Avri Doria: Hello everyone. This is Avro Doria, welcome to this webinar on the tool that’s being developed, the dashboard tool that’s being developed for the review group that will be working as part of the At-Large Opposition Review Group. Before I turn it over to Dev who will be talking us through the review dashboard, I wanted to just give some thanks to the number of people that made getting here actually a possibility.
I was at first very skeptical, to be honest, that there would be a tool in time for the comment and opposition review, even without thinking about the delays we’ve all been experiencing lately. But because of in some sense Olivier’s insistence that this should be possible, the prior design work that Dev did, and then the ICANN staff contribution – Carol from Project Offices, Roman and Simon from IT – they were able to take stuff that they were working on, they were able to take Dev’s design, and they were able to come up with something that hopefully you all see is really going to be quite useful in the effort to gather, accumulate and work on quantum reviews, and to track the thousands of applications that that group will be reviewing.
So I’ll turn it over to Dev who of course, and one hears this often, is somebody to be thanked immensely. And this happens a lot I’ve understood in my close to a year now of working with At-Large, and turn it over to him. And then at various points, I guess we’ll allow for questions and I’ll do the sort of the MC work on the question control. People should raise their hands. Those who can’t raise their hands, because they’re not in Adobe, should just in a pause ask to be added to any list for comment.
So, having said that, again, thanks for coming to the webinar, thanks to everyone who made it possible, and oh yeah I forgot to mention that Heidi had to pull all this together. Dev, I turn it over to you.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Thank you. This is Dev Anand Teelucksingh here, and good morning, good afternoon, good evening and a good night to everyone. Thank you for being on this call. I’ve just shared my screen, and I hope everyone is seeing my screen. I just wanted to just show the text that actually led to the development and the reason why we have this dashboard. It’s because the At-Large Advisory Committee was given the opportunity to obtain funding from ICANN to file an objection to a gTLD application.
The new gTLD Working Group came up with a process by which At-Large and the ALAC could discuss and consider the submission of public comments to a gTLD application during the 60 day application comment period. And the application comment period is that period which starts when the gTLD applications are published by ICANN. And to consider making objections to the gTLD applications during the seven month objection period.
So what does this new gTLD applications dashboard, or I’m going to call it the gTLD Dashboard for short. What it does is it gives a status overview of a website which contains all the discussions on the gTLD strings, on the applications as it relates to the evaluation panels consideration or objection grounds. The website also contains perhaps formal comments for ALAC approval to submit to ICANNs public comment forum during the application comment period. And it also contains drafts of formal objection statements and a form for submission to the relevant dispute resolution service provider for RALOs consideration during the objection period.
I’ve just been told that my screen has stopped being shared, so I will maybe just hopefully see, because I’m not seeing the option any more to say – okay, well I’m saying share my screen. Okay. Hopefully everybody is seeing it again. Got it? Good, fantastic.
Okay. So as I was saying, what the dashboard is, it gives a status overview of all of those three things. So there are now three things that the dashboard is intended to do and then what At-Large will be able to use with the dashboard. There’s three things – one, to be able to sort and search the list of published gTLD applications on ICANNs website. Two, will offer At-Large and the ALAC a matter of tracking the number of comments for evaluation panels consideration, or an objection grounds, and to add comments to a gTLD application on evaluation panels consideration, or on objection grounds.
So let’s look at the first task, which is to sort and search the list of published gTLD applications on the ICANN website. When you load the page the ability to search the list of published gTLD applications is at the bottom of the screen. And I’m just scrolling down to it right now. So what you can see here is a table and this is going to be what is going to be shown on ICANNs website at that URL when ICANN publishes the application, which was supposed to be made first, but obviously has been delayed.
So what you can do with this tool is you can now search the application either by batch number – and when I select batch number you will see that a second drop down appears where you can no select batch number one and you’ll see that a subset of the total number of applications. And then search to batch number two and the table changes and so forth. You can then search by a prime entity; the region from which the gTLD application comes in; the applied for string itself; whether it’s an IDN; whether it’s a community based application or whether it’s a geographic name.
Now I should also mention that this table is also sortable. You can then click on say “community based,” I can click on that and it will sort itself either to “yes” or “no.” The down side of this tool though is that it can only sort by one column; that’s the only disadvantage I can see. But this is going to be – and obviously this information in the table is obviously fake data. It will be filled with the actual application information when it is formally published by ICANN. So that’s the first aspect. So it will either be that we can now use this tool to now sort and search the list of published gTLD applications on the ICANN website.
The second task, to track the number of comments for evaluation panels consideration or an objection ground. I’m now going to go to the top of the table, and what we have here is that we have two tables to track the number of comments for evaluation panel, and the number of comments on objection grounds. Now, for those who have not logged in, you’re probably going to see a batch, this will be in red. That’s because it’s only meant for logged in users. And actually this link will only be showed to the actual review group who will be able to create new discussion forums for creating a Wiki page for evaluation panels or a Wiki page on objection grounds.
What the end user is going to see is just a table. And I should mention the table is also sortable. If you click on the page for example, I can sort by the number of comments in the table. So I’ve created three sample Wiki pages and the way this is going to work is that only a Wiki page is created when somebody wants to file a comment. So I’ve just created three sample pages. I’ve also, just to show that the Wiki page also allows for IDN labels to be used when creating the page.
So I’ll just click into the sample called “blah, blah, blah” and this is what you’re going to see. You’ll see the actual text above that talks about the link to the actual application and so forth. And then you’ll see seven comments. And the reason we’re trying to do here is we’re trying to thread the comments for each of the evaluation panels consideration. There are several of them – string similarity; DNS stability; geographic names; technical and operational capability; financial capability; registry services, and community priority.
So the idea is that when the At-Large logs in – and you have to log in to post comments, we are not allowing for anonymous comments. If you don’t have a Wiki account you can send an email to the review group and they will add the comments onto the Wiki. And I’ve just put two sample comments. So what happens in that under string similarity we have one comment. And then anybody logged in can then reply to that and so on for each of the six other evaluation panel comments.
So going back to the dashboard you can see that there are nine comments. And the idea is that by clicking on the comments to sort, we can see which page is generating more attention and more comments and so forth. And then At-Large can say “Oh I can see that there’s like nine comments. There must be something interesting happening here.” They can click on it and then review the comments and add their own.
Similarly for the objection grounds; I’ll click on one just to show you and it’s basically the same concept. You would see the details and there are two comments there. And the idea there is the group to comment on the limited public interest objection grounds, and on community grounds. So again, anyone can start replying to these and then we could track the number of comments into those tables. The neat thing about these two tables is that this is the automatically generated. It’s not something that anybody has to manually update or anything like that, it’s automatic.
The third table that the At-Large would use is more detailed about the status of the applications. So just to give an example here, and again, it’s sortable. I can sort by whether I want to sort by all the Wiki pages that have objection comments, I could do so. And then I could then click on the X here and that will take me to the objection grounds Wiki page. So that’s the way the At-Large is able to track the number of comments, are able to post comments, and sort and search the list of published gTLD applications on ICANNs website.
So I think I’ll just pause there and ask if there’s any questions or comments. Yaovi I see your hand raised, please go ahead.
Yaovi Atohoun: Thank you. Can you hear me please, this is Yaovi.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Hi Yaovi, yes we can hear you.
Yaovi Atohoun: Thank you very much. So if I understand you correctly, this dashboard is for the review group. So my question, can anybody who has an account on the community Wiki who log in, can anybody make a comment to an application? Because and there maybe some (inaudible) that are removed; can anybody use this or is it just mainly for the people of the review group who have access to it? This is my question, thank you.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Thank you Yaovi. And the answer is only those persons who have accounts will be able to make comments because we’ve disallowed anonymous comments. This is probably not fully set up yet, but the intent is to not have an anonymous comment. Anybody who does not have a Wiki account would then email the review group directly and then the review group would then itself insert that comment on behalf of that user.
And just to go back again, the review group is the only one that will actually be able to create the Wiki page. If there is a person that wants to start a comment on an application that there are no comments, he or she has to send an email to the review group and the review group will then create the Wiki page and then notify the user when its ready. I hope that answers the question Yaovi.
Yaovi Atohoun: Yeah, thank you very much.
Avri Doria: Sorry before I thought I was unmuting myself to help with the hands and I wasn’t. Is there anyone else with a question? And also, I have one thing that I’d like to confirm while waiting for hands. While anyone with a Wiki account can attach comments, and only people that are designated members of the review group can create pages, I’m assuming that they are also the only ones who can do any editing at all within this space, other than the submission of a comment. Is that correct?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Yeah. This is Dev. That is correct. So, only the review group will be able to edit the top of the text there, and also if necessary, edit any of the comments that need to be edited or removed. Yeah, the review group would be the ones that are able to edit the page. So for example, when it comes to the 5th week of the application comment period, or the 5th month of the objection period, when it comes to actually drafting formal comments for ALAC to approve, or for the objection – let’s consider the objection comment period, which requires that by the 5th week formal comments have to be ready in time for ALAC to review and if necessary vote on to submit the formal comment to ICANNs public comment period.
So they would edit the page to say “this is a draft comment,” there can then be comments on the statement and then a final draft produced. Similar to how policy advice is done in At-Large.
Avri Doria: Thank you. I see no other hands for questions. Anyone else want to ask Dev a question before he continues? I see none Dev, please continue.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Okay, well I think I am actually pretty much got through. I’m not sure what else there is to show actually.
Avri Doria: Okay. Olivier has a question.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yeah thanks. It’s Olivier for the transcript record. Just a quick question Dev. You mentioned that if you didn’t have a Wiki page set up for an objection on something that doesn’t exist yet, you said that people have to email the working group, or the review group. Will there be a special email address for that?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: This is Dev. It was intended that it would be just one common address that will go to everybody in the review group, and then – yeah, it will be just one address. Because just to make life simpler and also to create a transaction record, because that email will be stored in a mailing list, so it will be one address.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: So we’re going to need an Action Item on this one then, which is to choose what that address should be and have that created by ICANN. I guess it’s probably going to be some kind of mailing list.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Correct, yes. It would have to be a mailing list and the reason why we want a mailing list is to ensure transparency reasons really. So we can show that yes the request was received and the review group then acted upon that request by creating the Wiki page or adding the comment where necessary and so forth.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, thank you.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: So yes, it would be an Action Item, yes.
Avri Doria: Any other comments, questions? A fairly straightforward system and the explanation was good, so have we actually covered everything we need to cover?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Actually I’m almost tempted to say yes.
Avri Doria: Well I just want to give everybody a chance to think it through, ask if you want to see something again, ask if you have any curiosity at all about how something works. Yes Yaovi, please go ahead.
Yaovi Atohoun: Just to understand what is the means of status of the application, what does that mean?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Sorry Yaovi, I didn’t quite catch that.
Avri Doria: The meaning of the “status” of the application?
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes. The status of the application. What are we expecting to see there?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Thank you, Yaovi. That’s a good question and something I didn’t cover. So the idea behind the status of the application is that, especially during the 5th week of the application comment period when the review group has to review all the comments received and decide whether to draft a formal comment for approval by ALAC. So the idea would be that in the 5th week it will change to “formal comment being drafted” for whatever string. Or “no formal comment will be drafted” for this gTLD applied for string.
The actual names of the status fields will be developed as it comes a little closer to the – but that’s the essential thing. Similarly for the objection period, a status message cold be “formal objection statement to be drafted.” That means that a working group has to be created for that formal statement to be drafted and so forth. And then when the final objection statement is ready, then that status will then change again. Then you could have an updated status that says “the RALOs are voting on the objection statement,” “only two RALOs have approved it,” or that type of thing.
So that’s the idea of the status of the applications. It’s really to indicate at what stage is the comment being treated. Is it that a formal comment is going to be drafted? Is it then that ALAC takes that and then votes on that formal comment, and so forth. I hope that answers the question.
Avri Doria: I have a follow up question for that one if Yaovi doesn’t. And in that status, if I understood correctly, that’s sort of a free form field. That those have been working in that perhaps it’s something that the review team can think about creating a standard list of answers that are used, but it’s not going to be like a drop down where there’s a fixed number. So any status the person who holds the token when writing status wants to put in there will be valid I’m sure, within certain character limits. So that’s the assumption?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: That is the assumption. Yes, that’s correct Avri.
Avri Doria: Okay. Any other questions? No? Okay, I expect that – I don’t think any other webinars are planned on this. I do know that for those that do end up in this review group there will be some hands on training at some point in the use of the Wiki. But remembering also that familiarity with Wiki’s was one of the hopes or qualities of anybody that was picked for that group, and that therefore it will not need to be a Wiki instruction, but will be essentially a “how to use this particular set of features” introduction.
I think that what’s been done with this Wiki is quite good. I’m happy to see the power of the ICANN Wiki sort of exploited and really very appreciative for the work that everyone has done in pulling this together. I see that no other hands have come up while I was sort of going through that ending there. So if no one else has a question, I once again thank Dev for the amazing amount of work he’s done to make this happen, and everybody on staff that put a fair amount of effort into making sure that At-Large had a decent tool to use.
So with that being no hands up – oh there’s a hand. Olivier, please. Olivier the floor is yours. Are you muted?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thanks very much Avri. I just had to unmute which took a little while. I just wanted to remind everyone that the call was sent out I think today or yesterday for members of this review group. And I really hope that the RALOs in the next few days find some very good candidates for this. It’s a vital part of our operations and it started very well. I really thank Dev for all the work he’s done on that, and of course, Avri for taking us to this point, and everyone else in the working group. But this is our chance to really do something that will be very useful to internet users out there and it will be very visible as well. So I hope that we’ll have a good turnout of volunteers for the review group. Thank you.
Avri Doria: Okay thanks. Any other last, last words? In which case, thank you all for joining in on this call, and look forward to talking to many of you again in various calls and good-bye. Thank you.
Heidi Ullrich: Thanks Avri.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you guys. Amazing job, really brilliant.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Thank you all.
[End of Transcript]
