To: Focus Group Members
Welcome! We are pleased that you have agreed to participate and provide your input to ICANN's Public Comment process.
This is a special purpose Focus Group that will be asked to consider two topics that were recommended by the Accountability & Transparency Review Team (ATRT). Each topic will be presented on a separate page together with pertinent background information and context. A series of questions will then be placed on subtending individual child pages so that the interraction and collaboration of team members can be narrowly focused on that subject.
The plan is for this team to be active from 20 July through 19 August 2011. There are no plans to schedule meetings or teleconferences. The design is that all communications and collaboration will be contained within this Wiki space.
During the period that the team is engaging on the topics/questions, this Wiki area will be RESTRICTED to Focus Group members only and certain Staff members who are supporting the effort. Even though the Wiki is not generally OPEN to any other contributors, Focus Group members are encouraged to consult with their organizations and, wherever practicable, to offer positions that reflect the constituencies you represent.
Permissions: Each of you will have View Page access to the entire Public Comments Focus Group space. Add/Edit Page will be restricted to Staff members; however, you do have unlimited permission to Add/Remove Comments and Attachments (please do not edit or delete submissions from anyone other than yourself).
Recommended approach:
- Take a few minutes to review the Background Materials.
- The group should focus on Topic 1-Stratification and Prioritization initially, which deals with ATRT Recommendation 15. Topic 2, which addresses Comment and Reply Cycles, will be presented later. There are 4 questions presented on separate pages under Topic 1. As you consider each question, please provide your thoughts, comments, feedback, suggestions, etc., using the Add Comment feature at the bottom of the Wiki page.
- If you see a comment from a team member that sparks your interest or you would like to engage further, you may Reply to that comment. The result will be a threaded discussion that relates to the question at the top of that page.
- Please be mindful to confine your comments to the topic presented try not to let the discussion wander into other areas. If you have an issue, question, or suggestion that is NOT related to the topic at hand or you feel as though some important dimension of a topic is not being adequately considered/addressed, please post it on: General Discussions.
- Staff will monitor the interchanges and engage, as appropriate, to help with the discussion, ask follow-up questions, and otherwise assist wherever it can.
- There is no need to achieve consensus on any topic, question, or viewpoint although agreement on important elements will certainly be valued.
The Wiki collaboration and discussion threads will be used by Staff to inform its planning concerning the implementation topics listed above. Staff does not plan to issue any written reports or summaries of the Focus Group's deliberations; however, the Wiki may be opened for public read access once the work is completed. Elements of the feedback may be incorporated into a formal Public Comment solicitation that will deal with these same topics circa September 2011.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. The most effective way to interract is to use this Wiki's Add Comments feature at the bottom of each page. For example, if you have a question about the Focus Group instructions, this page would be the best place to ask it.
Thank you,
Filiz Yilmaz and Ken Bour
Created by: Ken Bour
