NARALO Teleconference Transcript
May 29, 2007
Legend
O: Operator
Name: First name of member of group
Male: Unsure of who's speaking, but know it's a male.
Female: Unsure of who's speaking, but know it's a female.
O: Excuse me, this is the conference coordinator.
Male: Are you there?
O: I just wanted to inform all parties that today’s call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Thank you, Mr. Ashton-Hart, you may begin.
Nick: Evening, everyone.
Bret?: Hi, Nick.
Nick: Hello. How’s life?
Bret?: Hi... Good.
Bret: So Nick...
Nick: Yeah.
Bret: This is Bret. Do you...
Nick: Hello.
Bret: Do you have a list of the participants?
Nick: No. I’m told there are nine people on the call, so I guess we’ll just have to go down and ask people to, you know... sound off.
Danny: Bret, this is, I’m on the call.
Bret?: Hey, Danny.
Evan: Hi, it’s Evan here.
Nick: Hi Evan.
Gareth: Gareth Shearman, Telecommunities Canada.
Robert: Hi, this is Robert Guerra here in Toronto.
Nick: Hi... inaudible
Female: Hi... inaudible
Bret?: Who was the last person?
Beau: Beau Brendler from Consumer Reports Web Watch.
Bret?: Okay, that’s... inaudible 0:01:21
Bret?: And who...
Darlene: Darlene Thompson.
Bret?: Oh, hi Darlene. There’s someone talking in the background. Do we know who that is?
Male: Do you know where that’s coming from.
Male: But, I mean, it’s still more appropriate... inaudible
Bret?: I mean that one.
Bret?: Yes.
Nick: Yeah, that one.
Bret?: I’ve been wondering that myself.
Nick: I mean, I can ask the operator to tell us who it is.
Male: inaudible
Robert?: Yeah, it’s... it’s a bit annoying if they don’t... overtalking 0:01:48
Male: inaudible ...I appreciate it... inaudible
Bret?: Alright, who just joined?
Seth?: Yeah, I’m sorry. This is Seth Reiss. I was on another call. I apologize for missing the introduction.
Bret: Okay. We were just talking about you.
Seth?: Yeah, I’ve... this is a very busy morning, but I’m now joined.
phone beeps to indicate someone has joined
Bret: Alright. And who just joined just now? I heard a... I head the beeps.
Nick: Oh, I came back. I was just asking them to mute whoever it was that was having the conversation in the background, but...
Bret: Okay, alright.
Nick: inaudible 0:02:30
Bret: Alright. Well...
Sébastien: And this is Sébastien Bachollet joining...
Nick: Hello, Sébastien.
Sébastien: ...if there is no problem will you to be... listening to what you will say today. The new ALAC member.
Bret: laughter Does everyone know that Sébastien is a newly elected ALAC representative from Europe, who will I guess...? You’re welcome to join us as an observer, participant, whatever, whatever you would like to be.
Sébastien: Thank you very much.
Bret: We are talking through the agenda that Nick put out. Has everyone seen a copy of that?
Male: Yes.
Nick: I just made that up, so, I mean, do whatever you want to do 0:03:11.
Bret: Yeah, I mean, I thought it was fine with the one addition that I put through to the list. Before I go on, do we know if we’re going to have Luc on the call?
Bret?: I expected him to join us. Well, maybe he’ll be joining us in a minute. Anyway, item number one is really just a quick status report on the things that are out for a vote. We have several new organizations that joined since we started voting, and we are still a few votes short of the 70% we needed to approve the Memorandum of Understanding – no, I’m sorry – the Draft Operating Principles and the Code of Conduct, and...
Bret?: Have we had... I’ve gotten a couple votes. Nick, have you seen a couple of new votes come in in the last week?
Nick: Not in the last week that I recall.
Darlene: I believe Gary Shearman did vote.
Gareth: Yes, that’s me, and I did vote on both those items and I understand that... I think Michael Maranda from AOCN 0:04:17 voted on at least one of them.
Male: Yeah.
Darlene: Yeah.
Gareth: And this would have been since we were joined.
Bret?: And Beau, do you know, have you voted or are intending to?
Beau: We certainly can vote but haven’t done so yet.
Bret?: Okay. That would be... it would be helpful. laughter
Beau: Okay.
Gareth?: So how many are we short 0:04:35 now with the new organizations?
Bret?: Yeah, that’s why I was hoping Luc would be on the call, because I think he’s been keeping track of that for us. But my guess we were just one vote short before the new organizations were accredited, and after the new organizations took their place, I think now that we’ve had a couple of votes there we’re probably still right at the line and we need to get either... You know, I’d like to... At some point we may just have to say that we can’t do it, but I would like to either to see a sched 0:05:11, 70% in favour of the documents or 30% against so we know where we stand rather than just having a bunch of votes going inaudible.
Robert: Yeah. This is Robert. I have the spreadsheet up that Luc sent up earlier.
Bret?: Oh, terrific.
Robert: So if you want me to go through that in terms of who has voted and who’s abstained and who’s inaudible 0:05:34, we can do that.
Bret?: Okay.
Robert: Okay, so I’ll go through in order that’s on the spreadsheet, and I think this was sent a couple day ago. Again, for those who are maybe new on the call, we go into a discussion as to what exactly we’re talking about, but I’ll just go through this vote 0:05:53 right now. So I have a list of... let’s see, it looks like 12 organizations, actually 12... 11 organizations plus unaffiliated users. So we have America...
Darlene: That’s the old list, isn’t it, before the new people came on? And sorry to interrupt.
Robert: Yes, that’s correct. That’s correct.
Darlene: So what we need though is the numbers with the new people that came on, isn’t it 0:06:15?
Robert: Well, I can add those after I go through this and we’ll see what numbers we get.
Darlene: Okay. Sorry.
Robert: So we have America At-Large as voting. We have CAUCE Canada, one of the two delegates voted, the other one did not. So Michael Parker has not voted. CAUCE USA, both delegates voting. CLUE, both delegates at the time voting. The folks from Hawaii, Intellectual Property & Technology something, we have Seth Reiss voting and the alternate abstaining. ISOC Puerto Rico, both voting. ISOC Quebec, both voting. N-CAP, both voting. People Who, both abstaining. Privaterra, both voting. Web405, Bret voting and Dennis Wilen not voting.
Male: Okay.
Robert: Unaffiliated users, we have votes from Jean and Wendy who’ve identified as being the people from that group. And how many new organizations do we have inaudible 0:07:25?
Bret?: There’s five, wasn’t it Nick? Or...
Nick: Well, was it five or was it four?
Robert: I also happen to have the list for whatever reason here.
Darlene: Good.
Robert: Let’s see.
Nick: You’re going to put me out of business, Robert. laughter
Robert: Okay. I need just to check here 0:07:44. So we have Communicatique, which I think is one of the new ones. Is that correct?
Darlene: Umm-hum, yes.
Robert: There’s Consumer Reports Web Watch. EFN 0:07:55, is that correct?
Male: Who is that? B...
Robert: EFN.
Male: Okay. EFN, well...
Robert: They inaudible back in February ’07. We have, let’s see, Association of Community Networking, which makes four. We have Alberta Community Network Association – one, two, three, four – which makes five. And Telecommunities Canada, which I believe you’re on the call?
Gareth: Yes, I am.
Robert: Okay. And you guys have voted. You weren’t on the list, so I didn’t... 0:08:34
Gareth: Well, one of us has voted, I don’t think the second one has. I’ll get after him.
Nick: Just so you know, Communauitique hasn’t been voted on yet. They’re not due for a vote until June.
Gareth?: Oh, they’re not approved yet? Okay.
Darlene: Oh...
Bret?: Okay, so we have...
Nick: Because their application only came in in April, so they’re still a ways from 0:08:52...
Robert: Okay, so it looks like we have five new.
Bret: Five new, which would be 10 new votes, so we need probably seven or eight of those who have voted I would imagine to approve and a substantial number of those to vote no to disapprove.
Robert: Or the whole abstaining issue as well.
Bret?: Yeah.
Robert: So just on the list, let me just go through people who may be on the call. There’s Consumer Reports Web Watch, ESN, Association for Community Networking, and Alberta Community Networking Association. Anyone from those organizations?
phone beeps to indicate someone has joined
Nick: And somebody new.
Bret: Who just joined?
Sylvia: Sylvia Caras. I’m changing phones.
Bret?: overtalking 0:09:40
Nick: Hey.
Bret: So Nick, would it be possible for you or someone working with you to send out an e-mail to people who haven’t voted, asking them to please vote and perhaps they could just vote directly to you with a copy to me. I know that I talked to Dennis Wilen from Web405 and he was having some difficulty getting on the list, and...
Nick: Yeah, he had an exchange with me asking how to do it and I said, “Here’s how you do it.” And he said, “Okay, I’m on now.”
Bret: Okay, alright. So then...
Nick: overtalking 0:10:14
Bret: So I guess Dennis is squared away. We probably ought to check in with everyone else and make sure that they are subscribed and know to vote and...
Male: Is every ALS aware that they have two people that are to vote?
Nick: I did notify all the new ALSes when they were accredited that there was a vote going on and that they needed to appoint their...
Gareth?: I can confirm that, Nick. I got that and inaudible 0:10:40 so I’m sure the others should have as well, so...
Male: Perfect.
Bret: Well, I imagine people are still getting up to speed, but it’s been a couple of weeks and I think it’s probably fair to tell them that we would really appreciate their getting involved immediately and trying to let us know if we’re on the right track or not.
Bret?: So Nick, can you set up 0:11:03 follow-up messages?
Nick: Yeah.
Bret: Alright. So I think we ought to, I imagine, close the voting. We never set an official closing date but my guess is if we have not either approved or disapproved these two items by the time we meet in Puerto Rico next month, that we ought to... well, do 0:11:31 different. We will have... I think just the lack of votes will have told us that we haven’t accomplished what we wanted to do.
Evan?: Well, would it be worthwhile at that point to essentially just to make sure that we have 70% of those who have voted as opposed to 70% of the total?
Bret: You know, I think... We talked about this a little bit on list. My personal view is that it would give us some added legitimacy if we had a high buy-in at the start on the principles, then once we get running I think it will be a consensus of the people who are participating as we work through things. But I would really like to get a buy-in from everyone who’s here.
Male: So have you guys decided to have a count of abstentions?
Sylvia?: They’re not counted either way. We discussed that I believe on list, but I’m not sure.
Male: So in other words, the denominator doesn’t count and that’s 0:12:39...
Evan?: In this particular case, they probably would work against us because if we’re looking for 70% of everybody to consent, then anybody who hasn’t voted basically hasn’t consented.
Bret?: I... I mean, the Draft Operating Principles... I’m trying to pull them up here now, but I believe they say that we start using them when we have 70% approval from voting members. So I think whoever just spoke in to 0:13:13 that they count against this is correct, that we’re looking for affirmation and that we don’t get affirmation unless 70% of the members have approved them.
Darlene: We discussed this like several times on list, I’m trying to find it right now – it’s Darlene here – and we said that we couldn’t do it that way. And Nick, I think you sent out an interesting e-mail on that as well. Do you happen to know which date that went out, Nick?
Nick: I don’t know precisely but I can find that rather quickly. I mean, the key here I think is in how you define what “active North American At-Large Structures” means.
Bret?: Right, because I’m looking at the provisions now. It’s paragraph 15, it says, “These Operating Principles will take effect when adopted by not less than 70% of the active North American At-Large Structures.”
Robert?: So we have to define active.
Darlene: Right.
Gareth?: But “adoption” means a positive vote, doesn’t it? It doesn’t mean as opposed to abstentions or negative votes?
phone beeps to indicate someone has joined
Bret?: Yeah, I mean, my sort of plain, commonsense interpretation of “active” would be that if you cast a vote as an abstention, you’re active. Now if we don’t hear from you, then we might deem you inactive.
Male: If it’s 70% of At-Large Structures, and not 70% of the delegates from At-Large Structures, then how would you count my organization, for example, that has one abstention and one vote?
Male: This is Hawaii IT section.
Bret?: You know, I know that Nick and I talked about this privately. I think we were scratching our head and wondering whether one individual could cast two votes if your organization doesn’t...
Male: Right. Well, I would have to go back to my organization to do that. The practical difficulty is finding somebody with the time and the energy to participate and, you know, I could do that 0:15:21.
Nick: Can I make a somewhat radical proposal? Well, maybe it’s not radical. You’ll have to say if you think it’s radical. You know, why don’t you just have a delegate from each ALS, set up a vote – we can set up in the voting system we have if you like – and just say, “Look, we’ve had new people join. You know, this has been somewhat confusing. We’re just going to have one vote over a week or 10 days from each ALS,” and then... set it up so that it’s quite clear and then either you’ll have the margin that you need or you won’t, really?
Robert: I think – this is Robert – I think one of the problems here I think is the definition of “abstention.” I think it goes to the people who abstained, how they felt that meant, whether they were either not informed or wished to not have their vote count but signify that they’re interested in it but showing up, which is kind of the definition that Nick gave. I think going through the process a second time... you know, we just have to be careful. So I think, you know, we’d need maybe to define and go through the OP a bit more. What I would suggest is that if we do go the route of a second vote, you know, that then... that particularly for the new people on board, to get a sense from them how up-to-date they are on the topic and make sure that they know what’s being discussed and can vote accordingly. And we should decide ahead of time in terms of voting if we’re to vote again, to we have a yes/no option or do we have yes/no/abstain, and if we have an abstain, what does “abstain” mean?
Male: In fact, I think when a number of people have voted including the second delegate from my section, and this is inaudible 0:17:29, they indicated that they did not wish their lack of vote to either advance or harm the proposal.
Nick: Let’s use the standard 0:17:42 of abstention.
Evan: But as it sits right now – this is Evan – as it sits right now, given the way we set things up, an abstention works against the achievement of the 70%.
Robert: No, it does not.
Male: It does not.
Male: overtalking 0:17:58 ...by the people were not that they abstained. They said that they were not voting... they did not want their lack of voting to count towards or against the proposal.
Evan?: But if they are...
Darlene: So basically it takes them right out of the denominator of it at all. They’re not yes, they’re not no, and it takes them out of the denominator of the equation.
Evan?: That’s the way I read the vote, unless you all feel that the proposal couldn’t withstand that interpretation.
Darlene: Which makes it kind of interesting because we had 14 yeses and 5 nos giving 19 total votes, which gives us 74% right now, and that’s before the new people vote.
Sylvia: This is Sylvia from People Who, and when we first joined, it was just as the vote was coming up a few weeks ago and my first quick reading was to vote “Sure, this looks fine.” Then I saw levels of discussion that I knew absolutely nothing about that inaudible 0:19:04 raising and realized I couldn’t possibly get up to speed. I would have to read archives of the list, I didn’t know what was going on and I didn’t want to vote either way, so we abstained. We want to be active, we want to follow, but a lot of these issues have a history, that I didn’t have any stake jumping into the middle of. So if that helps this conversation forward.
Evan?: I mean, what you’re saying is absolutely legitimate, but Bret 0:19:38, this kind of thing works exactly against what you’re trying to achieve.
Nick: If you count abstentions, yeah. It does... overtalking
Darlene: But if you don’t, then it doesn’t. Yeah.
Nick: Yeah, which is why abstentions are generally not counted.
Gareth: I feel... It’s Gary Shearman, and I feel very strongly that we should not be trying to not be watering down the vote by counting abstentions. These people are... I mean, we just heard from one of the people who’s abstained that don’t want to affect the outcome of the vote, they just don’t have enough information.
Sylvia?: Right, right. I think you’re right, I would agree with that.
Bret?: But you know, what... we are all just getting started and I would say that no one is really... Some of us have been around for a while, others have not, but we don’t have a RALO yet, we’re all trying to build it. And I know that some people have more history than others, but what can we do so that people who feel uncomfortable voting because they don’t have the background they need can vote? Because I would like rather than have people abstain, I would like to, you know, give them whatever resources they need to come up to speed and let them cast what they feel is a relatively educated vote.
Gareth?: I think you’re quite correct but I don’t think we can... I don’t think we should be holding up the process while we bring these people up to speed. That will happen over time and they will join in and be able to vote yes or no with some knowledge. But I don’t think we should be holding up what we’re trying to do right now until that happens.
Evan?: And since there’s the joining all the time, there will always be people that are involved in the process that are learning.
Female: Yeah.
John: Hi, this is John Levine. I mean, you’re right. On the other hand, I think if we can’t get 70% of the people involved enough to cast a meaningful vote now, I don’t know how we’re going to have any hope of having inaudible 0:21:34 participation to go along.
Danny: John, this is Danny. I’d like to make a recommendation. Back when we had the original At-Large elections, we went through a formal election process where in part of the process was the education cycle, and time was set aside to in fact educate the public, to present information, and give everybody a chance to come up to speed before a final vote was held. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, it makes sense.
Darlene?: So every month we’ll have to do that, and so this will basically postpone this vote indeterminately.
Danny: No, I’m simply saying that an appropriate schedule with appropriate timeframes.
Robert: This is Robert. You know, I have to disagree because, you know, we’re not in the same structure that we were when the original At-Large elections were done. And now 0:22:28, you know, that’s confusing things. I mean, where are we right now? And I think... you know, I think one thing that is needed and I think Bret is trying to make a case for it, is that it would be good to get a vote of the people that are there now. At the same time, this discussion has been going on really far too long and I think that if... you know, I think there is far more support for this than people wish to imply, and people have their reservations and they have good reasons to have reservations. But this is being stalled and let’s really, you know, think about that, that there’s a determined set 0:23:07, a few people that will do everything they can and mention everything they can to stop this. And, you know, that’s fine but at the same time there is, you know, right now well over 70% of the people involved, and, you know, back and forth, you know, it’s... You know, we can discuss whether... what to call abstentions or not.
And so, you know, let’s take that into consideration as well. So if we start talking about education campaigns, you know, do we need materials? We can go on and on. I mean, we have well over 50%, we have a threshold which is far higher probably than any other of the At-Large regions that have been discussing this, and so, you know, let’s put that into perspective and just try to design something that recognizes some of those issues as well too.
So, I mean, I won’t go on, because this discussion in regards to people who have their reservations and who did what 10 years ago or whatever, you know, aren’t really relevant. We have a situation now and let’s try to deal with the situation we have now.
Bret: But... And just – this is Bret again – just to follow on that, I think it’s not that we’re going to have to re-educate people and start the voting process over each month. We’re very close to getting these approved and I think they will be approved. And, you know, I don’t want to be seen as, you know, suggesting that people ought to approve them or not – they ought to do what they think is best – but, you know, right now, riding around 65% and we just need to get 70% and we need to get some of the people who are abstaining to either tell us that they approve or what we need to change to get their approval so that we can start a vote again. I think, you know, we’re going to come to the end of this I hope very quickly and new organizations that join after something that’s been approved, whether it’s the one that’s out for vote or some subsequent iteration of it, they’re going to be bound by those rules when they come in. We just need to set the stage among ourselves for what our rules are going to be.
Beau: Hi, this is Beau Brendler. As a sort of like total brand-new newcomer, I don’t want to hold you guys up and I’m beginning to understand some of the frustrations and such you must be dealing with, but in terms of voting on something, I mean, if somebody could just tell me – I’m on the wiki now where it says “RALO organizing documents” – if I read and distribute to the people I want to discuss this with here in order to vote, the Memorandum of Understanding, the Operating Principles, and the Code of Conduct, my understanding is that is specifically what needs to be voted on right away, is that correct? Because none of the...
Bret?: Okay. The Operating Principles...
Beau: Yeah.
Bret?: ...that are out for a vote and the Code of Conduct, they are out for a vote, once we get those approved we will...
Beau: And they’re in the format that they’re supposed to voted on here in this wiki, where it says... where they’re linked to?
Bret?: Yes.
Beau: Okay, great.
Bret?: Yeah. And in the footer of every e-mail on this list right now, I think Nick or whoever the list administrator is has kindly put links to those documents also.
Beau: Terrific. Thanks.
Seth: This is Seth in Honolulu again. You know, I just wanted to point out that it’s not easy to come up to speed on the issues and I think that those of you who have been involved for the process for a long time and are well acquainted with the issues should be respectful of the newcomers who would prefer to watch from the sidelines and not either hold up or vote prematurely. So I think it’s not entirely fair or realistic to expect newcomers to want to jump right in and I think a process that would respect that but not hold up the movement of the proposal makes the most sense.
Sylvia: This is Sylvia, and as a newcomer I would agree and I don’t really want to feel pressured to get, quote, “up to speed” because having read the list, a lot of it in the last few weeks, it isn’t just reading inaudible 0:27:21. Clearly there’s more going on and I’m very happy to let the ones who’ve been involved with this make the decisions. I don’t think abstains should count. I think it should be 70% of the votes cast, not the abstaining, and otherwise I feel it’s too onerous for me 0:27:44, the participating. I don’t think that’s what’s wanted really.
Seth?: In a way, we newcomers can be leveraged by others and I don’t think we want to be leveraged.
Sylvia?: Yeah, that’s a good...
Nick: May I...
Bret?: Well, this is very helpful to hear. I had not... Frankly, I had not expected to hear this. So what we might want to do is, I think following the call – not today on the call because I think we need to move on, but following the call – let’s see where we are on the vote, see if we can get any more people to vote on what we said is the current groundwork, which was that it would be approved when we got 70% of ALSes as it says in that paragraph 15. If we can’t within some reasonable time – and why don’t we call it a week from today – then let’s revise the Draft Operating Principles, talk about it on the list of course, and perhaps come up with a voting mechanism that will expressly say one way or another how we’re going to deal with abstentions and non-participation.
Evan: This is Evan. Can I make a suggestion that does exactly what you’re saying without having to change a word of the procedures? The way that you’ve described this, I recall the term was “votes from active ALSes.” Well, it’s very easy to interpret an “active ALS” as one that has submitted a vote. So it’s very easy to do what you’re saying, turn around in a week from now and say, “Look, if we don’t have 70% of everyone, do we have 70% of those that indicated a preference?” and basically allow us to move on. I’m just hearing a bit of a feedback loop in this call that was very similar to the last one.
Darlene: Yeah – this is Darlene here – because doing it but 0:30:00 the way that you’re suggesting is just going to take weeks and weeks more, and I know we don’t want to push things stupidly. But if we’ve already got 70%, actually over 70% of those that are active and are participating on the lists, in the votes, everything else, we’re already well over 70% of the active ones. I’d hate to make this drag on longer needlessly, especially if the newcomers to the groups are saying, “Hey, we’re okay with this.”
Sylvia: Yeah.
Bret?: Just as a matter of...
Male: I, I, I...
Bret?: Just as a matter of procedural fairness, I feel that something would be wrong with starting a vote on one basis, which was 70% of all ALSes, which would be 0:30:41...
Darlene: No, it’s active ALSes. Active, not all.
Bret?: Active ALSes. Then using a majority to define “active” in a way that allowed that threshold to come down from where we had believed it to be previously.
Male: Which votes...
Male: Again, if you examine the actual votes from the people you’re claiming are abstaining, I think you’ll see language that supports the concept.
Male: Okay.
Male: I mean, it depends on... you know, you can be sure... I mean, the fairness concept is important, so the question is whether you sacrifice efficiency to go back through everything.
Bret?: Well, I don’t want to do that over someone’s objection that thinks that we’re... I don’t want someone to say that we’re steamrolling them.
Evan?: Okay, we’ve had people who say we’re steamrolling them, which has happened from day one and will happen until I die. That’s not the issue here. The issue is are we being reasonably fair to most of the participants here.
Nick: Well, one question I would ask is in this connection, of those new ALSes on the call, which I think is four of the five if not all of the five, do they feel hard done by if they choose not to vote on the present document and the fact that they didn’t vote is not counted in the total number of votes? Because if those people do not feel that they are being unfairly treated, maybe that solves the problem of unfairness that you don’t want to have.
Sylvia: Well – and this is Sylvia – from the People Who perspective, if I... I could have not voted at all, which would have been not an active member and maybe... I don’t know. But since I abstained, I participated 0:32:41 inaudible saying, “You guys decide, I’m fine with it.” That’s my understanding of abstain. So I think it’s fine to go forward from our perspective.
Bret: Okay. Well, does anyone on the call think that... interpreting abstentions in the way we’ve talked about would be unfair? pause Okay. Well, that tells me a lot. Well, why don’t we move on off of this subject and I will send... I will look as I mentioned at the votes that have been cast and see if we can get approval under what we’ve already done. If not, I’ll go back and read the abstentions and make a proposal to the list about how we deal with it.
Sylvia?: And define “active” while you’re at it, in whatever way you’ve decided.
Bret: Yeah. I think the key is to key off the word “active.”
Danny?: Bret, one question. Of those organizations that voted no, how many of them are currently on this call?
Bret: I don’t know, and I think before we move forward, we’ll certainly want to describe what’s happened, wait for the transcript of this call and the recording to be posted and give people an opportunity to comment on the list.
Darlene: I believe Robert had the list of who voted yes/no... Oh, I see.
Robert: I did. 0:34:09
Darlene: Actually, I believe we only have one person here that was on the list that voted no and that’s John Levine. Other than that, Neil Schwartzman and Scott voted no and those are the only other...
Robert: One thing too...
Darlene: ...organization, two more. 0:34:19
Robert: ...is Wendy did send her apologies earlier today that she could not make the call. And, you know, the discussions for those of you who may have been following a flurry of activities in e-mails from last night until today is discussion I guess for another point which is how we could be structured if we went forward, but...
Danny?: Well, Nick, isn’t that part of the overall question here? The way I read the operating principles, we’re trying to generally arrive what Bret is describing as a rough consensus and there are people such as Wendy inaudible 0:34:57 structurally I think there might be a better way of doing something. And as yet we can’t say that we’ve come to a rough consensus on the best way forward, we’re still kicking it around. Would that be an accurate observation?
Gareth?: I interpret it differently, but that works as well as anything.
Darlene: Yeah, I do too, because I interpret it differently. But go ahead.
Robert: Yeah, I mean, I would disagree with your call that we don’t have rough consensus. I think that we do.
Danny?: Well, perhaps because I’m steeped in what consensus means within an ICANN tradition which may be a different definition than perhaps some of the members on this call are familiar with.
Darlene: What is that?
Danny?: Well, consensus basically means that you cannot have people that have got strident objections unless those objections are unreasonable.
Darlene: Oh geez 0:36:03, inaudible we’ll never get anywhere. laughter
Robert: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think one thing that may be affecting this is that, you know, the definition of what consensus is depends on the culture of the organization that you’re in and also what country. So I... you know, and I may 0:36:19...
Danny? Well, true. I mean, we are using rough consensus in a document that’s within the ICANN framework, so perhaps we should be a little bit more grounded then I guess in the terminology that we’re using.
Robert: Yeah. I remember one of the e-mails, and I think it may have been one of Luc’s e-mails, is he took not the ICANN definition, he actually went to the IETF. There’s a request for proposals that define rough consensus and I think that’s where the 70% came from. So I think, you know, we set our own rules here and I think that we have to be careful what we cite, and so I think that if we’re citing IETF standard practice or whatever, that we have to reference that because there are those of us who, you know, come from different electoral 0:37:08 backgrounds, may not know the references, and it’s good to cite them and that way people can vote appropriately as well too. And so just to say that, “Well, rough consensus in ICANN means one thing and we should vote accordingly,” I think, well, we are those 0:37:23 in North America, we set our own definitions inaudible. Let’s not go back in terms of, you know, how ICANN operates or how the UN operates, let’s just figure that out ourselves.
Darlene?: Yeah.
Danny?: Alright. Well, then at the very least, wouldn’t it be prudent to have the definition section as we have in all ICANN contracts so at least we all know what we’re referring to?
Robert: I’ll let someone else answer. I’ll just look up...
Bret: Well, this is Bret. Actually, there is a link to RFC 2418, as Robert mentioned, in the Draft Operating Principles to the definition of rough consensus, but that’s rough consensus going forward. That’s a different standard than what we set for approval, which is what we’re trying to get at now. Anyway 0:38:10, I think we’ve hashed this issue through and I get a sense of where people’s views are. What I’m going to suggest is that I summarize them and post them to the list and we first try to finish the process on the path we’ve contemplated. Second, I’ll propose that if that doesn’t work within a reasonable time, that we will interpret abstentions and silence as inactivity and recount, and if anyone has an objection to that they can state it on the list and we can deal with it in the coming days.
Darlene: Question. What would you consider to be a reasonable time, because I know after the last vote we had two weeks of stagnation where nothing really happened and I would really hate to see that happen again? So I... overtalking 0:38:59 ...reasonable time... overtalking
Bret: I think given the approach of the Puerto Rico meeting, I think we’ve got to get closure on the current process I would say a week from today.
Danny?: I would say no later than that certainly.
Male: So what will happen exactly one week from today?
Bret: One week from today... Well, maybe we’ll have 70% approval before that. If not, I think we’re basically asking everyone who has not cast a vote to cast a vote between this call and Tuesday, June 5th. And if they have not cast a vote, I think that the note that we send to them is that we will consider them inactive for purposes of paragraph 15 of the Operating Principles.
Darlene: Yes, I think that’s a great idea and what you may also want to do is that if they disagree with that – that thought of being inactive for purposes of paragraph 15 – that they should come forward and say something on list and that way we will know what everybody’s true take on that situation is.
Bret?: Yeah.
Male: Okay, sounds good.
Bret: Alright. So anyway, where are we on our agenda? The next thing to talk about was the MoU with ICANN. I know that this has been the hot subject on the mailing list over the last few days. I personally thought that... I don’t know if everyone’s been following it to what level... Well, let me just back up. I don’t know to what level of detail people have been following this, but there were some comments put forward by ICANN legal staff about the current MoU. If you haven’t read that, I encourage you to read it, and I think as we summarize this call in the notes that will come out later today or tomorrow morning, we’ll provide a link to that message so you can look at it. But the ICANN staff said that there were some suggestions that they would make to the draft of the MoU, and again you can find the current MoU that we proposed and the ICANN staff was commenting in the footer of every e-mail that’s sent to the e-mail list.
I thought for the most part the recommendations from ICANN were good. They suggested language from other MoUs that we had not considered that we might want to consider. The one place that we thought they might push back, in fact they did, and that was on giving people standing to challenge ICANN or to sue ICANN and trying to create some responsibility hooks in the MoU. And I know that Wendy voiced some comments about that. Luc sent a message to the list taking account of some of Wendy’s concerns, proposing some additional language that I thought were good. But we still have to at some point before Puerto Rico, we’re contemplating on the current schedule, we will have to come up with a text that we want to propose to ICANN if we want to get the RALO up and running at the Puerto Rico meeting at the end of June.
Gerry?: This is Gerry 0:42:33. Didn’t Luc also propose some language that would meet the concerns expressed ICANN legal?
Nick: In some points, yes. There are some other points I think he didn’t actually cover, or at least looking at the text, he didn’t cover them. Maybe he didn’t mean to.
Gerry?: Right.
Male: So does the wiki have the current version with Luc’s revisions, recent revisions?
Nick: Yeah, as far as I can tell.
Male: Bret, I have a question for you. I know that within the ccTLD community they tend to approach an MoU either from an accountability framework approach or from an exchange of letters approach, two distinct approaches to basically come at what we in fact are calling an MoU. Is there anything in view of the ccTLD experience that you think that you can successfully bring to the NARALO? Maybe if we’re hung up on accountability framework type of issues, perhaps an exchange of letters approach might be more prudent if you want to try to get this thing moving forward.
Bret: I’m not familiar with that terminology. I’m going under the assumption – and Nick, you can confirm or deny – that we were just trying to work with the model that was used by the other RALOs.
Nick: Well, you’re not obliged to do that. The RALOs have tended to follow reasonably closely the original text developed by the LAC region I think more from a fact that there was nothing substantially wrong with that in people’s minds and that it covered most of the points that they wanted to cover more than anything else. But you’re not obliged to do that. The whole point of the MoU idea was that you can go in different directions from one another inaudible 0:44:46 fits their cultural and other values, though it does appear that the text in its current form is quite similar substantially to the other regions’.
Evan?: Isn’t it safe to say that we’re still reasonably close to something that’s mutually acceptable?
Nick: Very, I would say.
Bret: This is Bret. I didn’t see anything... Given our last call and the lack of support for the legal hooks that were in the original draft, I didn’t see anything in the ICANN revisions or the commentary that would suggest we shouldn’t go forward.
Gerry: I agree. This is Gerry.
Darlene?: Uh-huh. 0:45:46
Nick: Is it worth my just briefly highlighting the points which might be issues for ICANN or where you would be... we would suggest you look closely at something?
Gerry?: Sure.
Nick: There’s only a few. In sections here 0:46:05, with respect to the unaffiliated individual, the one... this has evolved from the version that we’ve used for staff proposals, but the one thing that we would suggest that you add here is that amongst the other characteristics of unaffiliated individuals is that they are not a member of another RALO, either directly as an individual or indirectly as a member of an ALS. And this is simply a double dipping...
Gerry?: Oh, you mean... of a non-North American RALO, you mean then 0:46:47?
Nick: That’s right, that’s right. You haven’t ruled out that an unaffiliated individual in NARALO couldn’t also be an unaffiliated individual of another RALO.
Gerry?: And, I’m sorry, why couldn’t they be?
Robert: Well, because we’re defining a North American RALO and so at the beginning of the document we’re saying that, you know, people have to be checked out that they are from North America, yet we have this hook that allows people from other regions and also maybe other constituencies from other regions to join as an unaffiliated user. So we could have governmental users, if the Province of Quebec joined the unaffiliated users and people from, you know, France and Spain who are in the European region joining the North American region.
Nick: Now... overtalking 0:47:36
Danny: overtalking ...I’m sorry, go ahead.
Nick: Well, I was just going to say quickly because I may be able to do solve this without too much excitement, is in clause 3.1, you do specify that both... that “The NARALO should composed of At-Large Structures and unaffiliated individuals within the North American Region.” So you could actually suggest, say that either modifying “unaffiliated individual” simply maintains congruence between the two sections or that that’s what you meant all along. So it’s not that big a deal.
Darlene: No, especially since “North American region” is already defined in the definitions, it seems 0:48:22 that it’s kind of... overtalking
Nick: So I just highlighted that as a minor point of consistency really more than anything else, internal consistency. Was it Danny? Were you about to say something?
Danny: Yeah, I was inaudible 0:48:34. I recall a section of the bylaws that was introduced back in I think 2002 with respect to the GNSO that basically said, “Look, you can be a member of multiple constituencies, we don’t have a problem with that.” And that was the board’s perspective, and now I’m wondering...
Nick: That is perspect-... 0:48:53
Danny: ...whether the perspective itself has changed.
Nick: No, my understanding is that it’s not changed and in many other regions we do have people wearing multiple hats, as it were. The only thing that’s not terribly okay is if people within the same community or ALSes within the same constituency here were themselves voting in multiple RALOs. But if someone from the ccNSO wants to join, you know, a RALO... In fact we have that. I think one of the offices in the Asian region is on the GNSO Council, for example. So that is okay. You’re right, Danny, it remains so.
The other point though with respect to 3.1 is that you’ve specified that “The NARALO shall be comprised of At-Large Structures,” but you have not explicitly said “all At-Large Structures.” And you may wish to do that because there was never an idea that one could join At-Large and be kept out of a region that they were a resident of, and I suspect that is not what you mean in this case.
The other point with respect to Article 4.4, “Providing the necessary funds to support NARALO activities and a NARALO Secretariat,” there’s some suggested language to match the LAC MoU from which this clause was originally drawn. Obviously ICANN has to... will continue to support that At-Large but needs to do it in an agreement in connection with the other budgeting processes and their annual planning, so there’s a need for some recognition of the fact that the resources that are devoted to NARALO are subject to the overall planning process, which is itself a subject of consultation and all the rest. I know that that one will be...
Seth?: overtalking 0:51:16
Nick: I know that one will be quite important.
Seth: This is Seth in Honolulu. Going back to the clause 3.4, it seems like the suggestion from ICANN was to change also the phrase “and individual users,” and I guess what troubled me about that is that without 0:51:39 referencing the unaccredited... I’m sorry, unaffiliated users, you lose the benefit of that definition. So I don’t know if that was an oversight or I don’t understand what was trying to be...
Nick: Yeah, that’s... that added... That language was based on what was in the MoU as at the 16th of May, and between that time and the time that the document was released, the definition of “individual” changed to “unaffiliated individual.”
Seth: So that inconsistency is no longer present?
Nick: No. Though in truth, there’s a point later about capitalizing defined terms when they’re used and I think you would want to capitalize “unaffiliated” and “individual” and use them in that capitalized sense throughout the text. But that’s a fairly minor sort of clean-up operation, really.
Seth: Thank you.
Nick: The... clause 4.6...
Danny: I’ll make one point before you go on on the budgetary matters. Can we say something as simple as “ICANN shall provide administrative and operational support necessary for the NARALO to carry out its responsibilities. Such 0:53:03 supports should not include an obligation to fund travel expenses”?
Nick: Well, you could say something. I mean, as long as there’s some qualification that the resources being provided are subject to the annual operational and budgetary planning process...
Danny: Okay.
Nick: This is not accepted out of that system, that’s really the main thing.
Danny: But... overtalking 0:53:28
Nick: I’m going to give you an example.
Danny: I think we’d all agree, Nick, that that’s fair if we are part of the budgetary planning process.
Nick: And all the regions are, all the RALOs got asked last year, we’re 0:53:46 at their various meetings, that if they had any particular plans that they wanted to make, any projects that they wanted to run, to let me know so that I could help come up with a budget or draft a budget for it or whatever, to include it in the submissions that I make for the budget. In the end, I didn’t actually get any from any of the regions so I basically just said, “Well, we need one staff person to be shared across all the RALOs in addition to the staff that already exists,” and assumed 0:54:20 that we should put in travel for 20 people at each ICANN meeting, so reasons to meet and this kind of thing. So I basically, you know, made up something that I thought I could justify to those up the food chain. But honestly, it would be very helpful, to the extent that the region has something it wishes to do, you know, it’s much easier for me to persuade those upstream to fund something if it’s coming from the regions instead of my idea of what would help the regions.
Danny: Okay. And Nick, it’s just one last comment and I’ll bug off, but having gone through the posted budget, I see that the figures for the At-Large are conflated with the fellowship figures. Can you break that out a bit for us in the future so we know what numbers we’re actually dealing with?
Nick: There’s actually a pretty good reason for that. Well, you tell me if you agree that it’s a good reason. The reason that At-Large’s funding is not clearly broken out is because there are constituencies in ICANN that don’t like At-Large getting funding, and the more we stand out, the more grousing that they make. So it’s actually to protect the constituencies’ funding level that it is procured 0:55:35 in the way that it is. There will be some more detail here shortly coming out of the ALAC on what is in the budget this year that is different than last year, but I can tell you it is the addition of a full-time person to help all the regions as well as 20 people on top of the At-Large Advisory Committee attending each of the ICANN meetings to allow the regions to meet. Those are the main expenditures that are new this year.
Danny: Nick, thank you for that. Unfortunately, I have to be leaving the call in a few minutes to catch a bus to inaudible 0:56:17 for several hours. So I wish you all well, and enjoy the rest of your teleconference.
Bret: Thanks, Danny.
Danny: Bye now.
Nick: Thanks, Danny.
Robert: Bret, this is Robert. May I add that, you know, this is quite a good discussion kind of on the budget and the issue... one of the points that was raised in regards to I think the MoU, so it would be good that either yourself or myself or Nick over the course of the next week or two also get people discussing that issue as well, on the list as well too, and what specific language we want to use to revise our existing agreement so it’s consistent ICANN legal’s concerns.
Bret: Yes, good. That is definitely an action item, which is to take the current draft MoU and try to take account of ICANN’s suggestions and what we’re talking about here.
Nick: Yeah, and I can tell you that ICANN is pretty easy going about the contents of these provided they aren’t turned into legal agreements where hundreds of millions of people can sue ICANN, for fairly obvious reasons, or where the obligations ICANN undertakes would conflict with or, like with this financing thing, exempt any RALO from the processes that all the other communities have to go through or all the other RALOs have to go through, because then of course those communities or those RALOs will come back and say, “Well, why do they get treated differently than we do?” Which, you know, may or may not be a fair thing to say, but we’re trying not to make other people unhappy whilst making you happy, if you know what I’m saying. But other than that, it seems 0:58:09 pretty easy.
I mean, ICANN, you know, agreed... The big fight over the MoU to date has actually been in the language guarantees in the LAC MoU, which was the subject of quite a lot of furious back and forth – “furious” meaning busy, active, not yelling, shouting – and it was a pretty major step that ICANN’s senior staff agreed to commit to translating documents into other languages. At-Large is the only community in ICANN that has that guarantee at the present time.
So... and there’s a few other things like that. I mean, I don’t have to go through them all if you don’t want me to do, but...
Bret: So Nick, just give me a path forward here. This is Bret again. What do we need to do if we want to get an MoU for a new North American RALO approved in Puerto Rico? What sort of lead time do we need to give the staff of our agreed text and how will it work once we get down to Puerto Rico?
Nick: Well, just so everyone’s familiar with the process, it’s the point at which the MoU is delivered to me and you say, “Right, we’re happy with this.” It goes to legal. Legal takes a view and because they have given their preview of this, providing that it’s not something that they really strongly objected to, they then say, “We’re okay with this.” Now we put it up for a public comment period.
Now some MoUs have been put up for a comment period so that they are finished with their 21-day comment period before the ICANN meeting where the agreement will be signed, but that’s been the minority. Most of the MoUs have either been agreed right before, even at the ICANN meetings they were signed at, and then the public comment period has gone on from that point forward. The only difference between your finishing it in good time for the comment period to be completed before the end of the ICANN meeting in San Juan is that your elected ALAC representatives will be able to take their seat only at the point where the public comment period has concluded.
So you can... for example, if you finish the MoU only at the Puerto Rico meeting, you can elect your members. Your members would then of course be invited as members-elect to attend the ALAC meeting, but they would not formally take their seat and indeed would not formally vacate hers 1:01:03 until the 21-day period has ended.
Now of course one of those seats, one of the two North American seats is actually vacant and I suspect strongly that the necessary I-dotting and T-crossing could be done so that the senior member, the member with the two-year term as opposed to the member with the one-year term, could take their seat directly since the seat is vacant. But that’s really the only difference between... that’s imposed by when your public comment period starts and ends.
Bret: Okay, thank you.
Nick: And you have... I think technically you could still make it.
Bret: Yeah, I was looking at it. If the board actually meets on the 29th and then 21 days before that, it’d be basically the end of next week, I think that...
Nick: Yeah, you could make it.
Bret: ...I think that’s sort of optimistic, but...
Nick: It might be tight, but it’s technically possible.
Bret: Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s do all the work we can on the list and see where we are. Alright, anything else on the MoU?
Nick: One thing I would say that’s a particular thing to highlight is in clause 5.6. The original text that I proposed was modified I think by Wendy, and what she changed, the role that region has in helping to determine what applications for ALS spaces from your region would be accredited. And whether or not she intended this – perhaps she didn’t – she actually greatly reduced the role of the NARALO and its members in deciding or helping ALAC to decide whether or not ALAC should accredit applications from your region.
To let you know, the ALAC is going to debate a new process for approving applications in Puerto Rico which relies upon the language that I’ve given you in the staff review that is originally from the LAC RALO but was duplicated across all the other regions. And so you aren’t obliged to adopt this process, but, you know, it would be demonstratively simpler if all the regions worked in the same way with respect to their advice and consent to ALS application handling.
So the existing language that Wendy has, even if you preferred that lesser role, it would need some modifications because the bylaws, the ICANN bylaws do require MoUs to state a bit more about how ALS applications are to be handled than the language Wendy modified – I think it’s Wendy, I hope I’m not taking her name in vain – provided. So, you know, on a kind of off the record note, I would hope that the region does not choose to water down its ability to decide who is a member in this way.
Evan?: What was the rationale behind the change?
Nick: I’m not sure. I’m not sure.
Evan?: Could you possibly just send a note around on the list to bring that to everybody’s attention so we can have another look at that particular point? I certainly wasn’t aware of the way that wording would get in the way of the process, at least in your way that other RALOs didn’t have.
Nick: Yeah, it just basically means that you’re leaving it pretty much solely up to the ALAC to decide for you, whereas what we had suggested was that ALAC would basically do what you... it could overrule your decisions if it felt your were being unfair to an applicant, but otherwise the default would be that your judgement would be approved.
Robert: This is Robert. Let me just go, take a step back and see what the process is now. So right now, if there’s a new applicant from North America that wishes to apply for ALS, that application I guess would go to you and it would go the At-Large Committee or ALAC for their consideration and decision, correct?
Nick: That’s right.
Robert: And would...
Nick: And within the committee, there is a... the regional members for... the three members for a given region are asked for their view on whether an application should be approved or not, and it’s rare for the committee to vote against the recommendation of the three ALAC reps. What the MoU language I’ve suggested to you here which the others have adopted does is actually mean that 1:06:33 instead of the three ALAC members deciding whether or not the region advises an application be granted, the region itself provides that advice.
Robert: And the region itself would be... overtalking?
Nick: Or the ALS 1:06:48 inaudible are asked what their view of the applicant is.
Robert: And do the ALAC members for the region for the region have a say in that as well as an equal voice, or are they excluded from the decision?
Nick: They’re not excluded, but it specifically gives the NARALO the right to recommend and applicant for certification or not. So it is then up to the NARALO to decide what role the three ALAC representatives play in that decision. But again, once again it is up to you to decide.
Robert: In regards to our process, and I’ll finish with this comment, so does that arrangement that you’re talking about currently exist for any of the other RALOs that have been set up?
Nick: It only informally exists because the proposal that I have put forward – I’ve forward it to the list a few times, I’ll remind people of it – which would implement a change in the application handling to give effect to these provisions has not yet been adopted by ALAC. So at the moment, the three ALAC members in a region are meant to be informally asking their regions for regional advice and passing that on. The secretariats of the various regions have a mailing list of their own – you know, inventively called “secretariat” – and they’re all discussing at this point how to help gather the views of their regions going forward once the operationalization of these MoU provisions is completed.
So the idea’s really to decentralize these decisions. ALAC is debating a proposal for how to evaluate an application so that the application handling is done in a consistent way in addition to the process, which is another sort of problem at the moment because that’s currently completely informal. But the idea really is that these decisions to the greatest extent should go to the regions, since the regions really... you know, people joining in your region are your members. So there’s not many more fundamental decisions than who should be a part of the region than... and who should not.
Robert: Thank you.
Male: inaudible 1:09:27
Bret: Alright. So anything else on the MoU?
Nick: On the rest 1:09:44, you can all see it for yourselves, I think.
Bret: Yeah.
Male: inaudible
Bret: I’m sorry, was that someone? pause Okay. Anyway, we’ve actually talked through number three on the agenda as we’ve talked through one and two. Three was “Agree on a process for remaining work,” I think we’ve talked about that here.
Nick: Well, except for what you want to do about the MoU, really.
Bret: Well, I think as an action item what I need to do or someone else – maybe we can each try our hand at it, anyone who’s interested – is take the comments that we’ve seen on the list, the comments from ICANN staff, and do I think a red-lined version of the wiki version of the MoU so we can put it up for discussion and possibly see if we can get a consensus around it. pause I’m not hearing any objection to that. Let’s just plan on that.
Seth: This is Seth Reiss. I’m going to have to sign off, but I’d like to express my appreciation for being included. I enjoyed my first telephone conference.
Bret: Thanks Seth. I was going to ask Nick to address travel logistics quickly since I do know that we’re getting long if you’d like to stay for that.
Seth: I’ll try, but I don’t want to... overtalking 1:11:20
Nick: It’s a quick story.
Bret: Yeah. Nick, what do we need to do to go to Puerto Rico?
Nick: Basically, we are changing travel... ICANN as a whole is eventually changing travel partners I understand, but certainly we are first and the ink is almost dry on the contract which will allow the booking to begin. I’m literally waiting like today, tomorrow kind of thing to be able to turn around and say, “Right, these people, your information on your departure dates and cities and all that has been given to the travel service, it is this service, call this number and they will book your tickets for you.” The information on your arrival and departure that you’ve indicated has been handed to the ICANN person who handles hotel bookings and you will either have a room in the host hotel or in an adjacent hotel. As usual, we’ve run out of rooms in the host hotel so it’s not quite clear who’s going to be in it. But in any case, your hotel will get handled centrally and ultimately I will be given a list of who is going to what hotel.
Evan?: Is it possible at least to ask that all the North American RALO delegates at least get the same hotel so it’s easier for us to side meet?
Darlene: Yeah, really 1:12:46.
Nick: That’s traditionally what happens. That’s generally how it works.
Bret: Yeah. Traditionally, the ALAC does not get the host hotel because we send so many people, and especially now that we are bringing people in for the signings of the MoUs, my guess is we will not be at the host hotel but we will all be together.
Nick: Yes, that’s right. A lot of... Even all of ALAC doesn’t always end up at the host hotel now because of the growth of these meetings, so... But, I mean, you’ll all be notified in advance, there will be a page of travel information posted on the wiki saying, you know, “Here’s where you’re staying and here’s the address,” and often there are shuttle arrangements made so that there’s somebody there with a sign to meet you and take you to the hotel, otherwise there’s a taxi.
The one remaining question is in the past ICANN has run on 1:13:42 reimbursement basis where the expenses that you incur, you know, the incidental food, taxis, this kind of thing, you put in an expense report afterwards and get paid back. We’re trying to get rid of that system and simply operate on either a per diem based system or a simple stipend, just a sum to handle all that stuff so you don’t have to deal with receipts and all this. I’m just waiting... this is connected to the travel partner. By the way, it’s almost certainly American Express. If it is American Express, then you will able to actually get the money from your per diem or your, you know, lump sum in advance of travelling from a local American Express office, that’s what we’re going for.
Darlene: And if you don’t have a local American Express office?
Nick: And then we’ll have some sign 1:14:34 that we’ll get you the money a different way.
Darlene: Okie-dokie.
Robert?: Let me just... Something that you mentioned inaudible 1:14:40, that if there are circumstances or special requests to have a slightly different process, I need to get your OK before, correct?
Nick: Yes, everything’s in the travel plan there as far as booking your own trips and all that kind of thing. You know, you just have to... You know, if there’s any variance on the sort of standard thing, you have to ask for it. We’re trying very hard not to be travel agents. It’s not really... I’m one of the few in ICANN who actually did a great deal of travel work in the past and I thought I’d left that behind, but obviously not quite.
Seth: Thank you again, I got to go.
Bret: Alright, thanks. And I think... Anything else on travel, Nick, or is that it?
Nick: That’s it.
Bret: Alright. Let’s see. On our agenda, the only real other thing that we had before any other business was to brainstorm about some things to raise in Puerto Rico. I would like to suggest in the interests of time that if anyone does have suggestions about things, policy issues that we can raise in Puerto Rico, that they post that to the mailing list so we can have a time-shifted discussion about them. And also, everyone I think before we begin that discussion should take a look at the ICANN agenda for Puerto Rico which is linkable from the ICANN website at icann.org and see if, as things develop there, see if there are issues about which we care.
Nick: And just so you know, there are going to be some workshops which At-Large is the convenor 1:16:31 of and there will be full details of those coming out shortly. But At-Large should be more visible at this meeting than it ever has been, in part because it asked for 1:16:44 an Issues Report on Domain Tasting which was released today, and I encourage you to look at. That will be probably the major topic of the ICANN meeting is what to do about domain tasting... under that 1:16:57 grace period.
Robert: Let me raise one....
Bret?: Nick, have the panels been formulated yet for those? Is it possible that we could find a place on a panel that is going to take place in North America for a North American ALACer?
Nick: Well, there’s already a debate on new gTLDs, in particular geographic TLDs, and the discussion there is “Are they confusing to the consumer or do they actually give the consumer more choice?” You know, things like .berlin, .paris, this kind of thing. And Beau Brendler has already been asked and kindly agreed to be on that panel, for obvious reasons, alongside some EU parliamentarians and the .berlin guys and a number of others.
Male: inaudible 1:17:48
Nick: Though there will certainly be chances for North American participants to be on panels, we just have to get the dates. laughter I’m waiting to get the slots and the descriptions from some of the people who are organizing, you know, taking the lead in the organizing these. But definitely... overtalking 1:18:08
Bret: Well, if Beau’s on that, I think that’s great. I just thought it would be nice to get some new faces from our newly signed ALSes and that’s already been done.
Beau: Definitely yeah, and if there’s anything specific, any issues that you want, you know, brought up or whatever, I mean, certainly I’d be happy to do that.
Male: Yeah.
Bret?: Alright.
Nick: I think one of the geographic TLDs that’s been spoken of is .newyork by the way.
Beau: Oh, really?
Nick: Yeah.
Sébastien: This is... .nyc, not .newyork.
Beau: Oh, sorry, .nyc.
Robert: Let me suggest one thing that I’ve been... Maybe you know of Nick and 1:18:42 inaudible, who’s the ALAC chair of an event, one of the things that At-Large is supposed to try to do is outreach, and a pending e-mail that I have is we do have a North American At-Large Structure that’s based in Puerto Rico, and it might be a good idea to organize an outreach event with them outside of the conference venue, so... to get more people in Puerto Rico interested not only in At-Large but also ICANN in general. And this is going to what happened in Lisbon where an outreach event was organized at the University of Lisbon. And I think, you know, if ICANN is spending some money to take us down to Puerto Rico, not only should we try to move our agenda forward and our participation in ICANN, but also the greater community of At-Large users where the meeting’s being help. So...
Nick: On that topic I can tell you that there is currently meant to be a beach party, complete with Jacqueline 1:19:47 doing karaoke, I’m informed, and...
Robert: That’s not the type of outreach effort I was implying.
Nick: Yeah.
Robert: That’s a social event of which there are always many of them. There’s also kind of a formal dinner that always takes place. But I’m meaning something more serious that would, you know, engage people. I mean, Puerto Rico’s a small place but, I mean, if we... I think maybe for Bret, you’re based in LA, something maybe thinking forward, it would be great to have an outreach event in LA for the next ICANN meeting after Lisbon because LA is a huge city and there are definitely several educational institutions that probably know of ICANN, but... you know, to organize something there. So I’m maybe thinking ahead as well. So, you know, if we could build on what we do, what’s been done in Lisbon, what could be done in San Juan, and going forward to the fall, I think it would be a good idea.
Nick: I think that sounds... I think it would be.
Male: inaudible 1:20:57
Bret: So before we move on, any other business before we close up shop here and move everything to the list?
Robert?: What votes do we have? So we have a vote... So can you just do a quick summary in terms of some deadlines that we have between now and the next couple weeks.
Bret: As I’ve been taking notes here, the action items are, in fairly short order we’re going to take a look at the list and find out who hasn’t voted and Nick is going to send follow-up e-mail messages to them reminding them to vote and giving them instructions on how to do so, and we’re going to ask people to vote by a week from today and we’re going to tell them that if they don’t vote, we are going to consider them inactive for purposes of paragraph 15 of the Draft MoU... I mean, of the Draft Operating Principles.
Another action item is to start work on the MoU, try to take account of what we’ve seen from ICANN, what we’ve seen on the list, and what suggestions Luc has made and others may have made, and come up with a revised version or versions on the wiki for the MoU. If we approve the Operating Principles then it will be a consensus approach to determining whether we approve the MoU and we’ll try to figure out some way of humming 1:22:25 or voting or at least making our will known about how we feel about that. It would be wonderful if we can get it out by the end of next week so we could actually get people seated in Puerto Rico. I think that would be a wonderful thing to do but I’m not optimistic that we can get it done in a week, but let’s see where we are.
Robert: Can I just remind people that you did send a note out that you’re looking for candidates for the...
Bret: Yes.
Robert: ...expressions of interest... overtalking 1:22:57
Bret: Yes. We were going to... If... Thank you, Robert. I sent a note out last week or maybe earlier asking people who were interested in being one of the two At-Large Advisory Committee members from North America which this North American RALO will appoint to send an expression of interest, and I will circulate that again following this call and it should be linked in the notes that we are asking for expressions of interest by I believe it’s the last day before the Puerto Rico meeting starts. I think there’s an expectation that we will try to vote on someone or find some consensus on someone or someones in Puerto Rico so that those names can be announced at our signing ceremony, whether they are seated or not.
Evan?: Does there exist any kind of a web page or other kind of document that lists the duties and responsibility of that position?
Nick: Funny you should ask the question. Some of the newly elected members were asking for that too. There is not such a text at the present.
Bret: I looked for something before I sent it out and the best I could come up with, the nominating committee, which actually appoints five people to the At-Large Advisory Committee, one from each region, has the most general of descriptions about what the ALAC is. But no, nothing that basically says, “You’re expected to attend ICANN’s, you know, three times a year meeting, you’re expected to participate in monthly conference calls, you’re expected to read the mailing list and stay active in your region on what the issues are.” Now I think those are reasonable expectations that as far as I know have never been specified.
Evan?: I mean, you understand if the word is being put out that we’re looking for expressions of interest, that some kind of idea of, you know, what time is involved in doing this and what skills and experience are involved in advance of letting anyone know whether we’re wasting our time in even expressing interest.
Bret: You know, I...
Nick: I can come up with something. I think we could come up with something based on the non-com 1:25:14 thing and also previous requests for statements of interest when there were vacancies.
Bret: Yeah, you know, and I’ve sort of... a couple of people have asked me privately what the expectations are, and I will put those together and send them to the list as a whole so people understand at least my thinking on it. I mean, I’ve told people that I believe you’re expected to attend the three physical meetings, which are seven to eight days each, and I think it’s a significant time commitment. I would not... I would tell everyone to think very hard if they can afford to be on the road for almost a month a year before they put their name in the hat... overtalking 1:25:59
Nick: Though I would say that... Yeah, it is a real time commitment. I would say that going forward, as we perfect remote participation, you shouldn’t have to physically be there if you can’t be for one meeting or another because there will be a remote participation ability that should be... and enable you to take part in the meetings constructively.
Bret: Yeah. But I mean...
Nick: I don’t think you could go to none of the three meetings a year, but you could miss one or two I think.
Bret: Oh, I think given the fact that you’ll be elected for a two-year term and there will be six meetings, I think the expectation would be that you would go to a majority of those.
Nick: Yeah, that’s true. I think that’s a fair statement. Or at least participate in a majority of them.
Evan?: Okay. I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t expect the actual description to happen here on the phone call.
Nick: laughter Sorry.
Evan?: No, I’m not being rude, I was just hoping that there might be some kind of full idea of what that particular role required.
Nick: Yeah. Well, there are minimum participation requirements of ALAC members that the ALAC itself has adopted, and we could certainly attach those to what we’re talking about, Bret 1:27:23 inaudible.
Bret: Okay. Well yeah, let’s do that. If you could follow up whatever I post to the list with the ALAC expectations, that would be helpful.
Nick: Yeah.
Robert: There’s an item that I think Luc and I have been discussing in regards to this. I think there was a role call vote of how the different ALS votes went recently when Nick you announced the new ALSes, and one thing that I had noted is that Wendy had abstained on every single vote. And so one of the items that we might want to have as a discussion in San Juan is that if the NARALO is electing or appointing one or two persons, do we want to put in the people are going to sit on the ALAC, you know, that they at least participate actively in the discussions. So, you know, we can do that. If we’re appointing people, do we appoint them with any preconditions or do we just appoint them and say, you know, “Just go ahead and do whatever you want”?
Nick: All the other regions, just so you know, at their inaugural meetings have had quite long discussions about what was expected of their elected representatives. And they’re on a pretty tight leash actually I can tell you, in large part because there was a feeling amongst... there was a pretty general feeling that a lot of the board appointees were not very responsive to the regions and didn’t actually consult with the regional ALS community very much during their tenure. And in fact only one of them has been elected to an elected seat. Most of them declined even to run, but they wouldn’t have been elected if they had been candidates.
Darlene: Nick, would it be possible to get like a list of what other regions have come up with as to their expectations, just, I mean, to give us some kind of starting point, something just to think about?
Nick: I can try and compile them. Not all of them are in a readily written form. I think the African region ones are probably in the best form. I can certainly... Well, they’re afralo.org site too, but I can certainly get something together.
Darlene: Thank you, sorry. More work on you. laughter
Nick: That’s alright.
Sébastien: overtalking 1:29:37 ...something – it’s Sébastien – just to say I am new member for the ALAC and my feeling is that as soon as will be onboard we will have the real start of the ALAC with the real elected people, and we will have to invent maybe something new, or not totally new but something different than what was done by people designated by the ICANN vote and by the admitting 1:30:07 committee. And we will inaudible to construct together not just because it was say before it was written somewhere how we will work, but we will have to work together maybe in a new fashion.
Darlene: overtalking 1:30:23
Nick: I can say that I think Sébastien’s right.
Darlene: Yeah, all I was going to say is that, Nick...
Nick: Sébastien’s very right about that I think and he’s... I can tell you that I’ve seen a great difference in the committee since so many elected members have joined.
Darlene: Exactly. What I was just thinking is that it would give us things to think about because we may not be thinking of all the points because we have such a limited timeframe, but it would give us points to think about and for sure we want to do our own thing and make our own structure, for sure.
Nick: Well, and I... you know, the other thing too is in your meeting, if you want to discuss this with the newly-elected people from the various regions, I’m sure they’d be happy to come and talk and say, “Here’s what our region’s told us they expected of us when they elected us.”
Darlene?: Excellent.
Bret: I think it’s something we ought to bring to the list also, so people can talk about it and we can also get the experience from, you know, Jean and Wendy and John and find out what their experience has been.
Nick: Sure.
Darlene: Uh-huh.
Nick: They were around for a while, so...
Bret: Anything else... overtalking 1:31:38?
Sébastien: overtalking ...to discuss with you in your meeting in San Juan... overtalking
Gareth?: I’m going to have to quite at this point. It’s Gary. Thanks everyone.
Beau: Yeah, this is Beau Brendler. I have to jump off too but thanks everybody.
Darlene: It’s Darlene here. I’ve got to jump too. Thank you.
Bret: Well, let’s just, let’s all call it a day. If there’s any other business, post it to the list. Otherwise, thanks everyone.
Nick: Okay. Goodnight, all.
Male: Goodbye.
Darlene: Goodnight.
Bret?: Thanks for staying up for us, Nick.
Nick: Yeah, you’re welcome. laughter
Sébastien: Okay, goodbye. Thank you very much.
End of Audio
