20 September 2009 Transcript Community Call with Board Liaison Candidates EN

Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So, formally I would like to thank you all very much, candidates and community members for joining us today for what I think is an absolutely vital part of the electoral process in any given year for the At-Large advisory committee. But as a particularly important process this time around where as you are all aware, we have chosen of you that we should run a little real-life experiment on promise of possible ways and some of the possible challenges that we might be met with as we move forward in future elections to have an At-Large elected candidate for a sitting Board member. That is a voting Board member.
So, this particular lead up to this call, and I will remind people that we have in fact had community calls for all of the previous forward liaison roles for at least the last three years is slightly different in its format since previous calls, but also the process leading up to the election has been somewhat different.
The purpose of this call, however, is absolutely identical to that of previous calls. And that is to allow members of the community and the ALAC electorate, in other words, those 15 members who will be casting their vote to prepare themselves by having some questions, some conversation, and this time around, the opportunity for some presentations.
We have noted some questions put to the Wiki. We have been sent some questions put directly to various lists. And I have received a set of questions directly to me, which I would love to think we will have time to get through all of them, but I will in fact pick and choose. There has to be some pleasure in chairing meetings at 4:00 A.M. in the morning. That's going to be my pleasure. I will pick and choose from the extensive list of excellent questions we've been presented and bring those forward.
The housekeeping. The process of the call has been on the Wiki for some time. It's fairly simple. We are planning a call length of 90 minutes with a 30-minute extension by mutual consent if required. Each candidate will have three minutes to present statements and a presentation will go in alphabetical order. And then they will have an additional two minutes to either rebut, or cross-question each other, or clarify matters of course.
Again, it will be alphabetical order, but this time it will be in reverse alphabetical order by candidate. We will then have the questions – responding to questions from the floor or from the Wiki. And I will take a hand raised in the connect room as I question from the floor, but I will actually start with questions that have been prepared, questions we've noted from the Wiki and indeed direct to this call myself. And I will be doing those in a RALO-by-RALO rotation.
Is there any questions from the candidates regarding the housekeeping aspect of this call?
If not, then I have a piece of housekeeping to share with all of you. And that is as sent to the list, Siva has withdrawn his candidacy for this election. And if you're wondering why his name has now been removed from tonight's call list, that is why that has happened. And his name will have the strikethrough on the other Wiki pages in exactly the same manner for the public record as we have done with other candidates during the nomination process. Thank you, Siva for putting up your hand and making a choice, which I did outline was very much something open to all candidates in any part of the process up until our election begins.
Carlos, you have a question? I did for some questions from the candidates, but go ahead, Carlos. This will be via the interpreter. Tricia?
Carlos Aguirre: My question is posted in Adobe. And I want to know in the first place what about the ALAC (inaudible) into the Board. Or when will that election about the liaison happen? And will the liaison become a Board member by ALAC or will we have another election at this moment?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may answer that in two parts, this is an election process for Board Liaison candidate. A Board Liaison candidate has been an annual appointment by the ALAC up until now. And it is in fact the last time we will be conducting this election. The Board Liaison candidate is not an automatic transition to a voting board member. The mechanism for a voting board member to be presented to the community and to be appointed by the community is yet to be determined and it is not the subject of this call.
And after we have put forward proposals for such a mechanism, that mechanism itself would need to be approved by the ICANN Board. At the point in time when at least there is a agreement and approval on such process, then a new electoral process for a voting board member from At-Large will be conducted. It is my opinion that any candidate or incumbent Board Liaison person may wish to stand also (inaudible) at that time but prior positioning as a Board Liaison candidate, even if they were incumbent, would make no difference to the manner that the community will be handling the next electoral process. Is that clear enough? Is there a follow-up?
Carlos Aguirre: I understood very well. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Assuming that is clear enough, I will also make another point to explain why that is very important. That is very important because, for example, in the matter of this process, if we were to elect either Beth or Allen, neither of them would be able to be a voting board member if other North American domicile board members equaled five or more.
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl, I don't believe that's correct.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Alan Greenberg: There's a requirement on the NomCom to try to balance, not the ones appointed by the Sos.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, if it's not a bylaw to, then it certainly would be a matter that some people would want to think of in a board elected situation and may not feel as is important for a non-voting liaison. But thank you for that clarification, Alan. That's something I might ask Staff to dig in to because I certainly thought the geographic diversity of the Board from wherever they came is a very important thing certainly from the community's point of view they need to think about that.
If there's any other questions now from candidates? If not, can you please, Mr. Nick Ashton-Hart explain all about the Board election process, which we've kind of preempted with Carlos' questions?
Nick Ashton-Hart: Sure. I won't – part of what you have just said is what I would have said, but not all of it. To the process, the electors are the members of the ALAC at the present time as the election will run from 21st September at 12:00 UTC. That is tomorrow. And closes at 1800 UTC on 31st September. The results of the voting will be announced on the 1st of October on the announcement list with notification to the secretary of ICANN Board of the result immediately thereafter.
You may be wondering why we are doing this now. It is because even though liaisons are not voting members of the Board, the secretary of ICANN needs to know who will be on the Board, either in a voting or non-voting capacity, not later than one month in advance of the beginning of the Board meeting. That is the annual general meeting. And that Board meeting is the meeting in Sydney on Friday of the Sydney meeting.
Speaker: Seoul meeting, I think,
Nick Ashton-Hart: Seoul. Sorry. I seem to always be one meeting behind in what I say. At least I'm consistent.
With respect to the point Alan just made for clarity, it is actually an obligation, irrespective of whether the NomCom is appointing you or you are appointed by some other means. There may not be more than five directors in any geographic region on the ICANN Board. And this is something I discussed with the legal counsel's office a couple of weeks ago.
So, the –
Speaker: I guess—sorry, Nick, I guess you say the voting members of the Board.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Correct.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Will be voting members of the Board, yes.
Speaker: Yes, that's important.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It certainly is.
Nick Ashton-Hart: And Cheryl, I think – did you mention that there are now five North Americans sitting on the ICANN Board at the present time or not?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I did not because –
Speaker: I believe that it correct. There are currently five voting members.
Nick Ashton-Hart: As Cheryl said, the structural improvements committee are happy to receive a draft process from At-Large Community on how to select voting Board member. At whatever point that is received, it would obviously be then reviewed and discussed by the Board. One cannot predict whether they would come back with a request for clarifications or propose an alternative plan. It's difficult to know until they're obviously able to see something.
At the point that a process is agreed, just so that everyone is aware, there will inevitably be some kind of bylaw change to implement the new director being seated and to embody the process in question. All bylaw modifications must be published for public comment for 30 days and only after that could they be actioned. So it will be some months, even if things go quickly, before everything is completed.
And of course, there are connections between this new seat and other elements of the Board's review. So, it may be that there is some reason why certain other things should happen at the same time as this seat or that there's a feeling that there is, we can't really know. We would know more about that when the final report of the Board review working group is released at the Seoul meeting.
So, I think, Cheryl, you covered the other points about the relationship between this – between the Board Liaison and the Director.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Nick. Just for the record, bringing to the transcript and MP3 the matter raised by (inaudible). And we have a very noisy line, paper or desk noise. Someone should (inaudible) will be meeting. Where he says the Board in its resolution has stated that the voting seat replaces the position of a Board Liaison, which is why the term is specified as one year and there's the last time for tradition. We asked for two Board seats. Is it possible to get back to the Board, you can see that either (A) a second Board seat, or (B) considered the deleting the reference to the voting seat replacing the Board Liaison.
I'll answer the second part first. The second part is we could if the ALAC or so instructed by the community or agreed to itself raise that second part but that would in fact be requesting that we have a voting Board member and an ALAC Liaison in a non-voting capacity. When that was put forward as a possibility, let alone a consideration during a part of the At-Large Advisory committee review process it did not get wholesale or even general community support and in fact got a great deal of debate and question. So there would be a lot of work that the Community would need to do before we would take that sort of (inaudible) forward.
Is it possible to get back to the Board to ask for a second Board seat? Of course it is, but they have put an enormous amount of time and energy into making the decision they've made. And considering there was considerable resent – not resentment – resistance to any Board seat, I wouldn't be terribly confident that either of those questions, particularly the first one, would come back in the affirmative.
Now, in the absence of any other process questions, I would like to move to the introduction by Board Liaison candidates in alphabetical order. This will be as listed on the Wiki. Therefore, I am asking Sebastien Bachollet to make any or all of his three-minute presentation. And if anyone has any slides or any other additional material, just let Staff know. We'll do our best to get it up in whatever way possible. And of course, it can always be linked to the Wiki. Go ahead, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you, Cheryl. Hello everybody. I would like first to thank all the At-Large members who participate to this call on Sunday night for this part of the world. I know that it's already Monday. Very early for you, Cheryl. But also all the ones who get involved in all the exchanges about this process of selecting the ALAC Board Liaison for 2009-2010.
I am also very happy to see that the ALAC member will have a real choice among a list of very good candidates. I think it's a big improvement since the last periods. And I hope that I am – I will be listed by you, by the voters as one of the good possible candidates.
I am involved in ICANN processes since the end of 2000. I have therefore a good knowledge of ICANN, of its history, of the policy evolution of the organization, and of course, and I think it's one of maybe more important of the people.
I can work on the three off shore language of At-Large. That's mean English, Spanish, and French. And I guess it was very useful during the summit of the ALS' during the ICANN Mexico meeting last year. Or beginning of this year, sorry.
I am an ILS member and I am a RALO-elected rep in the ALAC, therefore I am coming from the edge and the grass roots of the At-Large Community. I currently act as one of the vice-chair of ALAC.
The ALAC Board Liaison is a very important role during this transition phase. For ALAC first leaving the Liaison role to a (inaudible) sit as a full director, who will be coming from the At-Large Community, it's a very important step. For ICANN in general it will be the post-GPA area. Whatever decision taken at the end of this month, it will have some impact. And not to speak, because I have not the time right now, of the important policy issue in front of us and of ICANN.
Thank you for listening and I am of course, available for any answer – to answer any question. Thank you very much.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Sebastien. And thank you for I would suggest perfect timing. And we'll now move to Alan. Go ahead, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Thank you, Cheryl. And I too thank everyone for attending this call and participating. One of the things ALAC and At-Large have been missing is adequate participation in some of our activities and this is encouraging.
I don't have the same history that Sebastien has. I've been involved peripherally with ICANN since its very beginning. But I've only been very active since 2006. In that period of time though, I think I've demonstrated that I am capable of taking on responsibility and taking on the cause of ALAC and At-Large.
I am a member of NARALO as an individual member. I've been very active in the RALO activities including – and a number of working groups. So I think I have a pretty good feel for what's going on in ALS's even though I am not a member of one.
If you've read my bio, I have extensive Board experience in a number of organizations, primarily not-for-profit. So I think I can work well in that environment. I'm not afraid of either work or steep learning curves. As some of you may know, I volunteered as the GNSO Liaison in my first ICANN meeting and started participating very actively within a month or two after that. So I think I can do things with some ability to deliver.
I enjoy taking initiatives. The ALAC projects of domain tasting and post expiry domain name recovery are things that I did not come up with but they had been talked about in various venues and it required someone to actually get to the core, decide what had to be done, and push it through. And that I've done.
I can work on behalf of – sorry. If you want another interesting example, for the last year-and-a-half or so I've been working the senior ICANN people and talking to people in ALAC and At-Large quietly on travel issues. I think I'm one of the reasons that we are where we are today instead of being cut back severely as we had been threatened to. And we're not where we want to be, but we're a little bit closer. And I think part of that is I've taken initiatives on those kind of issues.
I think thanks to my rather unique history, I'm very well placed to represent both developing country users and users in the – both developed country users rather, and users in the developing countries. I have an understanding of what the issues are and I believe that's really important in trying to represent At-Large in general. There is no single position that At-Large will likely take on anything. So having an understanding of the various issues I think is crucial.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: That's it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Alan. Now going ahead, as we go down in alphabetical order and I'm filibusting until I have a 10-second – thank you, Rich.
You need to come off mute. Your timing will start when you're off mute, Seth.
Speaker: Who is speaking now please?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It will be Seth Reiss in a minute.
Seth Reiss: I'm sorry, Cheryl. Do you want me to start now?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, when you're ready, go ahead.
Seth Reiss: Okay, thanks, Cheryl. First of all, I want to thank everybody for attending and I find myself in an extremely distinguished group. I have the greatest respect for all the candidates. I'm a little disappointed that Siva withdrew because he was the only one who came close to me in terms of not having some of the experience that the other members have.
But I just wanted to recognize that each of the other candidates have – I would have extreme confidence in any of them. They have shown great dedication and to their historical roles. And I'm coming in with very little of that experience. And my participation hasn't been that great in my role as an ALS representative. On the other hand, I look forward to being given some greater responsibility and would dedicate myself to participating in the activities and the various lists if given this opportunity.
I believe the role of the Liaison is a collaborative one. It is not to bring one's personal views or agendas to inject those into the dialogue. Obviously we all have our personal views and agendas. However, the role of Liaison is really to be the listener and to be able to organize and prioritize the views of the ALAC members and communicate them to the Board and vice versa.
There's been some questions about I think the relative role of the ExCom ALAC and At-Large, and the Liaison needs to be responsive to all of them. Each of those constituencies have respective roles and the Liaison needs to be cognizant of the various views and make sure that they're objectively and fairly communicated well to the Board. And the Liaison would be advocating on behalf of these various groups.
I think that ICANN needs to continue to develop more institutional confidence to come more internationalized, to become more efficient, and I would look forward to helping ICANN – ALAC promote this within (inaudible). Thanks very much.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Seth. I appreciate your timing. And we now go to – and I'm filling again to a 10-second mark – to Vanda. Go ahead, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay, thank you everybody for attending. I will – I (inaudible) my statement from a longer than I do now. Why I believe I can contribute to ALAC Liaison for (inaudible). (Inaudible) Liaison (inaudible). I believe Liaison ought to defend ALAC interests and present ALAC's point of view, not their own. As a former Board member, I had opportunities to work with different Liaisons and within ALAC and have a clear perception, which is the Liaison's job (inaudible) the Board and (inaudible) their community.
I have been working with ICANN since 2000. As I could build a strong relationship with ICANN staff. This I believe is very helpful to have ALAC interests well understood and communicate to staff to other constituents. Or even under (inaudible) inside ICANN. For instance, in the beginning of my term of ALAC member, I could help ALAC to improve relationships with financial staff, which (inaudible) to have our (inaudible).
I have a clear view of all constituencies and most part of their problems. I have been member of the DHT, member of the (inaudible), and CPLD, (inaudible) in Brazil. Here offer here consideration and (inaudible) at ICANN Board and now member of (inaudible). I have a (inaudible) also with (inaudible).
This broad vision can help me to defend ALAC's position during Board debates with other constituents. I also have been deeply involved with (inaudible) in IGS, which I believe is very important for the At-Large group. I also (inaudible) At-Large concept is based on this (inaudible) of the users' contribution from any region and country of this planet. This is why I have proposed and helped to build the ICANN (inaudible) bringing new people that can spread the word when back to their communities as well as government, members in (inaudible) with less opportunity to also participate and understand most (inaudible) it's very important to (inaudible) people from special (inaudible) opportunities (inaudible) to participate ICANN (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Vanda. Now, Vanda, it's in the reverse order that you begin and have an opportunity to ask any question of any of the other candidates who have presented. Anyone who has a specific question for Wendy Seltzer I would strongly encourage cross questioning to occur via the Wiki page for this meeting, not on just lists. Feel free to copy it to list, but ensure that any cross questioning of the candidates who are not here tonight – or candidate who is not here – able to join us in this call is also referred to on this Wiki, because this will be an archive of material that those in the electorate or those who are advising the electorate will need to access.
Vanda, can I ask you first of all to – when you're speaking to yell at us please, because it was somewhat difficult from my perspective to hear you. I did hear you, but I had to concentrate very hard. And secondly, do you have any questions or counterpoints that you would like to make to any of the other candidates? Go ahead, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Well, I couldn't hear – first of all, I couldn't hear the first question. It was too noisy.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Well we do have a major problem in terms of the audio. My question to you was do you have any questions for any of the other candidates here today?
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. No, at the moment I believe that we have some questions from the floor that people have posted in the (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. Thank you, Vanda. We'll move in on to Seth. Seth, is there any question or comment or rebuttal you would like to make to any of the other presenters, the candidates here today?
Seth Reiss: No, I don't have any questions for other candidates. But I am of course open for answering any questions that may be put to me.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed you're all in the hot seat here, I can assure you. Alan, any questions, comments, clarifications, or rebuttals to any of the other candidates here today?
Alan Greenberg: Just a very quick comment as I listened to myself and the other candidates. One of the things that the electorate is going to have to choose on is what level of experience and what level of newness do they want. There are benefits to both of course and we have the complete range here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's a very good observation. Thank you very much, Alan. Sebastien, any comments, questions, or points you'd like to bring forward, or questions to other candidates. Go ahead.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you. No, I support what Alan was saying. It was exactly my point too. I think we have a very good list of candidates and very – quite different even if we are for all of them working together quite closely because Alan and Vanda and you, we are always meet part of the what so called experiment. I work very closely with (inaudible). I was sharing one working group and was a member. I was rapporteur of this working group. But and I think it's very good to have this – all these people today. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. And I would like to echo that point. I think the line up and I am somewhat saddened that like Seth, that Siva has not stayed in just for this experience this time around. But there is other pressures coming to volunteers' lives. I think we have an excellent line up and I certainly think it's the sort of listing that I'd like to see almost double in variety and diversity when we do go to some form of At-Large appointeds process for a voting candidate – a voting candidate for Board seat.
Again, breaking to our next point in our call for tonight, this is where we now have the opportunity for the questions from the community. And we indicated in the Wiki that we would be taking the questions in a RALO order. I will just now ask specifically to the French channel, is there any African representative joining you in the French channel yet?
Tisha: …believe there are any French who have joined us. This is Tisha from the French channel. There is a great deal of static from the English side however.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oo, dear, that's most distressing. Perhaps Staff can do whatever magic Staff needs to do to see if we can work that out or fix it or see who's line is causing it.
Tisha: Just meant if you could mute when you're not speaking.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Is there anyone from AFRALO that is on the audio call and is not on the Connect Pro room? Not that I can hear. Okay. Well, in which case we will move to APRALO. And we do have one question with notice put forward at the moment from APRALO. And that is a question from Hong, who pointed out that it's 2:00 A.M., she won't be joining the call. And I think that's perfectly reasonable as I think I wrote to one of the lists. And it's also the reason why we're keen to have everything archived on this meeting page. So if you have not been able to join the call, you can in fact avail yourself of the reference materials that are being prepared as a result of this meeting.
This is a question from Hong, who I believe is addressing it to all of the candidates. So we will take the answers from the candidates in alphabetical order. That will be Sebastien, Alan, Seth, then Vanda. And if you keep your answers to as concise as possible, that will be good. I will give no more than 2 minutes to any response to any question unless I deem a longer time is required and I will let you all know what that time will be when the question is asked.
This is a two-minutes response question time from Hong. Apart from assuming the heavy workload on the Board, would the Liaison commit to keep close in contact with the At-Large Community such as attending ALAC meetings as far as possible, and participating the policy discussions online and offline? Sebastien, your response.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you. My answer is yes, and furthermore we will have to discuss if I am elected as a Board Liaison what is with my seat as ALAC member. For the moment I will still be ALAC member and we will have to decide. And I say we because I don't think it's just me if I am elected will have to decide that. If somebody else must be elected by the their RALO or if I keep the seat during this year.
But even if I am not anymore ALAC member, I will – I commit to participate to the ALAC meeting as far as possible and to the policy working. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: My answer is short. Yes, I make such a commitment. And I think my – the example of my work on the GNSO where the workload, including the working groups that I've been participating in is probably pretty close to the Board commitment. And I have maintained my responsibilities within ALAC at the very least on a normal level and perhaps at a higher than normal level.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Alan. Seth?
Seth Reiss: Yes, my answer is yes. I do have a job that allows me to work when I want so I could make myself available as much and at any time it's possible. And I will strive to achieve Cheryl's record of waking up at 2:00 in the morning for the 2:00 in the morning phone calls because where I live I'm sure there'll be many of those.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, I shouldn't be laughing. Just thinking that we probably need to look at the Hilton safety aspects of running a global volunteer committee (inaudible). Is there anything else you'd like to say, Seth?
Seth Reiss: That was it. Thanks.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's fine. I just didn't know if I'd cut across you then with my giggles. Vanda. And please yell at us if at all possible.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, I will. How it sounds?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's good.
Vanda Scartezini: Better?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Better. Go ahead.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. Well, I know the amount of time requested by ALAC and also by the Board. So I know that and I can commit. I'm not an employee so I administrate my time. So I really can commit to attend to ALAC because I do believe and I just applied for a new ALS so I also want to dedicate some time to the ALS as I used to dedicate a parallel time to the fellowship program because I really believe and volunteer work in this matter. And for my time, it's my time to dedicate for volunteering. I'd already have a lot of work done so it's volunteer time for me. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Vanda. Is there anyone in the (inaudible) room or on the telephone bridge that wants to have a clarification or make a comment at this point in time?
If not, we will move to the second question. And this is coming from EURALO. And I've chosen to take them in a simplicity of order. And actually from I guess a slight hierarchy at the moment as if coming through the Wikis or coming to the list is the order I'm taking from. So the next question, which I will also read to the record, is contributed by Adam Peake. And again (inaudible) a two-minute maximum answer question.
Adam would like to know from each of the candidates, and this time we will go in reverse order. So it will then be Vanda, Seth, Alan, and Sebastien. That's the order of answer. Adam's question is I would like to know what the candidates think of the role of the ILAC executive committee. And particularly how they see their relationship as liaison with the ExCom, ALAC, and At-Large.
Vanda Scartezini: Well, for me ALAC is ExCom. It's just a group of to – or for members to facilitate to have passed on day by day. It's important to note that there is nothing closed at this loop. Anyone can participate at the calls. And I personally believe that the Liaison shall participate in the ExCom as active member of ALAC. That's my point I guess. The Liaison should be part of the ExCom group and participating on all ALAC issues. That's my understand how a liaison can really help and to be constantly in contact with the day-by-day tasks of ALAC. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Vanda. Seth.
Seth Reiss: I don't have first-hand experience with the ExCom, but seems to be the liaison would need to attend all the meetings, ALAC, ExCom, and participate as much in that large as practical. It is only – having exposure to all the discussions that the Liaison can fulfill, it's his or her commitment by being knowledgeable and communicating the viewpoints to the Board. I'm not sure – I don't have an opinion whether the liaison should be a voting member of the ExCom or not. More I would think that the Liaison needs to be attending and listening to and knowledgeable about ExCom meetings. That's all.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Seth. And CP, for the record, the ExCom don't even have a voting capability. It works by consensus and I think that's a very healthy thing that it works by consensus. So, the Liaison to the Board has a, what I believe is a vital part of any form of inter-meeting and cross-over interplay to get a full feeling of what the community does At-Large within the regions, for the regions, and of course from the ALAC itself does indeed, as you've all said so far and I suspect we (inaudible) need to play very closely with any form of elected officials or executive committee as we view the short form of the moment.
Alan, go ahead.
Alan Greenberg: Well, your point was one of them I was going to make very quickly. And I think the largest issue with the ExCom right now is an issue of public relations and perception. There is – as Seth mentioned voting, there is no voting. It is not an organization as such that takes action.
We got off to a bad start with a couple of documents that went out with some inopportune words in them and I think what we need to do is either change the name or change – or make sure that we consciously invite more people to see what's going on. Really we're just talking about an opportunity for people who are either as officials or very active in the ALAC to make sure that things happen between meetings.
And in that sense, I believe it has to keep on going whether we give it a name or not. On the other hand, I don't believe it should have an awful lot of powers. I don't believe it really should have any powers other than what is necessary to fulfill the day-to-day functions of the ALAC in the absence of an absolute democracy in the traditional sense.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Alan. Sebastien, go ahead.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, I think when we decided to set up or to have some ALAC committee, one of the reasons important I think it was to have a balance between region amongst those people. Today the possibility to have two chairs, one chair, and one rapporteur gives the possibility to have four regions represented and I think it's important to change that to be sure we have that we have one per region. Because region balance, it's important.
And then it's nothing else then something to facilitate the day-to-day work of the ALAC. We must (inaudible) ExCom or whatever name is given to these five people, it's important and to be – to facilitate the work of the other. And when I say about ALAC, it's not just the 10 other people but also the Liaison who are not eventually ALAC member. And the leaders of each RALO. Then it's a lot of people involved and I think it could be very useful to still have something like an executive committee and as a Liaison of course, I will be available to participate in the (inaudible) discussion. Thank you very much.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Sebastien. And of course the fall back position to having a group of people regionally balanced ensuring that things run between meetings and can be reacted to between meetings is to leave it all in the hands of the chair. So I mean I'll leave that to the community – the wider community to think which is the more democratic and balanced process. Of course I've only made perfect and correct decisions, so you're fine at the moment, but that by the way for the record is an absolute joke.
Okay, we now come to Carlos and that's perfect timing with Carlos putting his question to the Connect Pro meeting room because it is LACRALO's question time. Carlos, I will read your question to the record and I believe that this is a question that you are asking each of the candidates to respond to. It is a lengthy question, but I would like to think that the candidates will be able to answer it in a two-minute maximum. Therefore I will put a two-minute maximum on it and we will be going in alphabetical order back down the list, so it will be Sebastien, Alan, Seth, then Vanda in response to Carlos' question. Anyone else from LACRALO, put it up on the Wiki or put it up on the Adobe room and the next time round I'll be asking questions from others. If not, Carlos may have other questions then.
His question for all candidates: I want to know if somebody has a contradictory interest or interests again in the individual uses or individual user or real life. Or if any of the candidates, I am paraphrasing, if any of the candidates have different interests in the past with end users in that way that it might affect their future behavior as the ALAC Liaison to the Board.
For example, Carlos suggests if someone is working in the Internet industry, perhaps having a registry or being a registrar, or in some working way working with end users but on a different side, or having commercial interests, which could generate crash with final – I think that's a clash or a conflict – with final users, or whether they are having government interests now or in the past. And I've seen the government interest again like the user working with end user interest issues where then would be a conflict of interest or clash of interest. Carlos, if you would take a friendly amendment, perhaps we can also ask each of the candidates as they respond to your question how they would deal with such a conflict should it occur.
Go ahead, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you. I think first of all this is a liaison role, then I think it's important to understand end users' perspective and to bring what ALAC At-Large will decide to bring to the Board and to bring back from the Board any question or any suggestion to the At-Large and ALAC.
I used to be an end users' business users in my previous working life a few years ago. But I don't think there are any clash today about that. It's five years ago. And furthermore I think when it took up with that eventual disagreement, it's because we are not talking on our behalf that – on the behalf of the At-Large Community that's for me the only answer possible for today and for tomorrow. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Go ahead, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, similar to what Sebastien said, first of all the position as a Liaison is a conduit to move information in both directions. So conflicts perhaps are not as relevant as they would be in any case. In my case I have virtually no conflict. I have to admit I was part of the dot ca ccTLD organization that created it 20 years ago. I don't think that creates any conflict. I have worked on behalf of users in many forms over the last number of years in my life, but none of them which would be considered a conflict in I believe in any way at all. So I don't believe I have any conflicts.
The question of what would I do if I did have a conflict, my position – I've taken this over decades in board participation, depending on the severity of the conflict, you bow out of any discussion, you declare it and make sure everyone understands it, or in the case of something that is so severe that you can't live with it, you resign. I can't imagine that happening in this kind of situation, but this – an escalating set of responses that one does if conflicts should come up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Alan. Go ahead, Seth.
Seth Reiss: Thank you. ICANN has a conflicts policy and you've all made statements responsive to that in our candidate statements. The ICANN policy goes to financial conflicts. Direct or indirect financial conflicts. It strikes me that what we see a lot in ICANN and in ALAC is conflicts that are more philosophical. In other words, people may hold strong or firm philosophical beliefs about what should be or what the role of ICANN or ALAC is. And that's a less clear conflict, but I think it's quite real in the ICANN environment because we're all volunteers and so the finances are the easy conflicts and the philosophical conflicts are more difficult. I think it's up to all of us to get to know the people and decide whether we're comfortable with the philosophies of the individual.
From my point of view, of course I don't believe I have philosophical conflicts, but we all are subjective people and so many of you may disagree with a belief. In my work, I represent trademark owners. I also represent trademark infringers. I represent domain name owners, and domainers. So, I don't believe I have a personal bias that comes from my work because I'm on both sides.
As far as dealing with conflicts, I would do what Alan had said basically. You always disclose, even if there's any possibility that somebody might view you as having conflict. You disclose. And if it's a real conflict, like a financial conflict or an affiliation that's reflective of a position, then I think you also withdraw from any voting and participation. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Seth. Vanda, go ahead.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes. Well, I can say that I have no conflict of interest and since the beginning of my work here in – with the Internet issues in Brazil, I have been no commercial interest in this issue. So sometime I was part of the (inaudible) and afterwards I just work in no property organizations. Just helping them to spread the Internet around among the communities and so on so.
I have stated in the past when I was on the Board my conflicts of interest that was known. And again, I state and it's published, I state I have no conflict of interest. I don't see if I'm going to have in the future, but at least in the near future. But as Alan said and the others, if something happened during the period, people can disclose or if it's a case resign. That's the only way to deal with that.
From my point of view, I don't see in the future any conflict of interest. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Vanda. And now we will move to our next question, which is the first question from NARALO. The Chair of NARALO, Evan, has posted three questions to the Wiki. But as Evan is on the call, I'm hoping he will now select the question most important in his life and put that to the candidates. It will be, I assume, a two-minute answer and the response, which will go in reverse order, Vanda, Seth, Alan, and Sebastien. Go ahead, Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: Actually I'm not at my computer screen and I listed the questions in the order in which I'd like them to be done. So if you run out of time, lop off the third one and so on.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Not a problem. In which case, I will read it to the record for you. The next question is from Evan's three-question list. So this will be question 1.1 from his list. This is Evan. Question to all: much is said, but little has been done about making At-Large more proactive and less reactive regarding – sorry, things just shifted as I was reading (inaudible) handle that very well. I'll start again.
At-Large more proactive and less reactive regarding ICANN policy. If elected, what would you do to help enable this important transition? Starting with Vanda. How would you assist At-Large to become more proactive, less reactive?
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. Well, I believe the Liaison's task as to help to take to the Board the views, the importance, and the needs of At-Large to ALAC representative and/or by directly by the people. And convince the people inside the Board to approve or disapprove the issues in regards to users.
What the Liaison could help is bringing to At-Large in a clear way what they can do to improve their participation and policy issues. I personally could also suggest to have a more open opportunity for all At-Large for instance. And a weak (inaudible) for anyone in At-Large Community to have a direct channel to get their complaints they may believe are not well listened. That's the only thing Liaison can really do. Otherwise, they can try to have more participation and regional meetings. More administration off of the budget for inside ALAC to allow better participation, better understanding from all the ALS about the issue policies.
So, that's the limit a Liaison can do to help improve At-Large participation. And dealing day-by-day at inside the ALAC where I believe the Liaison should continue to participate on the ALAC issues, they could help to make this breach more clear and to make it more understandable for the RALO and as a consequence for the OLF around the community.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Go ahead Seth.
Seth Reiss: It seems to me that the – oh, first of all, I think it'd be great if ALAC became – At-Large became more proactive and less reactive. And I think it's demonstrated that it's on that road, at least since I've been involved in At-Large since Puerto Rico it seems to me that it has been a positive move in the direction of being proactive.
The actual proactivity has to come from the ALS's, the RALOs and ALAC itself. Now I don't think the liaison role is to be proactive. Of course the Liaison can participate in these other activities, but that's not the job the Liaison would be tasked with. However what the Liaison can do at to communication is to take communications that may sound reactive at certain lower levels and to reconfigure those communications and suggestions to be more constructive, more proactive. I think the Liaison can be available not only to ALAC members but to other parts of the At-Large so that communications that might seem reactive that go out through alternative channels, be instead channeled through the Liaison, through the ALAC and through the Liaison and come out in a constructive manner. And therefore not only be communicated better to the Board, but be more likely to see some results in terms of Board actions. That's all.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: Similar statements. I don't think the Liaison is a cheerleader who is supposed to be getting everyone going and participating. That's the responsibility of the ALAC and the regional leadership I believe. But certainly with support of the Liaison or eventually a real Board member, when that is appropriate.
I think the real action that the Liaison can take is twofold. Number one, there's the issue of budget. Can we find mechanisms, which may require real money, to get activities going within regions? I think we have to be realistic; we are never going to get ICANN to fund large regional assemblies in every region three times a year. So it's going to have to be realistic. But I think there will be opportunities for that kind of argument.
The largest day-to-day activity I believe is providing the ALAC and therefore the RALOs and the ALS's with heads ups when things look like they're going to be coming important in a month or two. Typically these things don't come out of the blue and if the Liaison senses from the direction the Board is going or from the overall activities a strategic plan of ICANN that something is going to become important in a week, in a month, and in six months, I think the Liaison's responsibility is to bring it to peoples' attention and make sure they understand the importance of it way ahead of time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Alan. Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm mistaken. We need to get Seth back on line. Is Seth back on line yet?
Seth Reiss: Yes, I am. Sorry.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Sorry, Seth. It's good that you're making me smile. Go ahead, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: I think the Liaison as such will not very out to be more proactive for At-Large because if it's already at the Board level that means a lot of work have been done before and a lot of other (inaudible). Then what the Liaison can help it's really what already Alan said. It's to help to have the facilitation coming in each region to allow that. And the summit was a good example. I think after the summit we had more proactive work done in some of the region and at the broader level also. And the budget, it's an important part.
In the same time, I think it's important to participate as a Liaison to this proactive activities and to try to help that not because of the Liaison position having more information from the Board, but because of participating to the At-Large Community work. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Sebastien. We now have the opportunity to go through the next rotation of questions and I would be doing this in reverse order from the first letter of the RALOs. So, what I would like to do now is read to the record the second question, which would be from Evan unless anyone else on the call from North America has a question they'd like to bring up personally. Gareth, perhaps you might have a question? Or Eduardo? Gareth or Eduardo? Remember you might have to star seven to –
Eduardo: No, I don't have a question. This is Eduardo.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Eduardo. Go ahead.
Speaker: I think he said he doesn't have a question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, doesn't. Sorry. Well, I'm obviously not hearing terribly well.
Eduardo: Yes. No, I don't have a question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Ah, thank you. Sorry, Eduardo. I should have listened more carefully. Gareth, a question from you?
Gareth: Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's a no. Okay. In which case we'll post Evan's question. And I'll read that to the record. Which is she says scrolling back desperately to get to the beginning of it. Given what you have experienced in becoming involved with At-Large, what matters would you personally want to see brought to the Board? A short answer on this, I would think probably no more than a one or two minute answer. And we'll go from Sebastien downwards. Go ahead, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you. A budget to allow a regional meeting each – during a two year period in each region and a summit in the next period of two years. I think it will be very helpful for the work of the At-Large Community. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. Alan.
Alan Greenberg: I'm interpreting the question differently from Sebastien. I'm not sure how it was meant. I took it to mean what types of matters, not which specific ones. I would want to see – and I'll – the very short answer is as few things as possible brought to the Board. We are seeing lots of discussion within some of the RALOs of let's write a letter to the Board on this and let's write a letter to the Board on that.
I think one of the responsibilities of the Liaison is to try to make sure that there are staff paths to address immediate actions. Our Board tends to be too operational as it is. And I think writing a letter to advising the Board is an ability the ALAC has, which should be the last resort and not used for everything when we see something wrong in the ICANN world. So I want to reserve that for things that are important and will be treated as important by the Board, not having large numbers of letters come in on various things, which the Board just has to transfer to Staff.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Alan. Seth? Don't hang up. (Inaudible)
Seth Reiss: All right. Try to keep my fingers under control this time. Yes, I'm not sure. Listening to just Sebastien and Alan, I realized I’m not sure what I'd like to see brought to the Board. I think I can concur with Alan that the matters that ALAC needs to bring to the Board should be – should not overwhelm the Board because that could lead to ALAC's credibility and it's utility.
I would like to see ALAC bring solutions rather than problems. In other words, I think the IRT discussion is very interesting. I think the rollout is many of the things that ICANN tries to do they seem to do in such a sluggish way. And so I would like to see solutions on the long debated problems coming out of ALAC through the Liaison to the Board. Solutions that can be adopted by the community At-Large. And I guess I'll just leave my response to that. Thanks.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Seth. Vanda?
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. Well, since I understood the two different interpretations could be interesting. First of all, in the Alan's line of understanding, I believe we need to have from the Board more pay attention to the questions and answers and less hypocrisy from the Board. The Board is treating At-Large group members, users in the community with such hypocrisy. And never give direct response. So this is something needs to be a debate inside the Board, how people are seeing that. So to (inaudible) with consideration and the importance, the questions from the floor. So the floor are the users, whatever they are. And we need to have from the Board direct feedback from the questions. And at the least, consideration to respond any questions. That's one point
From the other point, as I see as Sebastien, is that we believe where we need to convince people that each constituency, each AC needs to have their budget and responsibly deal with the budget and propose a use of that budget. And it's under our administration that we should decide what is better, what is not for our community. That's something that I believe it's important for the GAC, for the ALAC, and any all constituencies. So I believe we need to convince people that we need to have these things.
Of course for regional meetings, summits from by (inaudible) or something like that. And but we need to improve the participation of people from each region to have then the full understanding to really collaborate with the (inaudible).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Vanda. Now we would be moving to LACRLO so I will ask Mya to ask those – either Antonio or Sylvia I think are still on the Spanish channel. If they have a question to raise? This is not (inaudible).
Mya: One second please. I'm trying to tell them but I can't hear either of them. I don't know – they're un-muting. One second. What I wanted to know basically what is your main proposal as your – as being a Liaison? What do you actually think is going to be your role in a nutshell?
Speaker: Who is that coming from?
Mya: And this is from Carlos.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Sebastien, if you'd like to respond to – sorry. Vanda, if you'd like to respond – back into reverse order. I haven't had my coffee yet. If you would like to respond to Carlos' question as to in a very short (inaudible) what is your main role in the role of the Board Liaison? And just before you answer that and we'll be going Vanda, Seth, Alan, Sebastien, we've come up to the 90 minutes mark. I do recognize that (inaudible) is a fashionable 15, actually 16 minutes late, but I would ask the Community members and the candidates on this call do you wish to extend for another 30 minutes from this point in time? If anyone doesn't wish to do so, please tell me.
I'm not seeing any crosses coming up on the Pro meeting and no one seems to be screaming at me, therefore I will assume we can extend. Yes, lots of yeses. I hope Evan is voting not asking a question on that matter. So now, Vanda, if you'd like to answer Carlos' question as to your main role.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. And my main role if I was elected to be ALAC Liaison is to really represent ALAC At-Large interests and points of view. That is the main point and bring back from the Board to the ALAC At-Large all points of interest of the (inaudible). And a quick response is that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Short and sweet. Thank you very much. Seth?
Seth Reiss: Yes, in response I think the main role is accurate and constructive communications to develop a healthy line of communications between the ALAC and the Board. And to be collaborative within both constituencies in order to get the most for ALAC in respect to Board matters. Thanks.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Seth. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: Yes, and my experience as the GNSO Liaison for the last few years, it became very clear that the vast majority of discussions that were held both within the formal council and within working groups are ones that there is no advice produced by ALAC or At-Large to govern the positions that are taken and the issues that are raised during that kind of meeting. And I think one of the largest tasks of a Liaison is to try to ask the right questions ahead of time so that whenever possible there can be guidance provided, or at least some idea of having listened to conversations of what ALAC and At-Large may feel about something, even if there's no formal guidance. And I think that's the largest challenge of just try to be informed, and to pass back the right questions in a timely manner to allow one to be informed.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Sebastien?
Sebastien Bachollet: To be short, it's to the Liaison and to bring the idea, question, position from the At-Large Community to the Board and then – and back if there are back questions. It's a main task of the Liaison and that's my answer. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Sebastien. I note Wolf is withdrawing his three questions, which is fine. Thank you, Wolf. And in fact I would like to perhaps preempt something I was going to finish up with and that is ask each of the candidates to take the opportunity to respond to the questions we've noted directly on the Wiki page.
But there is I think some very, very interesting questions also put forward from EURALO and I'd like to give first of all Olivier an opportunity to choose the best of his questions, and that might be a very hard choice. I'm doing this very much because I'd like to have the answers to all of them. So he can pick the very most important for his list of questions and put those to the candidates. You may need to unmute, Olivier.
Oliver Crepin-Leblond: I thought I would leave it to you, Cheryl, depending on what your mood is, whether you want to inflict – what kind of pain you'd like to inflict.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, you see if it was up to me, you know I'd be inflicting the most pain possible. But no, I do think you're on the call, please pick one of those excellent questions and I'll just warn everybody not only were there six excellent questions, there's even a fallback question that he sent me. So pick the one you'd like the candidates to answer and recognize that they will have your opportunity to answer each and every one of them.
Oliver Crepin-Leblond: Okay. I'll pick one, which is very short. Case situation basically. Several members of the Board tell you that ALAC is a waste of time. That nothing has ever come out of ALAC. How do you respond?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, okay. I think I will start to answer that At-Large and ALAC, it's a new creation. It starts from the Lisbon meetings and it's two years. The rest of the ICANN, it's much more ordered and have more time to set up their organization. And even though they are still to struggle on how they work from the (inaudible), from the SO, the (inaudible). I don’t think at all it's a waste of time.
On the other hand, we as ALAC and as At-Large Community we deliver a lot of advice to the Board. And particularly I think the summit was a very, very important step in this district. And now we will have to face new challenges that I think – I am not sure that any Board member will say today that ALAC is a waste of time. And furthermore, they need (inaudible). ICANN needs us. I think it's important to note that the decision taken by the Board to have a Board voting At-Large director came just one month before the end of the GPA. I think it's something very important to see because it's not just the At-Large. It was done, I am sure, on purpose and it's because they need us and we want to be part of ICANN and it's great. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Alan.
Alan Greenberg: I think as Sebastien did, I'll add an editorial comment that when I started on ICANN three years ago and a bit, I think that question that Olivier poses could have come from virtually any Board member. I think right now it would be a minority and I think that's a very important message in its own right.
If the question was asked today, I'd point to the ICANN press release of a few days ago that – or announcement in any case – that said ICANN is declaring victory on domain tasting, which was an ICANN/ALAC initiative. If you want one item, that's the item.
I think on the larger sense, the summit, the amount of respect that ALAC has from other organizations has changed significantly. The AXO (ph) meetings may not be the most productive meetings in their own right, but we are participating as equal partners and we were not viewed as equal partners three or four years ago.
I think the world has changed significantly. I think ALAC can point to – ALAC and At-Large can point to many things that are different. And I think it would be an easy question to answer.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Alan. Seth.
Seth Reiss: Yes, first of all I would tell the Board member that I respectfully disagreed with the assessment. And I would continue to suggest that ALAC is probably the most important constituency among all in ICANN in that it represents users. End users are the most important piece of the Internet community. Without users the rest of the community wouldn't have an audience and wouldn't exist.
I would suggest to the Board member that ALAC is critical to ICANN's ability to move forward, to gain more confidence from communities not only in the developed world but also in the developing world. And also from governments that if ICANN is concerned about its future and is concerned about its creditability, it needs to be concerned about how well it represents the users and that's coming primarily through ALAC.
And finally, I think I would end by suggesting to the Board members that instead of criticizing ALAC, they should think of ways to improve on what they feel is ALAC's shortcomings and suggest what those might be, which is something that the Liaison could take back in a constructive way to the committee. Thanks.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Vanda. You might need to star seven, Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: …this (inaudible) – are you listening?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, we hear you now.
Vanda Scartezini: Okay. I already had the opportunity to answer this question. Back in the past I was not in the ALAC but in the Board and when one of our colleagues said, "Wow, we don't need ALAC." I said, "That's the one reason why you have this problem with IGF and (inaudible) because you have no accountability with the community that supports the youth." Nowadays I don't believe people anymore can understand the way they can survive. ICANN cannot survive and they understand that, without ALAC and without the users. Improving their participation is the only way to real surviving.
So I believe the Board already understand this and if they don't we can easily explain this with a lot of examples.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Vanda. Now we would be moving to APRALO and I'll note that Stiva did put a question earlier on in the chat space, which was specifically I think directed at Alan. But what I would like to do is replicate this question to him now. And perhaps ask the following (inaudible). So I will take his question to one candidate and APRALO representational status to make it a question to all candidates. And again, probably a two-minute answer would be more than enough.
Do you see the Liaison's responsibility limited to that of reading a written statement in a Board meeting of the ALAC position? Or do you think the Liaison at a Board meeting would have the opportunity to consult with ALAC on every word he or she speaks out? Or should the Liaison have a grasp of what ALAC wants to respond intelligently to situations, sometimes even composing something independent for ALAC's gratification later?
And here, I am going to shift the order because there is a bias in the ability to answer that question. I am going to start with Vanda in the alphabetical order, but I will then go to Alan, and then Sebastien because of my Vice Chair's and Rapporteur, in other words part of the elected leadership team of the ALAC, they've had extensive experience with Board liaisons and this particular matter, and it would be unreasonable I think to go to Seth until he's had the benefit of hearing perhaps some of their direct comments because their comments are built on direct experience with our incumbent.
So, Vanda, to you.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes. The idea of every word of course is not realistic. But since you work, the Liaison works together with ALAC, they have a very clear idea about their position in each – what is not supposed to happen is to go to the – any meeting in the Board without consulting and exchange ideas with the ALAC with – at the least with a Chair or any Vice Chairs about the issues that are going to be discussed over that.
Of course if it's something raised, you always can state, "Well, I could – I would like to have a position from ALAC I don't have yet. So my idea from their ideas is something." And that is not a statement, and I cannot answer by then. So, we – what is very important? It's not to raise a position that was not discussed or not connected with the previous discussion with ALAC.
That's the most important issue because once you are working together with ALAC, you have a clear vision what is going on. All issues inside the Board are previously published for at the least for the members of the Board. So there is no reason people will face a very difficult time to state something that was not discussed with any member beforehand with the ALAC. That's my point.
I've been in the Board for three years and working with Vitorio (ph) and Roberto. Very good Liaisons of the Board. And many times they have this kind of – they face a lot of difficulties sometimes and they could just raise the points and go back and come back to any member of the Board and explain that maybe it's more clear the position they have state with the approval of ALAC.
I don't believe we're going to face these situations because anyone in the Liaison should vote time to explain issues inside the Board to ALAC and bring the feedback from ALAC with them to any meetings beforehand. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I think I take a very much middle of the road thing. I certainly don't want the ALAC Liaison reading statements when those statements have already been distributed and hopefully most Board members have read them. Summarizing them, certainly.
On the other hand, to limit the statements that are made at our meeting only to those that have formally been approved and have the blessing of ALAC and At-Large I think limits that person significantly. I think the real issue is to make sure that when one is speaking it is crystal clear, either by a default statement or by the right caveats and warnings who you are – whether you're representing you and you'll now go back and talk to the ALAC and At-Large about it, assuming it's not an issue of – that's confidential. Or whether this is a formal statement or an informal statement.
So I think the real issue to make it really clear whose voice you are using, which hat you are wearing when you're talking. I don't think we want to put someone on the Board with the ability to interact and participate in Board discussions and then put a muzzle on them saying you must not say anything unless it's passed ahead of time with approval from the appropriate authorities. But I think it has to be clear to the rest of the Board members who you're speaking on behalf at any given time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Alan. Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, the Board is not just (inaudible) we see at each meeting of ICANN. I guess it's much more broader and it takes more time than just these meetings. And it's not just to read a statement. It's to participate to formal and I guess a lot of informal discussion. And at that time it's really always difficult to just say what it was voted by ALAC as the only sentence we can say as Liaisons.
And it must be more open, it must be more – we need to have confidence between ALAC and the Liaison, and of course as Alan said, it's important when we make a statement to say – or when the Liaison makes a statement to say, "This is an official statement" or "It is not an official statement." Or, "It's my personal" what have you. But I would like very much that this part will be minimized. That means that when it – it's why it's important that the Liaison participates as ALAC and At-Large work it's to be sure that they will bring the ideas. We're already in between the At-Large and ALAC members. And not to bring their own opinion in each subject of course.
Then it's not just reading a statement officially, voted by ALAC, but in the same time it's not to put his own viewpoints in each and every subject. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Now coming back to you, Seth.
Seth Reiss: Thanks, Cheryl, for letting me hear everybody else's response first. It seems to me that the Liaison is like an ambassador. The body ALAC has to have confidence and trust in their ambassador to the Board. It should select a person who it believes will exhibit those characteristics. And if they're – if they're voting on other grounds then I think ALAC has it's own – in other words has its own self to blame because it needs to select a person where --who it can have trust in, who will communicate accurately and thoroughly. And not muzzle the person or use that person mechanically.
It's interesting because in an ambassador situation, of course, the head of the country can just dismiss the ambassador if it doesn't work out. We don't have that kind of mechanism.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually we do, Seth.
Seth Reiss: I'm sorry?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We can recall.
Seth Reiss: Okay, there you go. But in other words I guess the Committee has to take a chance on somebody but the Liaison has to be a – you have to give the Liaison the flexibility and the ability to develop relationships with people on the Board. And have the confidence that that Liaison is going to be putting forth accurately the issues that the Committee wants it to and not it's own personal issues. And I agree with Sebastien that to the extent the Liaison wants to interject personal issues that that should be to a minimum. It should not be a priority. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Seth. And I think it is important to recognize that in the specifics of the Liaison to the Board, we do in fact have a right to recall as we do with any of our appointments. But that is not of course going to be the case when we – necessarily going to be the case when we look towards our next thrill packed and exciting adventure, which is working out how we appoint a voting Board director.
So in this particular circumstance, we would still have the right to recall. Something that I would hope would never, ever need to be even threatened, let alone actioned if there is a good working relationship between At-Large, the regional At-Large group, and the ALAC, and the Liaison. I can't imagine why a threat to use the recall notice would ever need to be brought forward.
Now, we would be coming to AFRALO and I will now check with Trisha if anyone joined her on the Spanish channel. I gather not, but Trish, do we have –
Tisha: This is Tisha from the French channel. There's nobody on the French channel at the moment. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Well, at least the transcription – so the MP3 will be the (inaudible) –
Tisha: Exactly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: – (inaudible) record.
Tisha: Wonderful, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. I just wanted to double check that I hadn't missed somebody. Which means we now in fact would have the opportunity for APRALO to ask a second question. I will over – the wants of having more exciting questions asked and because I'm sitting with the Chair hat on, I will now jump over that opportunity on behalf of APRALO because APRALO has in fact already even discussed the vote order. And so we'd only be tweaking the vote order based on the outcomes of this call. So I will move back to EURALO, and ask if someone from EURALO would like to put a question forward. And in the absence of someone other than Olivier, being keen to do so, I'd ask Olivier to post a second question, which will be, I believe, the final question – formal questions with notice for tonight – today's call.
Is there anyone else other than the questions with notes that Olivier put forward?
Speaker: Carlos did have a final question as well.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I'll get LACRALO then. I didn't realize there was a final one coming in from them. That's fine. I was looking at the time, but that's okay. Okay then. Olivier, if you'd like to either cede to LACRALO and go last or do your question now? You might need to star seven to unmute.
Oliver Crepin-Leblond: Can you hear me?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I can now. Go ahead.
Oliver Crepin-Leblond: I'm back on there. I don't mind asking the question. In the interest of being fast and not going through all the other questions, I thought I'd ask the bonus question on there. Just to – because I think we've had a lot of answers to a lot of the other questions and they all turn around each other.
The bonus question is as follows: Do you know Beckstrom's Law? If yes, please explain it. And if you agree with it or not.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'll repeat that to the record so the other channels have it clear. The question from EURALO is do you know – to each of the candidates – do you know Beckstrom's Law? If yes, please explain it and if you agree with it or not.
If you would take a friendly amendment, could I suggest that the candidates rather than explain it, because the first one may do it successfully and then what do the others get to do? Perhaps if we can ask for a comment on it rather than an explanation of it. And that way everyone will have to go off and buy the book anyway. So if you – perhaps rather than explain it, if you do – if you know it, rather than explain it, then either indicate your agreement with it or pick a point that you agree or disagree. And we will start with Sebastien.
Speaker: Cheryl, before you do that a point of order. Olivier's questions seem to have disappeared from the Wiki. Was that deliberate?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I sincerely hope not.
Speaker: They don't seem to be on it when I'm reloading it. So if we're supposed to answer them it would be nice if we knew where they are and I go back to the original order.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I've put it into the Connect Pro meeting, so and we'll make sure that all the questions are in the Wiki, included this bonus question, which wasn't ever put to the Wiki because it was a bonus question. So, Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: I'm not sure that I know the Beckstrom's Law and I don't think it's so useful to know the law. I try – I guess one of the problems is the time you have to read all the documents in the foreign language. But I try to read one part of his book and I guess the law has something to set with that. And I was quite interesting in – I would like very much to ask him what he will say to do – what did we say – sorry – today to the French investor. One of his guys went to meet them and they were asking for the President of Internet because maybe today he could answer I am. And it's quite funny to see what he's write in this book and is titled today. President and CEO. It's not just one or the other it's both. And both are quite challenging in this book.
And finally, my point – and it's – I really feel that I would like very much to have this discussion with you guys and with him. It's – how he will be able to move a spider organization on the top of all those selfish organizations like At-Large, like governmental representation, like (inaudible) and (inaudible). It will be very interesting to know how we want to under that because it seems to be that it's a little bit difficult to have those two type of organizations together. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Sebastien. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I know what Beckstrom's Law says and I have no opinion on it. If I remember correctly, Beckstrom's Law tries to assign a value of a network based on what goes on on the network. Like any economic model that has huge formulas in it, it makes my brain hurt. And I don't have a strong opinion.
I tend to believe however, that the reality is far more subtle than what he is talking about, certainly as a financial model. That is I don't think you can take the value in financial terms to be the perceived value. If somehow you can measure social value and things like that, maybe it has some applicability, but I'm not a strong believer at this point. But it does make my head hurt.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Maybe things (inaudible) can make my head hurt. Seth.
Seth Reiss: Yes, thanks to Wikipedia I just learned what Beckstrom's Law is.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The man who can quickly, quickly get himself up to speed on the run. This is a good thing.
Seth Reiss: Yes, but now I can recite the formula, but I do not yet have an opinion. It sounds interesting and I probably will have an opinion, but for now I don't.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent.
Seth Reiss: Thank you, Olivier, for enlightening me.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier makes me smile often. This is another one of those cases. Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Yes, I believe that nobody has a strong opinion about that, Olivier. And I really do believe in the social approach than the economic one. So I believe it's the only point that I can raise. I'm with Alan that not the economic, it's my view for the picture. It's – I do believe new social approach of the work. So, I believe it's – you don't have a very strong perception from none of us. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Vanda. And if anyone wants to have a moment when it's all over a strong cup of coffee or something equally stimulating, I'd be quite excited about having deep and meaningful on that topic because I've actually taken it to some of my personal work to look at how change and value can be measured in social networking drivers for social change. And it does make your head hurt amongst various other things. So thank you for an excellent question, Olivier.
I would now like to mention to everybody that by my calculations we are at the closing of our time. And that we have a couple of things that we do need to briefly cover off.
The first one is the matter that all of the questions, both raised in this check space tonight and with notice on the Wiki will be put into a nice semblance of order and on the Wiki in the order they were dealt with. And that all candidates, including Wendy, who was unable to join us for this call, will have the opportunity to respond to them. I will ask that responses do in fact make sure that they do in fact get to the Wiki page because it is this Wiki page that is going to be the repository, not just various chat spaces.
Speaker: And Olivier's questions just reappeared.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. There is one that I think would – I would like to use my Chair's privilege and ask of you all almost as a one – a 10-second response. All right? This is a 10- or 15-second response to each of you. And we will go – it will be in ordinary alphabetical order. It will be Sebastien, Alan, Seth, and then Vanda. And it is a 10-second response, which is a sort of thing that you would normally ask in an interview. The reason I'm asking this question, and it's one of Olivier's, is that's it's one that needs an immediate response, not a considered response. There are no right and wrong answers in this one. So here we go.
First of all Sebastien. Which of the following statements is closest to fitting your beliefs? I just put them onto the Wiki space. First of all, engineers are nerds, traders are thieves, lawyers are snakes, public society and (inaudible) are left wing, or politicians can never be trusted. Is there one or more of those that you feel more closely allied with?
Sebastien Bachollet: First, you don't change the order, but that's okay. I take all those and I add one. I am wrong.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I don't like generalizations at all because they're never always true. If I had to pick one of those that's closest to being true, I'd pick the last one of politicians because politicians are often balancing many different priorities at the same time.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much. Seth?
Seth Reiss: I generally agree with all, but I'm most closely – feel most closely associated with the last, as does Alan.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, thank you. Vanda.
Vanda Scartezini: Well, I don't consider myself a nerd and so I don't see none of those very close to my belief. But that's only politicians, but I have been one once in my life.
Speaker: Therefore you know it's true.
Vanda Scartezini: (Inaudible) So it's hard to find something like fits myself, but I'm with Sebastien. I possibly I'm wrong.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Fine, thank you very much for that. Now what I will do is I will excise that one, which does need to be given as a non-considered major response, otherwise the point of it is actually likely to fail. And again, thank you so much for that question, Olivier.
That will be excised from the opportunity to answer later. Unfortunately, Wendy Seltzer will not have the opportunity to do that little psych test. And it in fact a psych question. There is no actual right or wrong answer. Those who are skilled at working out how people answer may indicate what they mean and how they think will use it for the right ways or the wrongs ways, tendering on how they react when they listen to the MP3s in the various languages.
So that question six will be excised from the Wiki. Most of us who have done those tricky little questions to people in the past are either smiling now on the call or will be smiling when they listen to the recording or the transcripts.
Nick, you have one piece of very important information to share for the record and for those of us on the call regarding the specifics of votes before we close off. Go ahead please, Nick.
Nick Ashton-Hart: Yes, my apologies. I should have actually done this in the earlier segment. This – all votes in the ALAC (inaudible) elections are done using instant run off voting. This means that any – for a vote to be cast, each elector of the 15 members of the ALAC must indicate a preference for every candidate on the ballot. You cannot give equal preferences to more than one person. You must have an absolute preference from one to X of all of the voters.
This is – this voting system, there are many variants of preference voting. Instant runoff voting is one of them. I encourage anyone who is interested in preference voting and its variants to read the Wikipedia article on the same. But the reason I raise this is because if a RALO were to wish to give advice to their representatives on how to vote, it could not simply – well, I mean you could say anything, but you would – if you really wanted to give full instructions on the complete vote, you would have to indicate the preference that you would ascribed to each candidate.
If you simply said our favorite candidate is X, that would allow them to pick one person, but then they would have to pick the others on their own, which may be fine. I just wanted to make sure that everyone understood that because I know in conversations in some RALOs there had been the thought that this was the first part of the post system where you simply indicate the one person and that is not how votes work on elections in ALAC.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That's a very important point and it's one that raises me to a closing comment. And that is yes, the vote opens and the 15-member ALAC electorate can start voting I think within about 12 or 15 hours. That's correct, isn't it, Staff?
Speaker: Yes, that's right. 12:00 UTC tomorrow.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: This is one of those situations where I would strongly encourage people not to vote early. This is one of these fairly enormous tasks where the opportunity for your original advisors, where they have the ability to advise their regional reps, and the nominating committee members who are not standing as candidates.
They probably – the candidates probably know who they're going to vote for. And the candidates probably know whose order they would prefer – what order they would like to have it in. But we really have unearthed a huge amount of useful, vital, and very, very valuable information here tonight. I believe today we are quite literally spoilt for excellent choice. And whilst I want to thank every one of you for the professional and skilled responses that you've all given, and I feel incredibly confident based on the responses in this call tonight that those of you in this call tonight would all do an absolutely brilliant job.
We do, however, have a preference order (inaudible) and it would be my strong encouragement to ALAC electorate that they seek the advice, or at least review themselves the transcripts and the recordings from this call as well as the other information.
For example, I've asked the Staff during this call to put a note that Wendy, of course, has as yet not put in her conflict of interest statement. That is a mandatory requirement. We will ask her to do so. We need to look at all of those sorts of things and your votes need to be well considered because this is an exercise, not just in appointing the most appropriate ambassador for At-Large and the reviewed ALAC for the next 12 or 12-plus months, depending on how long it takes for us to get the Board voting seat process up and authorized and approved, that this particular role, this time is also going to be given as an example of how proper consideration of one way of getting seating from At-Large and the ALS' can happen.
Timing is against us because of bylaw and therefore it is compressed. But it's one of those times where it's not vote early, I think it would be vote after due consideration and certainly taking as much advice or navel gazing as is required.
Do we have a question in final – of somebody? Sebastien, your hand is up. What do you wish to say?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, I just want to ask you to give this final statement to each and any of the ALAC members. Not just as a record of the end of this conference call, but as something maybe written to each of every of them. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, in fact I'll continue to work with Staff when they're capable of functioning again after this call. And we will have a slightly different preamble to many of the votes. We have to, by our own rules, run a vote for a particular period of time. That in this situation I'll be making some very serious advisories as to what should happen before such a vote is put by the various parts of the ALAC nominating committee members.
In some regions may feel they would like to have some input from their regional compatriots. That would be totally up to them. Some regions have bylaws, which say that they will take note from regional discussions and follow the recommendations of the regions. And it is quite possible that those regions with those controls over how their representatives vote, may not be aware of the full preferential requirements.
So there's a few bits of housekeeping that I think need to be done and that needs to be done unlike most folks, we need to have the vote perhaps towards the end of our period, but we do have to vote (inaudible).
Can I just say to each and every one of you, I am confident that to serve in the future 12-plus months with any one of you in this essential role would be an honor and a pleasure? And I also look forward to working with you all in whatever capacity you can continue with. Because you are an amazing group of people with leadership and talent potential that makes me smile and makes me very, very happy to be part of ALAC.
Thank you all. Good morning, good evening, good night. Bye for now.
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you, Cheryl, for chairing this meeting. It was great.
Speaker: Thank you, Cheryl. (Inaudible)
Sebastien Bachollet: And good luck to everybody.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you, everyone.
Speaker: Thank you.