hand, this is not really policy; this is taking the policy that has already been achieved, essentially not to contravene anything that the GNSO has already said, to not contravene any of the existing consensus as a combined working group, but essentially now to bring this down to a level of detail that the Board and staff need to work with.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: If I may ask you a question. This is not policy, but we will have some parts of ICANN who might turn around and say, “Hang on. This is policy interference.” How do you respond to that?
Evan Leibovitch: Essentially by saying that nothing that this group is going to do is going to contravene or contradict what has already been resolved by GNSO and by the combined working group. So this is detail; this is a matter of detail. The policy has been laid down by GNSO already and related to gTLDs. Essentially what we’re trying to deal with is not the policy as GNSO has set it out, but as the interpretation and implementation of that policy.
The GNSO never said create an independent objector. Staff took GNSO policy and interpreted that into such a way of saying, “This is a mechanical way to implement what the GNSO wants.” So if we say get rid of the independent objector, we’re not saying change policy; we’re saying change the way that you implement the policy that GNSO has handed down. Is that an adequate response?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: On this specific point then, would this not be just duplicating the work of Recommendation 6 groups without having its legitimacy?
Evan Leibovitch: Basically the idea is to pick up the baton where the combined working group… where the Rec 6 group has left off and to take it into the areas where it is incapable of going and that is in the areas right now where they have failed or are unable to achieve consensus and are unable to get to the level of detail necessary to actually write AG wording.
And by that I mean there are a lot of consensus has been achieved, but on very specific things, such as what is going to be the actual wording in the AG. There is some very, very specific and necessary subjects on which the Rec 6 group is incapable of coming to consensus.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hang on, Evan. Is it incapable of coming to consensus when its final recommendation was that it felt in its report that, if given more time, opportunity and the inclination it would be able to come to consensus on all the issues of the recommendations that people put forth. Now, I understand frustration on where we have not come to consensus on yet.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, I can go on specific conversations that I have seen on mailing lists since Cartegena. For instance, specifically on issues of the independent objectors. I’ve already seen… But that’s not the only issue; there are other issues such as what is the role of the experts. I thought that the Rec 6 group was very, very specific in what it was saying about what it wanted from the experts. Staff proceeded to interpret it in a way that was consistent with the status quo and, in fact, didn’t change anything.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m just asking where is… I think you’re doing two things – you’re making an assumption on what the Rec 6 could or could not do. I think you need to be a little bit cautious there because at least it has some standing, and I have no idea what the [ADAT] will or won’t have in terms of standing.
And secondly, I wanted to ask a question. Where is the output of [ADAT] going to be put into? Where, what purpose, what body, where does the output go? What happens to it? Does it become a proposed statement from the ALAC and the GAC, from the hard argument as it’s something from the GAC that maybe we could discuss the issues as agenda items in part or whole? Is it going to be something that the ALAC writes to the GNSO about? Is it something that ALAC writes to the Board about? I mean, I hear what you’re saying, and I don’t really care whether we call it Rec 6 Revisited, [ADAT], or my mother’s left leg. It’s where does the output go to? Where does it go?
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, well, essentially the intention is that a small group of people would, either formally or informally, between themselves craft, “Here is a redline version of the AG as we would interpret what the Rec 6 group has already proposed. Here is specific wording.” So we would put that out essentially to anybody who would be interested in taking it on.
Essentially we have now direction from the Board that says get on with it and get on with it quickly. Maybe you have more faith than I that the areas within the Rec 6 in which there was divergence of opinion… There is what’s on paper and what’s not on paper.
Essentially, based on conversations that I’ve seen and conversations that I’ve heard, there seem to be people within the Rec 6 group who are perfectly happy with adopting the same thing that happened to the VI Group was, “Well, let’s agree to disagree and just toss it to the Board.” I’m not satisfied with that approach. And frankly, I would rather say, at least from some people in this group, “Here is our specific recommended wording.”
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And that’s fine. I’m just saying that the group, when it is formed and from where it is formed, will have to push its output somewhere to inspire the input part of it.
Evan Leibovitch: And the first channel would be to ALAC itself and part of the reason why I would like to have at least observers from the GAC is, while I don’t want their endorsement, I want their awareness. And personally, the intention is to try and have something presentable to the GAC Board Meeting in Geneva. That’s the timeline I’m working with.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be appropriate. Depending on what happens, we still have a few things that we should be ticking off later with the Rec 6 call that’s on later in my time. It’s actually not until your tomorrow, I have no idea anymore. Couple of things that were missed over and we had to respond specifically to the resolution to the Board out of Cartegena in our work plan here.
If you are suggesting that it becomes something that the ALAC as the Advisory Committee and the Board wants to change, then the way to do that is make it an Ad Hoc Work Team as part of our existing within our Work Group. That Work Group and all that goes under it is already open and is more than a good mechanism where GAC and anyone else can have input.
When, for example, it appeared that the GNSO was not going to be able to endorse the recommendation from Recommendation 6 anyway, I played it back to Chuck. He was more than able to come and join anything that ALAC does because we are open to anybody. Even Board members could come in if they wanted to. We can do it that way and if you want to set that up, that’s probably something I think is probably a way of getting the output somewhere.
Evan Leibovitch: So you’re saying structurally basically make this working team almost like a sub-group of the TLD Working Group in ALAC, right?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be structurally. I think that’s the best way for us to suggest ALAC look at it.
Evan Leibovitch: Works for me.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan, just adding on questions or comments from Cheryl, I do have one question which is what is the legitimacy of this group with regards to GAC, for example? If we go and ask for GAC observers, how is this presented as? Because it’s not a policy development group, it’s an ad hoc group of the…
Evan Leibovitch: It’s an ad hoc implementation group.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So there’s really no requirement for GAC to send any observer, in fact, no requirement at all for them to even listen.
Evan Leibovitch: There is no requirement; however, having the GAC’s awareness of it… Well, put it this way – here is the unstated point behind all this is obviously we wouldn’t be having this meeting in Geneva if the GAC was happy with the way that this was going. So what I would like to try to do is, even though this is a creation that’s ALAC, for us to be able to ask the GAC what would you like to see in here and to try and address the GAC concerns?
One of the things that ALAC has that GAC doesn’t is the ability to move quickly. So what I would like to try and do is to have some GAC participation so at least we could try and come up with some wording that addresses GAC’s concerns as well as ALAC’s.
Now, whatever process we use to get that input, I’m okay with just about any possible way of doing this. Having some GAC observers would be great; having some GAC participants would be even better, but I’ll take what I can get.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah, it might be one of those at this point with new GAC leadership that we work in a keeping people informed mechanism that Olivier lets the GAC leadership know all the activities of this Work Group. It would be set up in a common or an open meeting state; invite Heather to suggest to her list that anyone is welcome to be an observer or replier on the list just as she did for the Recommendation 6. And ask Heather and Frank who – and it’s probably likely to be a singular one, if not two, or perhaps three people in the GAC - if any, would like to be the conduit, the key person that the ALAC keep up to date on it.
Dealing with the GAC is a whole new ballgame, Evan, and I know Olivier has a reasonable amount of experience in how these games need to be played, so I’ll let him pick it up from there.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That said, I will be very happy to listen to your inputs, Cheryl, with regards to writing with the correct wording to the GAC. You probably have more acumen with the GAC than I do so far. As far as the exact wording and process is concerned, I’m happy to write to the GAC, to various people that you mentioned earlier, but I will require some input from you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You have to get a talented staff as well. Heidi’s got a pretty mean pen on her when you have the ink.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Then it’s not just a target interview; it’s you and others on the call, including Evan, including Heidi…
Evan Leibovitch: I had one specific person in mind to be able to work at least very quickly. I mean, my concern right now is an issue of speed. The GAC and the Board are trying to come up to some resolution and everybody’s putting pressure on everyone to try and have something done quickly. Like I said, the one advantage that we have that the GAC doesn’t is the ability to move in reasonable time.
To that end, I understand obviously there’s process that needs to be followed, but at the same time, everybody is recognizing that something needs to be done fairly quickly. Can we not use some of the channels that were established in Cartegena informally and try and work on that as well? And by that, I meant specifically Frank Martin from New Zealand. Is that his name? The fellow from New Zealand that met with us there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan, the answer is yes, and if you need someone to very gently do what I said, if Olivier approaches Ava and asks for someone, probably Frank, maybe some others, just… Look, I can approach Frank, you can approach Frank and Frank has to get up and head it. It’s the way they do it.
Evan Leibovitch: Understood.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It will easily be Frank.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, absolutely. Look, I’m not trying to circumvent process. I’m just trying to say that when we talk to them, we can make it clear to them and say, even if it’s just as observers, we want to keep them in the loop and we want to make sure that what this group reflects the GAC’s interests. So perhaps by the time we have something to submit in the Geneva meeting, that it already reflects what the GAC would like to do and provides a really good starting point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: First of all, the likelihood of it influencing anything happening in the Geneva meeting is a total chance in hell. The GAC, quite rightly, will protect what it wants to talk the ICANN Board about as its own business.
Evan Leibovitch: I’m not disputing that for a nanosecond. I’m simply saying that if we were able to provide a level of detail that said, “Here’s some actual wording changes to the AG,” that’s something at a level that the GAC hasn’t been working at.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Understood. We also have the opportunity at our meeting in the preparation for our meeting with the GAC at San Francisco, looking at the timing there. The proposal that we plan and agenda well in advance of the SFO for what we’re going to be talking about in SFO between the GAC and the ALAC, and they need some mutual prep work done, fits with this as well.
Evan Leibovitch: Works for me.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. One more question for you, Evan. With regards to getting in touch with other SOs and ATs, is there any requirement for that or would the involvement into this group be totally informal?
Evan Leibovitch: Well, actually I want to actually ask everybody on the rest of this call what you think. I’ve already been in contact with various people from the Non-Contracted House of the GNSO, people who have shared, shall we say, some of my frustration and are interested to just get on with something. At this point in time, my goal right now is to get past impasses and, obviously, with the composition of the Rec 6 group as it’s currently constituted, we have these impasses.
I’m going to deal with the fact that there’s going to be some issues in the wording with which we’re not going to get full consensus. But at a certain point, the ALAC point of view ought to be expressed, even if it’s objected to by others. But what I suspect is that there’s quite a few people in the community that are closer to us than others. I don’t know if I’m saying this very well. Just to state that there are other people in other communities… there’ve been people in the Non-Contracted House who’ve already approached me and said they would like to help with this.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And what was your response?
Evan Leibovitch: My response is I’ll take anybody who’s interested in constructive engagement on doing this. The only thing I don’t want to hear is, “We don’t have consensus, so let’s move on.”
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’d like to hear from Carlton or Tijani on this. Carlton.
Carlton Samuels: You know, my feeling is that we should, we agreed that we would put together a little team to do this. I agree that it is best if we could bring others along as we go along this way. But where I am right now, I think we should at least put the team together, work on a document and even if we don’t have consent to do other groups, we post what we think we have to post and make it public. So that is my alternative way of doing it. I’m quite happy with making every effort to work with other SO/ACs to get the thing moving forward. But ALAC has a position; we have taken a posture and we should go through with it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Carlton. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, I think that it’s a good way to… I first agree with Evan when he had this idea, I was the first one who agreed with him. Now the problem is that it is not a chartered group and there is not exclusivity, as you said. But we will propose to the Board a drafting so they can use or not use it, but it is… We at least did something and to have positions, we have to things on which we all agree so it’s not difficult to put them together in a text.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: To me it sounds like ALAC is performing its function as Advisory Committee. It’s giving advice; you’re free to take it or leave it. That sort of thing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And any time we give advice, it’s perfectly reasonable for us to seek other interested parties such as other ACs, i.e., the GAC or the ASAC or whatever’s relevant, in the group in the early drafting stages. That’s perfectly normal.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, I think so. That is definitely what we would normally do.
Evan Leibovitch: I would just take it a step further and say we wouldn’t just invite them to look, but if other people in other constituencies want to be an active part of this, the more the merrier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s what Cheryl said, active part, Evan. She embraces that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The advantage of what an ALAC, an ALAC Work Group has a huge advantage over just about any other form of Work Group ICANN-wide. And that is we are not lunatics with this stakeholder crapola. If you need an end user or if you happen to have domain name registration, you’re out. Doesn’t matter where you are elsewhere, you’re welcome in our space. So come hither and join in.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well, it sounds like you’re on, Evan, but before pending on whether you’re on or not, may I ask whether there’s any objection to this being created?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You’ll have to put it to the ALAC. But certainly from an ExCom point of view, I think that’s the way forward.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, so the action item is to email the ALAC and ask whether there’s an objection to this being put together.
Evan Leibovitch: Let me ask a small procedural issue. As Chair of the gTLD Working Group, I need to ask permission to create a drafting team?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Tijani, may I just answer without answering Evan’s question. I don’t know. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s actually not a matter of a drafting team. This is a very specific piece of work that you’re wanting to, I guess the… If it was a charter… It’s almost like a change to charter so it’s like the JAS additional charter information. Your Work Group has been even a path to respond to public comment and input on new gTLDs. Now technically that’s almost kind of closed.
So we really need to make sure that specifically this particular drafting team won’t claim activity under the same Work Group, is doing what you want it to and that it’s not just fluffy. If you want to do that by just doing it within the Work Team, fine. But then the ALAC could very much say, “Well, thank you very much for that Work Team. We’ll take that as a piece of input and we don’t actually have to do anything with it.” And I think what you want is to be hey, like they have to do something with it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: What I would suggest, Evan, is for you to draft your proposal – I know you’ve already drafted some – but just draft a short page on that and then we will transmit it to the ALAC. Cheryl and I will also have a look at it to see if there’s any procedural issue to deal with it and then send it to the ALAC and get the ALAC to agree on it. Hopefully, they will.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay.
Carlton Samuels: Can I make an interjection here? I have to leave at 10:45 my time because I have to get back to close for 11:00 and I have to drive, so…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well, I think, Carlton, that we’ve actually beaten the [ADAT] subject to death as well and so we can move on to the any other business part.
Evan Leibovitch: The only thing I would add before we go, since I have a hard stop also is that I’m going to be basically, totally non-ICANN for the rest of the day which includes the Rec 6 call that’s going to be taking place I think in a couple of hours. So if any of you can participate in that call, it will be very important to understand the gist and the tone… the extent to which the existing Rec 6 is really driven to move forward because, that may actually influence the direction this goes.
Carlton Samuels: I have a call out on it. I will be moving between meetings so I am going to be… it’s going to be very iffy for me, Evan, but I certainly have that need to know what’s happening there as well.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, Olivier, you’re normally in the Rec 6 call, aren’t you?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I certainly am going to be, yes, absolutely. So I will be there, I believe Cheryl will also be there?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, gee, I’m one of the Co-Chairs.
Evan Leibovitch: Forgive me for having assumed that. So all I’m asking to do is to… You folks know where I’m coming from right now by this point, I assume, so just get a feel for the group and to the extent to which it is… If the group is absolutely hell-bent on saying, “We’re going to get past the things on which we couldn’t get consensus,” then that may open up a different channel. I tend to be a little bit more cynical about it but at this point in time, although what I’m proposing is an ALAC team, obviously the more constituencies, the more legitimacy we can give this, the better.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just to be clear, the timeframe of work for the Rec 6 Work Group for today’s call is responding to the Cartagena resolution. That’s going to be the work today.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So translation is don’t expect miracles.
Evan Leibovitch: Based on the draft letter, I’ve already given my comments. I have no problems with it because, frankly, I consider it fairly innocuous, so if that’s basically what this group’s doing today, then there is not a whole lot for me to add even if I were there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t think we’re necessarily going to close the barn door, and not open up the barn door either, okay?
Carlton Samuels: I don’t think there’s any hope of closing it up today but we’ll see.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. We are already firmly into the any other business field and I understand there are a couple of any other business items which were going to be brought forward. Unfortunately, I have not got the paper of what they are so I would be happy to…
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There’s something I was going to bring up that I was told would have to be under any other business, so I can’t even rightly remember what it would be. If you can all for a moment, however, take a quick look at the changes I have made to the Strat Plan draft. I’ve been so bold, Olivier, as to shift around some of what you’ve done and putting the things in the same order as- We’ll need to reorder them, is what I’m saying. I haven’t done that.
They need to be in the same order as the pillars are. So “Core Operations including IANA” is in the wrong place and it’s duplicated and we just need to fiddle around. But if you can just have a general look and then I will put in the additional stuff that I’ve been bleating about, and so by the end of having a normal Marina del Rey day, that should be ready soon. I’ll make a proper run (inaudible 1:37:01) page.
I’ve got to work on other things; I can’t sit around with this thing all day. What was it I was going to say? Heidi, do you remember? I can’t.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, it was on the GAC meeting. There were some issues you wanted to talk about the GAC meeting. I’m just looking for what it exactly was.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, it wasn’t GAC. I was going to suggest that… Oh, I’m sorry. You mean the GAC Board meeting or…
Heidi Ullrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That wasn’t under any other business; that was the discussion on…
Heidi Ullrich: You had… It should be discussed on the ExCom call, so Olivier and I thought that the best place for that was AOB section.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, okay, well, I mean, everybody that’s on this call has had their piece to say on the chat, so, I mean really it’s certainly not my agenda item. I think we need to look at whether or not we should be… I think we need to be very careful that as an Advisory Committee we put our input in at the appropriate level and in a way that’s appropriate to an Advisory Committee while reminding you all on the ExCom chat that we think about the ALAC, think of it as a an equivalent to the GNSA Council and the ccNSO Council. You don’t have it reacting and responding in the same way and stakeholders and even constituencies of one of the SOs would be doing.
That really needs to be looked at I think very carefully. I think the letter’s gone public. We’ve got information that Olivier needs to get back out of Michael, and indeed I think from Stephane, now. I just want us to be really, really careful that we don’t become some bleeding group banging at the doors of the wrong entryway.
We need to recognize where we have our entre cards to and what mechanisms we have available to us as an ALAC, rather than just joining in a petition processes. I think that’s becoming part of petition processes is a very slippery slide indeed - that’s not to say that as individuals we shouldn’t be doing that - but as an ALAC it’s a very different thing.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: If I may add to this, I have spoken to Michael this morning or what my morning is. So this morning, UTC morning, and so far there has been positive response to the piece that he has published on Circle ID. My suggestion to him was that we will be waiting for a few more days to see what the response is and we certainly have – as far as we’re concerned – we have to ask our own members about this. What I would suggest is perhaps we email the ALAC list pointing to the Circle ID postings since it’s a public posting and get some feedback on that. Would that be something that flies?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think that’s fair enough. It’s calling for the younger times and I still don’t understand how anyone is going to want to sign it. And it’s something that we may end up indicating in a separate letter as a piece of advice to the Board, that we certainly believe in and endorse the in principle issues raised, not only in these but in what I think you were indicating would be letters coming from other SOs as well. Didn’t you say, Olivier, that you thought GNSO Council might call for it to be open? And I’ve seen you ask to (inaudible 1:41:40).
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well, there are questions on that. I’m sorry, I’ve just read the action item which was written and there it says email the ALAC and ask them whether they would like to endorse those initiatives. No, the question is not whether they would like to endorse this initiative, it’s to get feedback on this initiative. So it’s not a straight question of “Do you want to endorse this or do you not want to endorse this?” That was one thing.
With regards to the GNSO, Cheryl, so far the only reply I got from Stephane Van Gelder, which I got last night, late last night, was, “Oh, I haven’t heard about this.” Of course, at 3:00 a.m. UTC, the letter came out on Circle ID and so I am, as soon as I manage to get hold of him today, going to ask him and say, “What do you think about it now? And what do your members think about it?”
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would think that as an AC we need to keep our responses at the appropriate level of an AC.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So far I’ve only heard anecdotal evidence with regards to what responses are from other constituencies. No one has come up with any official response or official comment on this, and I certainly would agree with you that there’s no requirement for us to do an official comment or response right away. We can see the thing so far.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The other thing of any other business that I want to quickly raise was with you, I wondered what the ExCom thought with the, particularly with the GA regions work that’s going to be going on this year, and also coming to a close this year; and also with the IDs policy development process in the (inaudible 1:43:30). Would it be appropriate for us to try and have a joint GNSO and ALAC meeting in the San Francisco agenda?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Any comments? I don’t see any comment from anyone. I was on the AFRALO call yesterday which touched on the geo issue and thank you very much for explaining it to all of us yesterday, Cheryl. I would say that, yes, there is certainly something that we need to do on that and we need to follow up on this. And what you just suggested there is one course of action that we might wish to go ahead with. Would it be possible to have that in writing and then send that to the ExCom listers so that we all know what we’re talking about?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, because I think calls are where we normally discuss whether things do or don’t make agendas. I’m not going to spend my life emailing lists; I don’t do email lists, so… I think we agree or disagree, I have enough to do in my life. Loafing around on email lists is not one of them.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, yesterday on our call we spoke about the original geographic divisions in ICANN and because we want to comment on it and we will comment on it. We have time until the end of the month. But I think that ALAC also has to prepare itself to comment on it. It’s very important and it will impact very much ALAC and At Large.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, so may I ask if anyone objects to this? No, well, it appears that, okay, ALAC will comment on this so that’s another action item I believe that will go… And that’s pretty much it for today. Any other business? I’m sorry, Cheryl, the second part of what you had mentioned was also to table a meeting, you said, with the ccNSO, wasn’t it?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, yeah, we have… The next thing we need to do is the agenda planning for the SSO meeting. It’s important if we’re going to get time for meetings with other SOs that they be planned early and that they be properly built. We only have makings for the ccNSO when there is a topic that requires it. I’m suggesting that this time there is a topic that requires it. There’s two topics.
There is the desire to talk a little more about the geographics and there is the desire to discuss the IDN ccTLDs - that’s from my point of view. Let’s see whether it stays and whether or not ccNSO needs to be there.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, so let me ask if there are any objections to both of these items? None.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The first question is ask is there opportunity for a meeting, a ccNSO and ALAC meeting and if so, these would be the topics that you would think ALAC would be interested in talking about. You do that on a Chair-to-Chair basis.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m happy to do that if the ExCom is happy that we go ahead. Right. Okay, so that’s an action item as well. And then I think for the time being, any other business, as we are running very, very, very late now. Matthias, did you want to say something or…
Matthias Langenegger: Not right now.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. Right, I think that’s pretty much all that we needed to speak about and I think that we might just close it off now in good time with 53 minutes today on our original timing, which I gather is probably not that bad. I was hoping…
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You have been speaking only for an hour yet. If you’re going to have meetings for an hour, you’re going to be running them for overtime all the time. We’ve always had them for more than an hour. It never had been planned for an hour before so… It’s up to you; it’s your agenda so good luck trying to get them into an hour.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, well, we’ll see in the future, but so far I think this has been very productive and I thank every one of you for having spent the time on this and I hope that we will certainly get some input from the RALOs. The work doesn’t stop now; Rec 6 goes on later on today. For the others, have a good break of a few hours before we track you down and get to talk at you. With this and these words, and since it appear no one else has anything else to say, I’ll let you all take a break for a while and we can finish this call right now at 15:54 UTC. Thank you very much and good bye.
[End of Transcript]
