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Evan Leibovitch Evan Leibovitch joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Cheryl joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Patrick.
Patrick Vande Walle: Hello. Hello, Cheryl. Can you hear me?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I can indeed, yes.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Sebastian Ricciardi joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Sebastian.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Hello, Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Who was that that just joined? Hello, who just joined us?
Unidentified Participant: Well, that wasn't just me, but I guess that was the phantom caller.
Edward Hasbrouck: Edward Hasbrouck.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now, you want to be here under the radar.
Unidentified Participant: Yes, somebody just showed me yesterday how in Skype to be invisible, so you're on there but everyone sees you as offline.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, dear me. Now we're in trouble.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Don't tell that to too much people, because as soon as it will be known, it will not be very useful.
Unidentified Participant: Well, the person who told me that, I guess, happened to have an awful lot of people trying to talk to him that he didn't want to talk to. I don't know. Fans, bill collectors, don't know.
Sebastian Ricciardi: If they try (inaudible), you must try to call to talk with somebody or to chat with somebody on Skype, because you never know if they are really not there or out there.
Edward Hasbrouck: Edward Hasbrouck joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Edward.
Edward Hasbrouck: Hello, how are you doing?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello. Evan, I haven't seen you in the Adobe Connect Room yet.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh. And I guess you will in a moment. I forgot all about it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm sure we'll need to remind a few people who will be joining that the Adobe Connect Room is a handy tool for us to use.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, that's why it slipped my mind. It's not on the--.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It should be at the top of the meeting page.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, I will get there. Ah, yes. Sorry. It's in the largest type on the page, and I didn't see it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's probably why you didn't see it. You just go down to the meaningful stuff, you see. Hello, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Hello.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, and you pop up instantaneously. You become part of the Adobe Room at the same time as your voice comes over the air waves. That's very efficient of you, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Years of experience. Or of line. It just takes lots of practice to get it that coordinated.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think that's a reflection on how these sorts of calls (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: Or I just came--.
Christopher Wilkinson: Christopher Wilkinson.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Christopher.
Evan Leibovitch: Evan, or I just came in the door 15 minutes ago, tried to wolf down some food, put up the water for some coffee, and ran over and dialed the number and clicked on Adobe.
Alan Greenberg: Oh. That's a technique I could get very good at copying.
Evan Leibovitch: I will only charge a minor royalty. And don't even need to know every time you use it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I'm sure you'll all be in agreement with me when I suggest we leave another couple of minutes for the people to, I know it's just on past the hour, but it takes time for people to call in.
Alan Greenberg: How rigorous are we likely to be on the ending time?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would like to think that we will be--.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Olivier Crepin-Leblond joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Hello.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan was just asking how rigorous we're going to be on the ending of the call. That is very much up to the community, but I would like to see us at its scheduled stop, which is 90 minutes in.
Alan Greenberg: By the way, are you up early or still up?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You don't really need to know the answer to that question. Hello--.
Tricia Drakes: Tricia just joined.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hello, Tricia. Welcome, and thank you very much for joining our community call. I think we're also expecting Roberto.
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, I don't need to know, but when you're on a call starting at 5 a.m., I'm always curious.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I'm always--.
Tricia Drakes: I don't believe there's any answer to that, is there?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's probably true, Tricia.
Alan Greenberg: I had just asked if this was the end of a long day or the early start of a long day. I wasn't asking for any more details than that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But Alan, it's actually likely to be both.
Alan Greenberg: It could well be.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But go ahead, Tricia.
Tricia Drakes: I was just going to say, just to mention, and you'll just need to remind me to put it on mute if it's loud, that I'm actually at St. Pancras station at the moment, which is where your (inaudible) and the other things go, so it should be fine, because there shouldn't be too many announcements. And if there are, I'll do, I'll put it on mute and then unmute, but just in case, in case I don't, just shout, "Tricia, mute it," or if it's a time when I'm speaking and there is an announcement, then just bear with me. But it shouldn't be too bad.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm sure we can work around that. Some of the background noise we get on some of these calls, that's the least of our problems. Tricia, seeing as you're mobile, you won't be asked to join us in the Adobe chat room, and so that is being recorded. And if you would like to perhaps later, that will be another place for you and any other interested review to meeting member, of course, the member of the SIC to have a look at the archive of what's said and discussed in this call.
Tricia Drakes: Yes. Well, I was thinking that I might well opt to, I might, because obviously, the call has already been tested, and I'll remember that the committee might be. So it's a good start. And I'm very aware there's some people that pass review that is hasn't been a success because there are not keyboards on those yet. I actually am very pleased with being successful in having the one of the starts, because I think having said that, first of all, there's no going back, really, which is good.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: A perfect foot in the door, indeed. Thanks for pointing that out, Tricia.
Tricia Drakes: So how many more people do you look to join?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I've got to do a roll call in a moment, which is what we're about to start doing, and I'm assuming Heidi can see who's joined us with Adigo. We have got some call-outs going out into Africa, and that does occasionally take us a little bit longer. I've just noticed a couple of extra people joining us in the Adobe room, Latin America and Europe, and some less than I expected from North America are currently represented. So we might start with the slightly boring bits. But I did want to perhaps leave it until Roberto, who I thought was going to join us, was able to.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, you've got Edward, myself, Alan, and Gareth are here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, and I also see Dev Anand, Olivier, Patrick, and Sebastian. But, of course, not everyone is in the Adobe Room who's on the call. So if anyone's name hasn't in that short list been mentioned, could you make yourself known to the telephone bridge, please?
Christopher Wilkinson: Christopher Wilkinson is here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah, Christopher, you're on the call but not in the Adobe Room. If you can join us, you're more than welcome. If not, you might have to--.
Christopher Wilkinson: How do I get onto the Adobe Room?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Jump in and say, "I'd like to say something," when you want to do so. Thank you, Christopher. Anyone else on the call?
Dessi Greve: And also it's Dessi Greve, the Secretary for EURALO. I'm on the call, but I'm not able to connect to the Adobe Chat Room.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Dessi. This is important that I know who's out there so we don't miss anyone. Excellent, thank you, and welcome.
Well, at this point, we might start by drawing everyone's attention to the-pardon me-the beginnings of the meeting, and those of you who are not online, I assume you've all read the meeting background which outlines the Board resolution. Assuming that, I'd like to welcome you all, and welcome, of course, in particular, Tricia Drakes, who of course steers the ALAC Review Board Working Group through the somewhat choppy waters at times and of how we ended up here, and I'd like to offer her a couple of minutes from St. Pancras Station, she tells us. She gives perhaps a very focused view on how she is seeing where we are up to now, and obviously, invited to enter into throughout our community call.
I'd also like to note that we are expecting Roberto to join us, but that we have some very specific apologies and best wishes from members of the Structural Improvements Committee, in particular Jean Jacques, and Romando has sent their best wishes, but they regret that they cannot join us at this call today, but look forward to talking to us in the formal meeting in Seoul; and also, Marco has sent us all his best and will be following the archive and joining us in Seoul.
So Tricia, over to you for a small intro and anything you'd like to make the community aware of. Thank you, Tricia.
Tricia Drakes: Okay. Well, thank you very much. I also thank you very much for inviting me, because as you know, in Sydney, I thought my work had been done in terms of chairing the ALAC Review Working Group, although I had to, shall we say, help in terms of trying to get this, making my contribution to try and get the voting members issued in terms of the Board. So basically, from my perspective, I think that having the voting people working one of the key, the key components and the key things which need to happen, along with all the other things which are out here in progress, I also think that--and I know Karl Auerbach's on the call, and I'm sure he'll study the notes and send them through. He's got this, us being, I think, we all did, one of the biggest challenges in terms of the actual approach that you're going to take in identifying and appointing the voting (inaudible).
I also think it's a great opportunity, maybe, to look at things from a fresh perspective, and I saw the options that came from your brainstorm, and I'm sure we'll be able to be covering today. But also, I think, mindful of At-Large, and I know the various things that are going on in relation to the GMSO aspect of things, not all of it, but such as we've been through, and I think it's actually something that you might want to think about, identifying (inaudible), but even thinking about doing a brief to an external recruitment person to find a person that might not come out from the usual sources. So that's an additional thing to think about-maybe to reject-but I think actually some fresh perspective, and a clean sheet of paper would be good, as well as looking at the traditional things that you may have already considered. But it's not going to be easy, and it's also going to be one of those things, I think, that whatever you come up with, there will be those things, some completely wrong and completely crazy. But actually, I think it's really, really important to do this.
That's it, really, I think.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, thank you very much, Tricia, and I think particularly, not only for pointing out some of the challenges that are ahead of us, but also that we shouldn't be limited by just the history of the discussions that have gone on and the concepts that, yes, I'm quite sure Kevin will be having a small set of kittens about it and when we write it, but looking at more formal search outs and seek possibilities from a wider community is something, certainly, I've not thought of, but now it's been said, I'm sure the community will put on it to think about and discuss with.
Tricia Drakes: I think just-sorry-just in setting that in context, and then I will move forward. I have to remember that you're, you clearly didn't think of that, but I will. If you remember the Henry Watson place I did about the 1.5 billion users, I think that might also inform and help your thinking at the opportunity of having somebody on the Board that can help in that objective.
And finally, just in case we don't (inaudible) at the end or I get stuff or I jump on (inaudible) too late, I would like to say I am very, very, very pleased with the way that you're roughing this all and we're starting to work on the recommendations and the aspects of the review. I think that's where it has to be done.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, thank you very much, Tricia. But I'm assuming that you will be continuing to join us in our discussions where you feel that it's worthy. Sebastian, you have your hand up? Would you care to say something before we move on to the main part of the agenda? Go ahead, Sebastian.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Yes and no. I was, rejoined the call, but I am (inaudible) with what Tricia told us, because my question is that do we want to have At-Large doing the same thing that the Nominating Committee, and why we don't have nine seats on the call, and at the reverse, we can take the history of the last two years, but we can also take the history of the last 10 years, and then we would see that maybe at we're current situation it's to take it a little way of all the history and not just one way or the other. But I will come back in more details later. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We will be revisiting those particular issues, not only in today's call, but in other opportunities. Go ahead, please, Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: Tricia, I hope you don't mind. I just have a question or two, trying to determine what, trying to divine what it is the Board is hoping to get out of this. One thing that occurred to me is, as we make the transition from a liaison to Board member, we're going from somebody who is traditionally accountable back to ALAC who has a reporting function back to ALAC and who is almost by definition somebody who carries messages back and forth between the two bodies. A Board member, it's my understanding, once we pick that person, they're independent and they do as they want. They're not accountable back to At-Large, and effectively, they are on the Board as anyone else. They don't represent anyone. They represent, you know, they've been chosen for a certain kind of mindset, hopefully, but they're not accountable to At-Large once they're chosen. How do we deal with the fact that that conduit of information that exists now with the liaison will actually be going away?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Tricia, are you reaching to take that on notice and bring it back, perhaps, to the table or in a more considered response? The sort of thing I'd normally have tossed to Roberto.
Tricia Drakes: I was thinking. What that suggests is (inaudible) from Sebastian's point as well, if there are, I mean, I think, to give a full response on anything, I would probably want to (inaudible). But if you wanted, when these (inaudible) comments for me to give a short view to respond on those, I'd be very happy to do that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be greatly appreciated, and I do note in Roberto's intention to have joined us, and certainly, it's exactly the sort of question I would have tossed to him under normal circumstances. But what we can do is ensure that that question is captured, and we'll discuss it in detail with our meeting with the Structural Improvements Committee, and in addition to that, I would like to note that we invited ICANN Legal to join us on this call because the some of the questions we have to grapple with and discuss are indeed very legal in nature. And I would like to, if you agree, Evan, toss that one towards them as well. What they have said is that they will review this call, its archives, and take questions with notice. So would you be happy for us to toss that towards them as well?
Evan Leibovitch: I'm simply interested in getting an answer. The better the sources of the answer, the more we can get out of it, the better.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's great. Tricia, do you wish to make any follow-up, then, or will we move? Go ahead, Tricia.
Christopher Wilkinson: Well, this is Christopher, if I may take the floor.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, Christopher, I can see your hand. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Christopher.
Christopher Wilkinson: Well, I just think this is a relevant issue, but it is not new to any democratic environment, and the Board member elected by ALAC must have as one of his or her characteristics a commitment to the interests and objectives of the At-Large community. I don't think you can go much beyond that, because, first of all, it's an individual appointment for a vast global constituency. And secondly, the ICANN statutes constrain, to a degree, the independence of the elected members.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. Thank you, Christopher. Of course, we also need to consider that there are various corporation law requirements wherever the entity ICANN is registered currently and for the foreseeable future as a California-based not-for-profit with special purpose of public interest and, of course, which you, I think, did mention, the challenges of making it a democratically equitable process at a global level, considerable. So we'll mainly be taking a first step in a process which needs continuous review. Go ahead, Edward.
Edward Hasbrouck: Yes, further to the question regarding how the role of the liaison would be fulfilled, since the liaison has no formal authority anyway and no vote, and the Board members are required to be open, because the meetings are required to be open to the public under the transparency bylaw, I see nothing in the creation of a voting At-Large seat that would either imply the abolition of the liaison position or preclude ALAC from, on its own, designating a liaison to the Board.
Evan Leibovitch: Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that the bylaw explicitly indicates a replacement.
Christopher Wilkinson: It's the resolution that the Board did actually, yes, explicitly indicate that. Of course, what Edward is raising is something that we can raise for further discussion.
Edward Hasbrouck: My point is that--.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And I think that's one that we probably need to ensure we get a very definite discussion on with the Structural Improvements Committee when we meet with them. Go ahead, Edward, and then I see Alan.
Edward Hasbrouck: I'm sorry. My point was that the designation of a liaison would not necessarily require any bylaws provision at all, simply designating someone to speak on behalf of ALAC. I don't think that requires a bylaws provision or would be precluded by removing that as something formally required by the bylaws.
Tricia Drakes: (Inaudible) a lot of questions I might forget further down. Would you want me to comment on the first, on the points but also remark on Edward's point as well?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'd be delighted if you could do so, Tricia, and then I see Alan, and then I see Vanda. Go ahead, Tricia.
Tricia Drakes: Okay. First of all, in terms of trying to deal with Evan's point, and you'll get me all, and whoever might listen from Legal might say that I'm wrong, but basically, it's really in terms of, I think, the power in terms of the appointment. And I'll come back to the liaison point in a minute. There's a difference between a NomCom one and an ALAC and At-Large direct appointed one.
In the case of whether it's At-Large or the GMSO appointees or an ASO appointees or a CCMSO appointee, there the selection of the person take one of the Board seats at the tables to vote, and the power is in the vote, is actually made by the XO or AC itself. And what the Board approves, and it being only one seat, not two, but the beginning part, is actually giving the power to yourselves to put somebody at the table to vote.
Now, all of the-I'm sorry-and if one then takes out the NomCom one and the table of the number of seats were all very carefully discussed pre my time, but then there's discussions that led to evolution and reform which came in there. The Nominating Committee ones are actually a different one, where they are appointed by the Nominating Committee, which again around there, where you take a balanced view or you take the view of to whether you agree or not agree, and that's not to be (inaudible) today, but there you really, you give your input. You might not get what comes out from there, but was official in terms of future (inaudible) the table, the Nominating Committee is done by NomCom.
When we seek to (inaudible) by all of the Directors from the balance in terms of who's appointing them, that's what makes the voting power, and they are independent, and they actually have to, even those that are appointed, whether by NomCom or by the XOs or ACs, they have to act in accordance with the independence rules and all of the other aspects of it.
Now, in the case of--so it's really giving you the power to put somebody at the table who has the responsibilities of a Board member and a Director in terms of the organization, and they are (inaudible). And that is, they, a separate footing at the table than those that are, so I think it's basically the power of the appointment.
Picking up on Edward's about liaison, and one thing in actually having only one of the seats on there, (inaudible) the discussion in terms of the liaison aspect of it, and Edward is quite right in terms of that's something that can come in there, but actually, it's the whole balancing of the number of seats and the power and how it all comes into play there.
And I know that, I mean, for example, although you can't have the same degree of reporting back that you get from when they also, whoever's sitting there at the moment, but in practice, the people, the person that you appoint to be at the table, to have your vote and be able to participate very equally with everybody around there is very, I think it's a very important thing, and it does, it's something which you may say we want to reject it, I mean, with what it, we'll give it back to be able to do that. But actually, it's really, it's something that's very, very important and it's really to a point. So I think in that aspect of it, that really, it's actually something which puts a voting seat at the table and that you have appointed that person to do it. But the fact is, they are independent and they do have to comply with all the requirements.
That doesn't exist with the liaison. They're, although the Board allows the liaison to participate almost equally and they're now on the Board committee, they don't have the vote, they don't participate in that way, and I think you have to consider that very carefully when raising and discussing that again.
I don't know whether that helps Edward and Evan. I don't know quite (inaudible) like. Sebastian, remind what your point was on the NomCom one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sebastian, when you referred to NomCom appointments and why we don't have nine seats on the Board, if you should require clarification.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Cheryl, I will take notice of that as that was that.
Tricia Drakes: I didn't, as I said, I don't know whether that has helped Evan or Edward, but I think it's thinking about what it means. And yes, you have perhaps lost a level of reporting and accountability by having somebody at the table, but that also makes the discussion to nicely up the future, the other discussions we're going to have, very important as to who you are going to appoint is able to participate with the vote to contribute, and it's not an easy one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Tricia. Alan and then Vanda, and then I would like to move to the formal input in response to the discussion points raised by the brainstorming, and starting with AFRALO, the second matter we've established a line out to Africa and we have Fatimata on the call, and with her occasional, if not frequent, lack of electricity in the area, I want to take advantage of that when I can. Go ahead, Alan, and then Vanda.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, a couple of points brought up by previous speakers. With regard to a voting Board member, as I understand it and as Tricia just confirmed, they are independent. And I think the whole key is to select someone who you trust to have a mindset similar enough to what At-Large does that you can have faith that they will support the things you want and fight against the things you don't want. But it's really a matter of just, when you elect a Member of Parliament or your Senator, you pick someone that you believe will do the right thing, because once they're there, they're on their own--until they want reappointment, of course.
In terms of the liaison, Tricia just mentioned that they're now on Board committees. They're on a few Board committees, but typically not the really important ones, and I think we have to factor that in.
Edward made a comment that we don't need a Board, we don't need bylaws because the Board meetings are open and anyone can go to them, and presumably, anyone can speak on our behalf. The last I heard, Board meetings are not open other than the one at the General Meeting, and even then, no one else has speaking rights. But the rest of the Board meetings, at least at this point in time, are all closed.
And lastly, Tricia made the comment that the supporting organizations pick their Board members. And that's not exactly what the bylaws say. The bylaws allocate the Board members to the supporting organizations, but specify that their councils pick the Board members. I'm not saying we need to replicate that, but that is what happens for all the three supporting organizations. Okay.
Tricia Drakes: Okay, I was totally thinking about (inaudible). I was totally using (inaudible) words.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's always a very scary thing when you're dealing with the At-Large community, Tricia. We need to dot our i's and cross our t's, I can assure you. I'll now recognize Vanda.
Alan Greenberg: Just one second, Tricia, just one comment. In terms of ALAC, the supporting organization is At-Large and the council is equivalent to ALAC, and as you have already picked up, this is a non-trivial distinction.
Tricia Drakes: (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well said, Alan. We should probably enshrine that somewhere in writing in a number of documents. That's something else we can discuss on our Sunday session in Seoul. Vanda, go ahead. Vanda, just for Tricia's edification, is confirmed as our incoming and, as we see it in our current landscape, at least, final liaison from ALAC to the Board, but I'd also recognize that whilst we've been checking Wendy Seltzer, our incumbent and current Board liaison, has joined the community call Adobe Room and is probably also on the telephone bridge. Go ahead, Vanda, and then we'll be moving to regional input and we'll be starting off with Africa. So Fatimata could prepare. Thank you, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay, yes. Just a few comments. Really, the liaisons are not sitting in the most important committees, but anyway, they have a power of lobbying inside the Board all the time. And this is a very important position for helping ALAC (inaudible) meet ALAC (inaudible). But anyway, voters and directors also can be accountable to their supporting organization, and I could follow sometimes during many years that, for instance, (inaudible) is completely accountable to the CCTLD. And I believe Bruce as well. So it's the (inaudible) person. If the person elected has deeply knowledge about the ALAC view and the At-Large demand, they can be accountable in the same (inaudible) of the, they have or not have vote position on that. So I believe there is no difference if the right person is selected, is my point. It's easy to be a liaison because you have flexibility and the liberty to go back and forth, but it's also a point to be accountable. If you belong to this community and sit there as (inaudible) by someone. So I believe the right Director will be accountable. Thank you.
Tricia Drakes: Cheryl, can I just put a marker on that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Tricia.
Tricia Drakes: Just really for you to talk. One, in terms of the (inaudible), I think I do understand her very much. I know from briefings that John Jeffrey did for NomCom sessions, and particularly the one in Sydney, the issue in terms of independence as Directors were made even with some examples which are public which John can give us examples. Where if the independence aspect is set aside, then the particular Director, and Bruce is one of them, has to abstain and not be involved in some of the things that they might otherwise have done in years past. So if there was actually (inaudible) because we're actually, we have similar, like I agree with what Vanda said just say it's one, too, I think, tied with John to look at them with input into as to how the stronger independence aspect might affect that. So again, in choosing to your point, you might want to take a (inaudible) they want to have somebody who won't be able to vote on half of the things or participate because he might be afoul of some of the increasing independence aspect.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. If Fatimata is connected off this end with a good line in, what I'd like to do now, and recognizing that there's also a lot of cross-chattering, very, very important points going on in the Adobe connect room, so Tricia, you're going to have a lot of homework reading to do and pass on to members of your committee and as does Roberto to the Structural Improvements Committee, which is very exciting, and in fact, the perfect outcome from this call, is ask for now to have the reaction, response, and general comments from each of the regions, and being aware that the majority of the regions that make up the ALAC and that they use within the At-Large structures, we have asked them to look at, respond to, and discuss aspects of the output of the brainstorming session. And we will be ending with Evan who, of course, is in a perfect position to wrap those, right to reply and discussion based on anything that raised.
So it's beginning with, if we can move to AFRALO, they have discussed in detail at their teleconference, their monthly teleconference yesterday. And Fatimata, I believe, has a number of points or issues to raise. Go ahead, Fatimata.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you, Cheryl. It's true that we had discussions about this yesterday, and we raised a certain number of the issues. Some of them have been already addressed by Vanda and Evan, but I still need to read them here for you.
The first point is about what Evan said. It is about selecting the right person that would really represent our view and our concerns instead of just presenting themselves.
And the second one is about accountability. We need greater clarity about accountability. And I don't know if this will be possible, but we need to know if it will be possible to recall a Director when he's not doing the right job for us.
And the fourth issue is about selection criteria. We need somebody who would be able to attend meetings with us, for example, with other constituencies. And also, even though we don't think it might be possible to reduce, but we think that the duration of the term shouldn't be three years, but two years.
And also, about the, for the voting system, we would, the concept is around Option 3, as proposed by NARALO, meaning elect representative and the RALO chairs would elect the Board representative. And another one is about the selective basis for the selection versus instead of just At-Large contest. We also think about the original, the rotation might not have sense. All we need is just someone who can do the job for us. So these were the issues raised during our yesterday meeting.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Fatimata. As APRALO is the next one in alphabetical order, and I'm at the moment on this call, the only representative who has been duly authorized and I've had clear instructions from the regional leadership by email earlier-well, earlier in your today and in my yesterday-two things. First of all, we are very happy and, in fact, in total support of all seven of the points that are listed in the notes by this meeting with the matters brought forward by AFRALO, so the Asia-Pacific and the African region for not the first time find themselves in utter synchrony for the issues that we feel are important and that we want to raise.
We are also concerned that in the process of even discussing these ways forward that considerations for our less well-connected regions, and I do mean less well-connected in terms of intimate connectivity, and also in terms of established history and understanding of processes which other parts of the world see as democratic or as vote-based, that our region may in fact be disadvantaged, depending on certain models such as are chosen. So again, we certainly are coming in at this stage in a preference order with 5C on the current card for consideration from the rank forming session is our preference.
Without taking any more time, however, I've been told that Karl Auerbach is on the Adigo link, although not in the Connect Pro meeting room, he is on mute, so Karl, if you, I believe, even if Adigo has muted you, if you just use star-seven, you should unmute, and if not, if I can ask Heidi to get Adigo to unmute Karl, APRALO will be perfectly happy to see the remainder-that would be another three minutes-for you to take our space. Go ahead, Karl.
Karl Auerbach: Assuming you can hear me-I don't-.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, we can. You might (inaudible).
Karl Auerbach: I don't need to wait. I sent out some email with regard to the recall. Under California law, yes, members can recall the Directors they select. Unfortunately, ICANN does not want to be a membership corporation, because it brings in other things, such as derivative legal actions and the like. So that's going to be a fight in all this. If there's an election involved that turns ICANN into a membership corporation, which gives you the recall, but on the other hand, ICANN Legal will oppose you tooth and nail. That was my main comment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: While you have the call, though, Karl, please take the opportunity, because we know you've had longstanding views, and certainly ones that we are going to have to continue to discuss and grapple with as we try and bring a global view forward on this. Go ahead, Karl.
Karl Auerbach: Okay, because I don't want to take up too much time. As Tricia said--.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I've got your time limited. Keep going.
Karl Auerbach: Okay. We don't want to turn--our recommendation was very, very broad, that the selection for the Board seat encompassed literally the entire community of Internet users, which is pretty much everyone. My concern is this doesn't become an ALAC-only vehicle, but rather, it becomes an inclusive, everyone is able to participate, everyone is able to run, and there's not necessarily any benefit or advantage to those who come through the ALAC path. That's the nugget of my concern.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Karl. Now, might I ask which representative of EURALO is taking the main lead here? Is it Patrick, Olivier, Sebastian? Who is stepping forward from EURALO?
Dessi Greve: (Inaudible).
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It's a woman. It's Dessi.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Dessi, go ahead. Thank you.
Dessi Greve: Yes. As I understand, Wolf is not here on the call representing EURALO, so I am going to take the initiative to announce that our feedback is closest on the workspace for ideas for consideration, and it has already provoked a discussion on five points that have been posted by Wolf Ludwig. Namely, number three and four are considered an object of discussion of that call. So I would like to pass the ball to our representative here, Sebastian, who can continue with clarification on those issues. But the input which has been gathered for the EURALO list is already on the workspace.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Dessi. And if you could just also let Wolf know in your reporting back to your EURALO Board-I'm sure Sebastian and Patrick will as well-but that we've taken the liberty of splitting questions one and two from those provided by Wolf and copying them across. We haven't removed them from the area of in issues for discussions, but we've duplicated them across to the Wiki page that is dedicated to legal and other similar questions, because, as they have bylaw ramifications or, as Karl points out, California law cut ramifications, we think they should be discussed in both spaces and not to be allowed to drop through any form of crack. So if you could just let him know that as well, that would be great. Sebastian, go ahead.
Sebastian Ricciardi: I think the main thoughts what to say, it's on the Wiki, yes, but and the five questions are really important for us. I understand some of them are already under discussion, and some of them were discussed and even answered by EURALO, by AFRALO and by APRALO.
I think we really need to find a way, I am presuming that we are going to, there's a lot if we don't try to find a way to answer the question Karl addressed and others, I know, on different lists. And it's what we need then, and even ask for that, to have a feedback from the SIC and from the Board. Because if we go to one direction and at the end the direction is not taken care by both SIC and the Board, it will be the wrong time for us to spend.
I would like to ask one question. Are we sure, because it's quite said by different person and by AFRALO and APRALO, I guess, are we sure that we want to have somebody, a Director who has not the same power than the other Directors? Because if we decide to have just two years and not three years, that means that it's a different kind of Director. And I really think we need to be as the others. I just want to pick one, to pick up one idea on that. If, by any reason, chance, or whatever, we, our Board Director is elected to Chair of the Board, it will be elected for two years and not for three years. That means that it will not be the same than the others. And I really think we need to find a way to have feedback from him, but we have to give him as much as power than the other Board Directors.
And I would like to come back to the question of the way we want to do that. If we want to replicate the Nominating Committee mandate to find people everywhere in the world, it's already done, and we have already eight people coming like that. And what if our specificity, why we gain one Board member, why it's important to have one appointed from the end users, because it's best we can say we already have one Board member. His name is the Vice Chair of the Board. It was, it came through the Nominating Committee, yes, but he was an ALAC liaison before, and he was very instrumental in the creation of the At-Large process. And Roberto is our Board member. He has the right to vote, even by Chair of the Board. And why it is more something else. If we need something else, it's we need to find why we, what is our specificity and not how we want, how we will be like other process, because the other process are for the other Board member. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Sebastian. I'd now like to move to Latin America and the Caribbean region and recognize Dev Anand. Please go ahead, please, Dev. He may be on mute. Star-seven if you need to unmute.
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: Hi. Okay. Well, I have to say that there aren't that much discussion on the LAC RALO list regarding this issue. I should say that the most discussion off to the side between me and Andres, the Chair, is regarding the NARALO brainstorm on selecting the At-Large representative. We prefer Option 3 and how the, where the ALAC reps and the (inaudible) chairs elect the Board representative from the final candidate list.
Then, and this is something I have been reviewing, and I guess I only have like temporary support from the Chair-I should say tentative support from the Chairis that given that for doing the ALAC liaisonsorry, the Board liaison position-there was most of LAC RALO expressed an affinity for having somebody from the region be the Board liaison. That got me thinking, and perhaps I was wondering whether, this posted to the chart here, so that people could read it, should there be a preference, including the criteria of selection for At-Large Directors, to retain the At-Large Directors on the five regions?
Now, by that I mean that I'm not saying automatic, it will be an automatic preference, but rather that like kind of (inaudible) preferred region will get an extra score or weight when in the overall criteria. And that will ensure that each region will eventually have an At-Large Director from that region serve on the ICANN Board. I will just throw that out there for people to commenting on. Maybe this is the wrong point to bring that up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's certainly not the wrong point or wrong time to bring that up. The whole purpose is, as Tricia began to say, working with a relatively clean sheet of paper is where we've been cognizant of both that history and (inaudible) eyes for the future, it's to make nothing unreasonable for discussion. And I think capturing those points and taking them forward in discussion is going to be very valuable. Any more from LAC RALO?
Dev Anand Teelucksingh: No. I mean, just in general that two years or so--I know that this is the difficulty with seeing three years, and I saw the discussion of one year and so on. I can sympathize, because really and truly, and I understand it, the person that you elect to be a Director will really be independent. So I know that's an ongoing concern, and I don't know what we did or we do, like, how should I put it, as LAC RALO'S, as LAC RALO's (inaudible), how would we be able to, what climate will recall, is there available, if we feel that our person's not acting in our interest? So that's it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And we need to note Karl's point made earlier on membership votes and recall rights under California law as well. Alan, just to read to the record, would you care to quickly speak to your response in terms of rotation and times on boards? I know the AFRALO views was certainly a two-year. I believe the APRALO view is comfortable with the two years moving up with, in line with other appointments, which is three years, but that's really just because some of our ALS members are less concerned and some are more concerned about an accountability and our use in the beginning of reappointment as a mechanism for accountability. That, of course, is something we need to discuss.
Go ahead, Alan, then quickly, Sebastian, and then we're going to move to NARALO. Evan, I can assure you it is not your role or your necessity to extend in any way, shape, or form, the excellence (inaudible) and discussion points brought forward from the brainstorming session. Rather, we are going in alphabetical order. But seeing as you and your region have put forward such a great starting point, if you'd like to specifically respond when we get to you, as well as take onboard some of the concepts brought up into the check space by members of your region, that's certainly what I'd be welcoming you to do.
Very quickly, then, Alan, if he wishes to read into the record anything, then Sebastian, and then we're moving to Evan. Go ahead, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, I was just pointing out that by things like reducing the term from three years and then putting in place rules or processes that make it likely that you will appoint someone differently the second time around or in successive times, essentially says the At-Large Director is always going to be the junior one on the Board. We'll never get to the point where they would be appointed Chair or Vice Chair, because they're only going to be put in that kind of position if the Board has a knowledge of them and a belief in them. The same is true for chairs of the various working committees.
These typically are people who have been there-not always-but typically are people who have a history on the Board. And by saying that we are going to do everything in our power to make sure our, the At-Large Director, has no history, is making that person a second-class citizen. You know, it's bad enough there's only one instead of two. This just stacks everything against them. Sorry to be so strong.
Christopher Wilkinson: I don't know how to put my hand up, so I'm speaking.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well, immediately after Sebastian, you can speak. Go ahead, Sebastian.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Yes. I would like us to try to stop our discussion how we would select and not how will we recall the Board members. The second point is maybe we can have a look of the big picture. It's just one of the six of the At-Large committee. Yes, it's on the Board, but we have a lot of work to do at the RALO level and at the ALAC level. And we need good people there, too. Then we are not just thinking we need one chair of the world, we need one to be seated at the Board, one amongst others. And my third, it's that yes, we have candidates to be seated right now and who will be able to be Chair of the Board is Roberto Gaetano, Vonda, and maybe we can ask Vincent to come back and to be on the Board (inaudible). Thank you very much.
Alan Greenberg: Roberto's leaving the Board.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Yes, but we can elect him.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All right, thank you. Enough. Was that Edward or Patrick who was trying to speak before?
Christopher Wilkinson: It was Christopher.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, sorry, Christopher. Your volume changed. There you go. You're much clearer now. Go ahead, Christopher.
Christopher Wilkinson: I haven't worked out how to put my hand up, so I'm sorry. Just to say, absolutely, the Board member for ALAC must be a three-year term. It must be a three-year term and it must be renewable. It's going to be such a difficult job globally that the person concerned will have to make, even if it's a person straight out of the ALAC community, will have to make such an enormous personal investment in understanding, fulfilling, representing, and reporting back, that to limit this to two years on a rotational basis will exclude most of the qualified candidates.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Fatimata.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, go ahead, Fatimata, and then we will move to Edward. Go ahead, Fatimata.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: I believe that will be the duration of the term. If we, we just suggested two years because of the, I mean, Sebastian doesn't want to talk about this, but if somebody's not doing the work right and we don't have any means, and if we have two years, we can, if, if we can, I mean, it can be extended to three if he's doing the work right. You know, just a way of putting a sanction, I mean, the possibility to do something when something is going wrong. That's all. But it's not a way of diminishing anything about the Director At-Large to the Director. And this is the reason why we suggested that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Fatimata. And just for the record, I've typed into the Adobe Room my personal view on the matters of term limits and it being equitable or not to other appointments from the SOs. I won't read that to the record. It's there for everyone to see. Go ahead, Patrick, and then we move to Evan. You might be on mute, Patrick.
Patrick: Yes. Thank you. Do you hear me?
Unidentified Participant: Yes.
Patrick: I just wanted to mention that it's not only the ALAC that needs this Director. It's also the Board. And as Alan and Sebastian and others have mentioned, if the Board does not know that it can count on the ALAC-elected Director because he would only have a two-year term, for example, the Board will not want to give to that person sufficient power and sufficient responsibility within the Board, because this person could be replaced more often than other Directors. So I think it's really not a good idea that the ALAC-elected Director would have a shorter term than other Board members.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Patrick, and you'll notice a big green (inaudible) agreement coming from me. That is in my personal capacity. Go ahead, Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. The first thing, I guess, I'd want to just mention extremely briefly is on the issue of term limits, because I'm one of the people that brought this up. I guess it's mainly an issue of how confident we are in our selection process. Since we're going to be picking somebody who's going to be fairly independent once they're chosen, then the idea of having a performance review every two years is appealing. But the comments that other people have been making here about the reduced abilities and capacities of somebody that's not in the same limits as the rest of the Board sounds fairly compelling to me, so I'm perfectly willing to drop that. I guess we just need to be that much more vigilant in how we pick someone.
Now, having said that, I mean, I'm prepared to take questions on the way that we came up with the chart that you all saw as a result of the brainstorming session. The intent was to try and honor a couple of parallel things, one of which was to make sure that we could have anybody from anywhere, within or without the At-Large community, to be picked, either actively by having a Nominating Committee go out and identify people, or by having a process that would allow people to be nominated through the RALOs to come in, even though they have absolutely no background in At-Large, to be able to be put forward for this.
So the intention was to try and keep to something that was in line with the Board request to have the At-Large community appoint somebody, while at the same time, to answer Wolf's question about who was eligible. Who is eligible, that is, who could be nominated, and the answer to that, at least to me, would be anybody, that there would be no real limit to who or where somebody could be from to actually make them eligible to run.
Having said that, then, the idea of having a sort of Nominating Committee within At-Large to help identify people, to go out and find them, you know, in the sense is almost a kind of outreach. That was thought to be necessary and useful, but this Nominating Committee-or as we called it, the Board Selection Working Group-would be charged with not limiting themselves to "the usual suspects," but deliberately looking for people outside the community who might be people that could be put forward and would still have to go through an election procedure or campaign where they would have to demonstrate to the community that they would deserve the confidence, as I was saying before, of three years of independence.
The results of the brainstorm are pretty well all spelled out on the Web page. I don't know if there's any need to actually go through the details of this. What was discussed at the session were two final options. Basically, the one area that seemed to have the most divergence was the very final one--that is, after going through all the procedures of the processes of the Board Selection Working Groups and the ability of people from the grass roots to add names, even if they weren't considered by that group, the biggest divergence was in the very, very last thing, was how many votes are there?
So essentially, what there was is what I guess I'd call the 15-vote option, the 5-vote option, the 20-vote option, and the two more that Wendy has added in the Adobe Chat Room just now. So the 15-vote option basically puts everything in the hands of ALAC in terms of the final vote. It would be, it was not decided whether or not that would be an open ballot that everybody would be able to see how people voted or not. That was left open for discussion.
What we called the five-vote ballot was essentially one where each region gets one vote. And each region, through its own rules of procedure, basically internally gets to decide how they cast that vote.
And the last one was a hybrid of the two, where the third option was one where the ALAC members get a vote, but also that the Chair of each region has a directed vote--that is, the Chair of the region is not casting a vote on their own preference, but has the responsibility of holding some kind of an election within their own region through whatever process they want. And then, depending on the preferences of the region, is directed to cast a vote along those lines.
Since then, Wendy has added two today, one of which is an option for that all participating ALSs and individual members cast votes. That particularly strikes me as a little weird, because essentially gives an ALS that could have hundreds of people the same voting as one individual, and then there's 5E, which is any individual that expresses interest as individual Internet users casts votes. Wendy has indicated a preference for that, and I guess so has Edward.
I'll stop there and take questions, comments, or whatever on how we did this. I want to make it very clear that this was meant to be a starting point. There's a lot of still open questions in this that are yet to be determined, but we hope to make a reasonable starting point.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It certainly makes an excellent starting point, and I think what I'd like to do is recognize the excellent work that came out of that regional brainstorming. It's given us, I think, a fantastic step up onto tonight's, today's, this morning's, call. But also something that I will raise again in next steps, and that is encourage as actively as I possibly can that the other regions should go through using the output of tonight's and today's activities, a very, very similar brainstorming session, and then perhaps we should take some time in our Sunday session in Seoul for an inter- and intra-regional brainstorming session as well. That, obviously, would be open to the community, as all our activities are.
Evan Leibovitch: If I could add to that, if I could add just--sorry.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, go ahead.
Evan Leibovitch: Cheryl, just I wanted to note that Sebastian was involved with the North American call and was extremely helpful to it. Likewise, I would be more than happy to participate in any other region's call, should they like it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It may be even, even that we, because of time constraints, end up doing it as a sort of breakout sessions or group as a whole on the Sunday. But we certainly need to replicate another brainstorming and build on what we do today. Patrick, I saw your hand up during some earlier time. Do you wish to speak, and then I'd like to ask if anyone who's not in the Adobe Room has anything they'd like to bring forward. Patrick, are you wishing to raise anything?
Patrick Vande Walle: Yes, well, thank you, Cheryl. I just wanted to (inaudible) we've had yet another option for voting, and that is voting by (inaudible). Because in the end, if the voting is done by the ALAC or by ALAC via the RALO chairs, why or what do we have the election for, after all? And the other point is that I'm involved in another election committee that will elect Directors, and this has led me to somehow thinking about the critical mass of voters. We need to have a real unchallengeable election result.
Typically, if you, if you would say, "Well, we have 15 ALAC members, and they will vote, and we will have four or five candidates," that means that you could end up with having three votes per candidate and no real winner, or maybe a winner by one or two votes. And I think this would lead to other issues of how representative this person is. So I think that what we need is a group of voters as large as possible, because otherwise, we would run into problems with electing people with only one vote more than the next candidate. And I don't, I think this is not good, so I think that we need the largest voting base as possible.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much for that. And, of course, I'd like to point out from a technical point of view, even using electronic tools that we use for current voting mechanisms within the ALAC and the regions, there is virtually no difference between running with an electorate of 15, 20, or 250. So there is no technical limitation to exploring that end, if that is an outcome, certainly no cost-benefit analysis that we need to be concerned with.
I'd now like to ask if anyone who may not have been able to connect to the Adobe Connect Room wishing to bring any points forward. I know, for example, Karl is on the call and may wish to speak. I'm not seeing Fatimata in the Adobe Room, so I'll ask if she wishes to speak, and if anyone else would like to just make a noise and let me know that they want to be on the speaking list.
Karl Auerbach: This is Karl. I do.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I figured you might. Go ahead, Karl, and when I call you, I just want a limit. I'm aware of the time. If you can keep comments down to a minute or two so we can offer a round robin. Go ahead Karl.
Karl Auerbach: Okay. First of all, I view all of this as a power struggle, sort of the same dialectic kind of thing. And I see the short terms as meaning the public Directors will be weak vis a vis other Directors. So I would argue for long terms. My own experience was two and a half years I was on the Board, and that's barely enough time to get up to speed to know people. So I would encourage all terms as long as everyone else's.
Secondly, in terms of rotations, I would encourage, since we only have one seat, that we view ourselves as one large community rather than regional. And I can guarantee you that once the other areas of the world get organized, North America will no longer dominate, because we're the smallest in terms of population.
And third, when I was on the Board making decisions, I always felt this sense of kind of loneliness. I was making decisions on behalf of, in my case, 330 million people. I felt very alone and had to be very brave and have a lot of hubris. So what I would suggest is the Directors can carry on conversations with the public before they're, on various issues. I find it weak, and I can right now, the Directors tend to be closed and don't discuss matters with the public directly. They tend to discuss it inside the Board context. That can be changed. It's just a matter of attitude.
And what the public, the At-Large, can do, is create mechanisms through which a Director can carry out an efficient conversation with the public to get public opinion before the Director votes on a matter.
That's the end of my comments.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thank you very much. Fatimata?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you, Cheryl. I just wanted to say that I am very concerned about what my colleagues said about the situation. I think, according to what they said, I believe that we should give the three years as the other Directors. I wanted to say that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: I will give the feedback to my AFRALO colleagues.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Fatimata, if we can make sure that not only the AFRALO reps, but the reps from all the regions, be they the ALAC reps or the representative of the regional leadership or secretariats that are going to be attending face-to-face the meeting in Seoul or joining us remotely, need to have done your homework and have reached out to their At-Large structures and wider At-Large community, and test the waters and bring real information to the table for the next phase of their discussion.
Somebody--was that Karl who had a reply? Karl, did I hear your voice?
Karl Auerbach: No, I had nothing to add. I'd rather discuss it on--.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thank you. Alan, go ahead.
Alan Greenberg: Karl and I disagree, I think, strongly on the ultimate process we should use for electing-selecting someone. But on the three points he just made in his intervention, I strongly support everything he said. That's it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Evan, go ahead.
Evan Leibovitch: Yes. I made a comment in the Adobe Chat Room, but Karl, you're not on it, so I just wanted to make it as a bit of a comment and also a question. The fact that Board members are not required to be accountable does not prevent them from being accountable. And I'm wondering if there's things that we can do in our selection process that would encourage us to select people who, even though they're not required to be accountable, would do so of their own free choice. I don't see anything that would prevent somebody from being consultative, especially if it's with an At-Large body that is supposed to be protecting the public interest. What can we do in our selection process, do you think, that could help us encourage choosing people who would be accountable, even though they're not required to be?
Karl Auerbach: Do you want me to answer it?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, and then I see, I still have Alan's hand and Edward. We'll take Edward and then Alan. Go ahead.
Karl Auerbach: Is that a go-ahead for me, Karl? Okay. People don't change their stripes very quickly, and I would just say pick people who have interacted with the public in the past. That's all I can say, is once they've launched, you can't really enforce them to communicate back. But people don't change that much.
Tricia Drakes: And Cheryl, if I can now go into the queue when (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Certainly, Tricia. I'll take Edward, Alan, and then Tricia. Go ahead, Edward.
Edward Hasbrouck: As Karl said, I think it's a judgment call that whomever is making the selection will have to make, but one suggestion to make it more likely that those making the choice would have information about the responsiveness, at least of the candidates, which I've made in the Wiki, but I'll point it out, is to ensure that there is a public forum where candidates' statements are posted and there is an opportunity for the community publicly to post questions and get responses before the selection is made by, again, by whoever is making that selection, whether an attenuated representational selection or a direct election.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Edward. Then we have Alan, Tricia, and then Sebastian. Go ahead.
Alan Greenberg: We've gotten into a very productive conversation, I think, right now, on the fact that you don't have accountability other than when you want to be reappointed. It does not mean you can't have interaction and consultation and an exchange of views in both directions on an ongoing basis. The Director is still obliged to vote as they believe is correct for whatever the legal requirements are, but that doesn't mean you can't talk along the way and attempt to change their mind if, indeed, they mind does not agree with yours. I think it's a very productive discussion we're having now, far more than just the discussion on how to recall.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. Tricia, go ahead, then Sebastian.
Tricia Drakes: Mine's a similar point, which of Karl and Alan, which people don't change their thoughts, and I think it's also important to actually see the present experience, and Vanda and Wendy, I'm sure, would corroborate that, where Steve Crocker is now, he moved from being a liaison, who is now the person at the table. And also the other Directors, so Ramundo, who's their (inaudible) one source if you appointed them. And actually, through the firm, although they are independent, through the firm, they actually, although in committee, I'm aware that there's nothing (inaudible), picking up on ALAC, I'd feel better, and we won't go to Sebastian's point of Roberto being an ALAC-nominated (inaudible) person, but people are, though, and they're passionate about particular areas. And very much, in my sort of original input to the (inaudible) is the key to the paper, there will be people out there who, so they might make good Chairs, who actually can bring something to At-Large and actually would want to bring something over and above what you might expect.
In a similar vein, picking up on Fatimata's point about the two-year aspect, really good Directors who represent, although appointed, really care. And some of them might even be turned off that they have to have a two-year review (inaudible). So I think it's also what we see sort of ingrained, people that we know and trust, but also that they're going to be there. And actually, Alan, I think most of the Board members, if not all of the Board members, and again, those that have been on the Board, so Landon and Wendy sitting there, really a fraction of them and worked for that which they felt strongly throughout the period there. And it's not just when they come up for reelection; it's actually throughout the term. And I think your challenge is finding the balance of that. Because there should be somebody who can actually really make a meaningful contribution whilst there in supporting At-Large and the individual user (inaudible).
Alan Greenberg: Just for the record, Tricia, I wasn't saying that existing people do that. I was saying that's the only time at which the community can hold them accountable. That doesn't mean they don't act that way on a regular basis.
Tricia Drakes: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Sebastian, go ahead.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Yes. I just agree with Tricia and just to stress once again I am campaigning for Roberto, but Roberto, even not selected by ALAC or At-Large, is still engaged with the community and with us very, very deeply, even Vice Chair of the Board. And I think we have a good example what to do in the future. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thank you very much, Sebastian. Before we move on to the next--I was going to say next steps, which is, in fact, the last agenda item, which I do want to get to in very short order, but the next point in our agenda, I was wondering if I can ask anyone else who's not brought any positions forward if they'd like to have anything said to the record or not. I've noticed few things have come through in the chat space from Gareth and from Olivier, for example. Would either of you like to bring anything forward at this point in time? Olivier, then Gareth?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Cheryl. Can you hear me? You can.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, I was going to say you might need to star-seven, but you obviously did.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: There are times when it's better for one to stay silent and to listen, and I think today is one of those times, so that's why I don't have any particular view. I think the ideas which were presented here so far in the discussion are practical and very interesting. There's still a long way to go, and I don't have anything to contribute to it yet. Hopefully, I will soon. Thanks.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Olivier, and in fact, what you have contributed is perfect, because I couldn't agree with you more. I suspect all those involved in this call, either in the room or telephonically, and certainly those reviewing it will see exactly the same, that this has been an extremely valuable and productive exercise. Go ahead, Gareth.
Gareth Shearman: Yes, sure, I would lend my support to the three-year terms. I don't have anything to add because I've been listening to this discussion, and I agree with you that it's been very valuable, and I think it will only lead to even more productive discussions in Seoul, so I don't think I need to add anything more at this point. But certainly, I think we're getting a really good overview of the issues that we have to discuss.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, and I will make sure that all those involved in the call have the view here which I need to assure you that these will be carried through to the work being done and form part of the background materials and be revisited as discussion points as well as built on in our face-to-face meetings in Seoul, both on Sunday in preparation for our meeting with the Structural Improvements Committee, and of course the meeting with the Structural Improvements Committee itself.
The remaining items on the agenda is a couple of items I'd like to bring to our attention formally, and then probably move on from, say, the quick links. We've set up a page which has a space for consideration, discussions, matters of legal questions. For those who weren't with us at the beginning of the call, we have moved-or copied, sorry-the couple of points raised by EURALO in the Ideas for Consideration page that had clear ramifications or legal aspects to them, and any replies that have come or discussion that has come onto that Ideas for Consideration page relating to those. They have been copied across to the Legal Matters questions. I'd encourage everyone on this call to encourage everyone else interested in this matter.
And Karl, I'm hoping you're going to get your fingers tied in very quickly into some of the discussions on the pages, identified some legal questions, because we need your input. There is a couple of matters that I think we should be discussing and asking ICANN Legal view on, as well as getting independent legal view on. Karl, you can read the subjects there that you and indeed many of the fellow bureaus that we have in LAC RALO, I would be expecting a great deal of discussion and interchange going on in that page. And we need to do that moving up to our Seoul meeting and beyond.
And also, one of the main areas that I think we should be giving a fair lump of time to up to our preparation on the Sunday for our meeting with the SIC on the Tuesday is a discussion on the draft candidate criteria. We won't have time to attend to that today without extending this call, and it is not my view that we should be extending this call. We'll get to burnout, and I think we'd like to have this lump of conversation we've had today very successful and leave on a very positive note. So I'd also like to promote to the community on this call that we work on the candidate criteria very actively online in the Wiki. I'd like to take some advice from you all, and that can be either by direct email, or you can make it clear on any of the At-Large lists, or the working lists if you're part of the regional and ALAC structures, for any suggestions or proposals as to how you'd like to engage wider community. Do you want us to set up Tweets, blogs, whatever you want to engage more of the community in conversation under each of these headings?
And I'd like to then move to our next steps. One of the things with the next steps is we will be doing a review of today's call and setting an agenda for the meeting with the Structural Improvements Committee in Seoul. You will note, if you click the link on today's meeting page, that it will take you to a time and date assist of options, where anyone can find out what time it will be in their local community in their time zone so that if they are not face-to-face at the Seoul meeting, when at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, the 27th of October local time in Seoul, we open our mixed formal exchange on this matter, and indeed on the implementation of the other recommendations from the ALAC review.
I will note, however, that this time is far more friendly to those of us in Asia-Pacific and far less friendly to those of you in Europe and parts of North America, and I guess I can't resist to say from an Asia-Pacific view, well, that's just tough. But you are encouraged to both join by remote participation and, of course, put any comments, questions, or issues to raise on the Wiki pages, which will serve to develop our agenda.
On that, and with the winding up of tonight's call, I would very much like to note here that the Asia-Pacific region has currently got some significant difficulties in communications. Not only is this call planned in what is a fairly unfriendly hour, being two, three, or four a.m. in many parts of Asia when we began, but also with our Pacific friends under threat of various tsunami warnings and the telecommunication issues that result from earthquakes and wide-scale disaster management, some regions-certainly Asia-Pacific and, I suspect, parts of Africa-will need to be allowed to discuss this inter-sessionally and also perhaps to revisit some of these issues when we come together in Seoul.
It's very important that I think we recognize that nearly all of the matters raised by EURALO in the issues for discussion and consideration have been touched on, answered directly, or further explored in today's call. And, as we close off and ask for any final comments, I say, Sebastian, I would encourage anyone else who wishes to make a short, brief, wind-up comment from the Adobe Room to do so now.
I'll ask Tricia to have some passing words, but I'd also like to assure the community that the review of today's call and the archives will be put together and will be going to Marco and to the Structural Improvements Committee for their attention. And we will be looking forward to community input on the specifics of what amounts of focus and in what forum you wish us to work on some of the component parts.
From a personal point of view, coming from a country that has compulsory voting and therefore relies on some fairly specific interactive and public inputted selection and pre-selection process in its political system, there are a number of points in whatever design we come up with that we can ensure community values, community views, and community selection can be brought into play.
There will be a transcription as well as a recording. (Inaudible) has already said that. This is far too vital a matter for it to be left in English. I will also be asking that it is transcribed from English into Spanish and French choices. I'd love to say (inaudible) languages, but we're not there yet. ICANN's barely there, but it would be nice when we can have that happening automatically. I suppose we can all look forward to some of the auto-translation bots that are supposedly coming out as APIs from the technical community working on this sort of thing at the moment, and in many ways, RALO, on the next future of collaboration.
Sebastian, go ahead.
Sebastian Ricciardi: Yes, I would like to be sure that there is a paper submitting of today seems to be the one where you have the link of all the information. I hope that it will be able to, in each page, to have the other page, because when you are in one, you are stuck in one, and it's a problem to navigate on this stuff before you set up the special page. But this one from the, this today call, seems to be grouping all the links we need, and it could be used again.
I don't know if we, I will just do one little thing on the topic. We need to discuss how, if we decide to have a Selection Committee, how the Selection Committee is set up. It will be a long discussion, but I just want to put one idea on the table to give everybody thought before a discussion. Why you think part of this, to incorporate this Selection Committee, use the one that was sent with the Nominating Committee. It's just a suggestion. I am not sure that it's a good idea, but I think it's an idea we have to discuss. Thank you very much.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Sebastian. I'm going to recognize Alan towards our closure, and then, of course, I'd like Tricia to have the last word, and then my goodbye. Go ahead, Alan, and then Tricia.
Alan Greenberg: Just two small points. I support Sebastian in making these pages accessible, and it would be good if they weren't just linked off of a meeting page. Because once the link to that page rolls off the calendar, it's going to be hard to find. It should be pointed to in some logical way, place off our Wiki.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I thank you. I'll ask that Sebastian, Alan, and myself work directly with the staff and the tech people who understand Wiki far better than I do to make it the most usable space that we can make, so thank you, Sebastian, and thank you, Alan, for volunteering to be part of that subcommittee. And if you want to put--.
Alan Greenberg: Oh, of course. No, I had two points. The next one's very short. But in line with the same issue of making this usable, let's--if you look at the page you now have on legal issues, the title is, "ICANN Corporate Archives, Including Bylaws," which would make me skip that page immediately and not read any forward. So let's make these titles make sense.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I do understand, but like I said, we need to make all of the page, the page and the sub-pages, as usable as possible. We also need them in multiple languages, as we do so many of our Wiki spaces, and I look forward to your assistance in that, as Sebastian's working with staff to make that happen, recognizing that everyone is extremely busy between now and Seoul.
Tricia, the last word goes back to you. Please go ahead.
Tricia Drakes: Well, I think my last few words would be the basis on the candidate quality and the definition which you're going to be working on, and making, and referrals, making sure that whoever is selected is a person who can deliver all or nearly all of what you want to do. And I think in Seoul, the issues of coming up, oh, we'll never have somebody who will be Chairman of the Board, we'll never have this, never. I think we need to be cumulative and work out which candidate that can deliver that. And on this blank piece of paper to what some (inaudible) out. And then having got that, to consider what is the effective, which is effective stage, how do you get those candidates, which might be some external work done, and thank heaven you didn't kill me for saying that. And then thirdly, come on to the point that Sebastian and others have raised in terms of how do you select them?
So I think, really, it's just this fresh perspective as well as the things that have come (inaudible) things that have come from the brainstorming so far, but declining the candidate for what they should have and what they can bring and what we want them to bring, how we get them, so the outreach, so they won't disappear. And then how, you know, the basis of selection. And I think that was just really, so this is a really big opportunity for you to have this as an important part of your work. And I know that Karl is just, Karl and I and other members of the working group, and I'm sure Karl can remember sitting in restaurants in Marina del Rey having long discussions on this as well. It is not going to be easy, and I think the more you get into it, the more that will come through. But it's very, it's very important.
And then, whoever you choose, you've got to live with. I mean, it's a fact of life with a Board member. So the decision is really important. And that's my closing part.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Tricia, and of course, I (inaudible) knows every one of the members of the ALAC Review Working Group and in the Structural Improvement Committee to be considered members of the At-Large Community. There's nothing holding back very personal and very real experiences that you've had in the review process as being input directly to our processes as well, going back to your quote of exactly who it is we're supposed to be representing. That's an awful lot of people in terms of Internet uses now and in the future, which also means we may not get the perfect model first time around, but what we do need to get is the most acceptable model that will be endorsed by and accepted by the Structural Improvements Committee and recommended and accepted by the Board. It doesn't need to be baby steps, however. They can be bold steps, and I think today's community call has been a very good beginning of that.
I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your time, and the fact that we did start some six minutes after the hour, I recognize that we've got about three minutes over the 90 minutes we planned. I'd also like to thank, in particular, the somewhat heroic scribe who I will identify-I believe that's Heidi-who has managed to capture in the notes section, because of the Connect Pro meeting room being recorded, it is important for our transcriptioner and our archive, that when people go back to it, that we in fact have captured the key points of most of the speakers.
Heidi, you have been unbelievable. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and considering the ridiculous amount of hours I know you've been working, because you've been doing some of it with me from Marina del Rey, I'd like to get down on bended knee and also reflect that there are many people clapping hands, not only just for you, but for everybody involved in the call.
Thanks, one and all, and let's do a whole lot more of this online in a very, very usable Wiki space, because Sebastian and Alan are going to help make it so between now and Seoul and work on some very exciting possibilities on the Sunday and look forward to our fearless and frank discussion with the Structural Improvements Committee meeting on Tuesday, the 27th, 1100 hours, local Seoul time.
Tricia, please, if you or any of the members of the ALAC Review Working Group wish to join us at that meeting, like all of our meetings, that will be open, it will be remote participation. So Karl, if you're not going to be in Seoul, please, please, please join us, and we look forward to having standing room only parts in the room.
Thank you all, good morning, good evening, good night, and now, Wendy, we will not short-circuit the whole process. Bye for all, bye for now.
Tricia Drakes: Thanks so much. Bye.
Unidentified Participant: Good sense of humor.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Honey, I have a whole lot of like of everything. Sometimes it's a sense of humor, and at this hour of the morning, I guess I can be forgiven. Bye.