Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. This is the ALAC ExCom, so executive committee conference call on Wednesday the 23rd of November, 2011, and the time is 1432 UTC. First, I think we will just start with a quick roll call please.
Gisella Gruber: Welcome everyone, on today’s call we have Olivier Crepin-Leblond, Rinali Abdul Rahim, Tijani Ben Jemaa, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Evan Leibovitch, Sebastien Bachollet. Apologies from Carlton Samuels. From staff we have Heidi Ulrich, Matt Ashtiani, Silvia Vivanco, and myself Gisella Gruber. Not sure if Seth has joined the core or Natalie.
Seth Greene: Hi Gisella, it’s Seth Greene.
Gisella Gruber: Lovely, so we have Seth Greene, and Natalie Peregrine on the core as well. [inaudible 59.4] anyone else and over to you Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Fantastic, thank you very much Gisella. I was going to ask you to add one more thing as you do so well in telling people how to speak, etcetera.
Gisella Gruber: If you would be so kind, as to please state your names when speaking for transcript purposes. Thank you, over to you Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you very much Gisella. We have an agenda which appears to be quite long, but it is actually not that long, it is a follow up from yesterday’s ALAC call. How I would imagine we can start it is to review the action items of the last ExCom meeting and then of the ALAC meeting that we had yesterday and I hope that they are a little bit, well they are actually a little bit shorter than the previous set just after the Dakar meeting. Then items for discussion, we will have the open policy issues to deal with and hopefully we can jump to the remaining ones which we haven’t decided on yesterday, and then we will have the follow up on the ALAC meeting, there are a few things that we should discuss from there. Does anybody wish to add any other business that is not related to the ALAC meeting of yesterday?
Evan Leibovitch: Even if I had, there wouldn’t be room for it here. I’ll take it to the mailing list.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you very much Evan. Okay, well let’s turn over then to the ExCom meeting that we had on the 15th of November 2011, and I invite you all to click on the link from our agenda screen. We will pass over the closed action item, we will pass over the long-term goals no update required, and we will just look at the progress of the long-term goals update required, and the open action items which will certainly reduce the amount of time we will spend on this. What I will say though is for everyone in their own time, to please look through the closed action items and long-term in-progress goals, and so on, so as to make sure that we are on the right track and to make sure that there might not be something that is allocated to you as well, just in case it has gone through the net. So in progress, long-term goals, with an update required, the first one is the RALO, ALAC, and ExCom to develop specific long-term strategic plan for outreach with the aim of getting funded. Now, that is an action item which we had around for a long-time, which actually we had since before the Dakar meeting, and it is still in progress. I am not going to have to read through the whole lot of it, I think you’d know which one I am speaking about here. That includes the seeking help from Kurt Pritz, Carol Cornell, the strategic plan, et cetera. In fact, some of these parts have already been done since the strategic plan has been worked on. Number two; board consultations. ALAC to define its goals regarding it’s advising of the board and that is for possible inclusion in 2012-2015 strategic plan and/or the board paper. The question here is to say well does the board have a preferred template for statements, does the board have a preferred template or format for the chair’s report at the meeting? I propose that we pass this until later. It is not a high priority right now.
Sebastien Bachollet: Just to tell you that you have to take into account that you are much more equipped than the board to work. If you have templates, use your templates. If you have ideas, use your ideas. I don’t think that you need to wait for the board to give you the way you the way you want to interact with the board. Really, when you go from one organization to the other you seem to be going from the light to the night, and it is scary, but it is a situation, then do your work and it will be great. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks very much Sebastien and yes, I think the aim was not to wait for the board to prepare a template for us, but at least to provide some input as to what they would like to see in our statement, especially the statement at the end of a meeting, of an ICANN meeting. Some board meetings have come to me privately and told me they wanted to hear more about people. Some said they wanted to hear more about policy. It seems that we are receiving mixed message via the back channels, and perhaps a front channel, united message would be something that would make everyone at least understand the format we are using to provide the board with information is one we are ready to work on. At the same time, we cannot satisfy absolutely everyone.
Evan Leibovitch: Sebastien, you have your hand up. Did you still have something else to say? No, okay. I guess my question is for both Olivier and Sebastien. I am wondering whether or not we can possibly stream line this a bit and perhaps approach the board governance committee and see if perhaps there is a smaller group that would be willing to work with us on coming up with something that would get us best heard. I mean, to a certain extent as you say Olivier, it is all back channel. If we were to do this formally through the method that is prescribed, I guess, that would mean in fact rather than engaging the entire board, perhaps going to a specific sub-committee, such as either board governance or global relationships.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan, that is a good point. Sebastien, would you say that might be a good solution?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yeah, that is a solution I guess. There is a board governance committee but it could also be lighter and when the chair of the ALAC meets with the chair of the board that they put that as an item to discuss and if they find an agreement, it is done, if not it goes to the board governance committee.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Sebastien, when you mean sitting with the board chair, I gather the next time this will happen is in San Jose. I was hoping that something would move before that.
Sebastien Bachollet: When I say sitting, I guess you cannot chat with Steve. I would suggest you chat with Steven and see where he wants to go, and if he says that it is gross task as the chair of the board governance committee, do we accept.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: No, sorry, keep going.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thanks. I think that ultimately we will put this on the back, well, ongoing basically, it is not a high priority at the moment the way I see it, but we will continue work on that and it is a good suggestion for me to engage Steve on this, so perhaps an action item that will come out of that will be an email that I will send over to Steve to ask and engage dialogue on this.
Matt Ashtiani: Hi Olivier, it is Matt. Can you please state the AI as you would like recorded.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Action Item; Olivier to write to Steve Crocker, chair of the ICANN board. Start discussions on the subject of templates for statements and templates for chair reports.
Matt Ashtiani: Yep, thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks very much Matt. So next, at large improvements. They would like to refine its goals regarding it’s advising of the board for possible inclusion of 2012-2015 strategic plan, and/or board paper, include metrics, include way of prioritizing ALAC statements for board. I think this can be batched with the previous one. Board consultations and ALAC improvements. Any objection to this or any point to this?
Evan Leibovitch: Nope, go ahead.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, maybe you can put your hand down then. There we go.
Evan Leibovitch: Sorry.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I see agreement from Rinali, so let’s batch those together. Yes, I see agreement from Tijani as well. Okay, so, we move on to the open action items. We have a number of them here, the first one being staff to update list of cross constituency working groups of the ALAC Wiki page. Any progress on this Matt or Heidi?
Matt Ashtiani: Not right now.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay next, Cheryl to manage winding up and archiving working groups to be closed. Matt to schedule time to work with Cheryl on this, I think that is probably still not done yet. No bandwidth. So, it will be soon. Evan to follow up with something on both the chairing and repopulation of the at large registrant rights and responsibilities working group. Evan, any progress?
Evan Leibovitch: I sent Beau an email, I haven’t received a response yet.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay.
Evan Leibovitch: So I will bug him again.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Beau has been pretty, from the looks of incommunicado since Dakar, and I will follow up with him.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. Next, Carlton to chair and repopulate the At-Large WHOIS policy working group, that appears to be a task which is quite important. Could I ask staff to please remind Carlton of this task because we have seen recently the amount of discussion regarding who is, thin who is, versus thick who is, taking place on the ALAC list. I am not against having on the ALAC list, but I am not quite sure that everyone would like to be seeing this debate and maybe it is something within the working group can work on more effectively. Matt do you wish me to say then, action item, staff to contact Carlton and ask him to chair and repopulate the At-Large WHOIS working group. Next, Tijani, Silvia, I am [inaudible 12.21] to determine which ALAC working groups need French and Spanish interpretation, that is still ongoing. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, thank you Olivier. I want to remind you that this point was raised when we heard from Christina, that it is possible to get interpretation even if we have only one attending in a working group. So, I think that this point has to be removed now needs to be removed now because it is not good [inaudible 12.58, taste?] now, and now it is three minimum, so is the previous dictation, and I don’t know why we did this point again.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay Tijani, that is a very fair point. So, we can take this, as I guess, completed somehow or removed at least. So, not completed because that wasn’t done. Thank you. Six: Alan Greenburg to send a message to Xavier Calvez regarding the pooling of budgets for the AFRALO Dakar events. I haven’t seen anything on that yet. Let’s see, if Alan turns up on the call, then we can ask him. If he does not, may I ask staff to please email him to find out, or does anyone else know whether Alan has sent an email? I don’t see anyone waving their hands around so, please if Alan Greenburg doesn’t turn up on the call at some point, if he does remind me to ask him. If he doesn’t, please send him an email. Seven: The matter of getting in touch with NPAK is to be given to the executive committee. There is an update on this. There is a call that will take place with the NPAK. Gisella is in charge of sending the doddle out to everyone concerned. NPAK leadership has said they would be very willing to meet with us, and in fact, I think they will also bring some of their members as well, so we also meet with some of their members. The question was how many of us, how many of them to be on the call? I think it would be most important for the ExCom to meet with them so the actual doodle would be send to the executive committee on our side and to the NPAK leadership on the other, so that all of us at least can be on the call, and then the call can be opened with all ALAC members, and on their side, they can also open it for their members. Any suggestions or feedback on this? I see agreement from Evan. So, we can continue, thank you. Well, that’s the last one we had. Newly assigned action items: Future ALAC statements which are not lengthy are to include an executive summary. It probably is supposed to be the other way around. The statements which are lengthy are to include an executive summary. That is actually truly correct. We have actually had our first report, no first statement that came out on the strategic plan which did have an executive summary included with it. Any comments on this newly assigned action item?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Just to assist you with your memory, I believe this action item came out a discussion of one of the earlier matters on the half statements, [inaudible 16.29] could be formalized, [inaudible 16.31] and recorded to the use of everyone, not only board members. It was your agreement that you would be putting an executive summary on all statements, regardless of length, even short ones. So, it is as it is written, but it is not written as clearly as it should be.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl. Do you think that if we have a one page statement, we should have a half page executive summary to add to the one page statement? I am asking the whole group here.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If you want me to tell you what you said before, or what you have written before?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I found it bizarre to have to include an executive summary in something which is only a page long. Go ahead Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no, your meeting.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you. Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: Olivier, I agree that this needs to be clarified a bit, and I totally see a point. I mean, if we want to sort of make it a little bit more detailed and say that anything longer than two pages requires an executive summary and anything shorter than that at least requires a descriptive headline. I don’t know if that is what you are looking for in terms of just putting some specific details on this, but I agree, what is the point of putting an executive summary on something one page or even two, seems a little strange. If we have taken the effort to summarize and be succinct enough to make our statement known in less than two pages, technically at that point it should almost be very difficult task to do an executive summary and we should be able to trust that a reader will look at a document of under two pages and actually read the thing.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Olivier. Cheryl, as you know, I hate to do it to you, but I really need don’t find it normal or logic to make an executive summary for a one page or less than one page statement. So I propose that we can say that more than two pages we can make an executive summary, for two pages or three pages we have to agree on it, but we have to decide what is the length over which we have to do the executive summary.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani. I note that Cheryl has mentioned that Alan argued and I agreed that the executive summary is the thing that people would automatically read, but the public participation already guidelined that the executive summaries should be used in all formal documents. I think that ultimately it would look very strange to have an executive summary on a very short statement, and what I propose to all of you is, as a matter of standard, yes, we should include an executive summary, but the last choice on whether an executive summary goes on or not would be left to the author’s discretion, or to the chair’s discretion, whichever of the two you would prepare. So that we don’t end up writing a one page document that then has an executive summary that makes it a one and a half page document and having feedback from the board telling us you are just repeating yourself gentlemen and ladies. I have seen some ITU documents which did this: Introduction - this document said that, Main part – this document says that, Conclusion – this document says that. Basically, three times the same thing which makes it a three page document but I think we have gone further than this. I see Sebastien saying the doc is an executive summary. We will include executive summaries as much as we can. If it is too short to have one, then we can leave one off at our discretion. I see that there is agreement from Evan on that, or there was agreement from Evan on this. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may just direct to the last point. I thought the other reason that this synopsis or executive summary [inaudible 21.36] in doctrine is a highly recommended practice is because that is where you can also put keywords for searches, and as the ICANN documentation system only some 36,000 documents from its existing website, it has come down to some, I think it is 1,200 or 12,000. There is a zero there, Sebastien no doubt would know the exact and can correct me. Much of what goes on is archived. The use of keywords or words from an executive summary, search terms, has gotten to make the effective archiving and sorting and re-sorting of your materials far easier. That is all up to you. It is like being a librarian, why is it a [inaudible 22.33] of doing things.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl. That is much appreciated actually. I didn’t think of it this way and maybe we should think about having this. Any thought from anyone else on the call?
Evan Leibovitch: Let’s be sane about this. If the entire document is one page, chances are that any keywords we are going to need to put are going to be in like the first paragraph that introduces the issue in the first place. So, I agree with you, I have seen these documents where you have an executive summary that sometimes is as long as the main point. I think a little bit of discretion given to the authors and to you, I think, will go a long way. We have raised the issue, you know, we have raised the issue. There is an issue of the long documents aren’t [inaudible 23.36 – purgeable?] easily by some people without an executive summary. I think there is a little bit of common sense that can be in play and let’s just leave it at that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan. Cheryl has also just mentioned the idea of a keyword, keywords. How does everyone think about that?
Evan Leibovitch: In what I just said Olivier, is that in a long document, yes, the keywords belong in the executive summary. In a very short document, chances are the keywords are already there in the first paragraph or two and we can simply make a point of making sure that that is the case. I mean when we are talking about small statements, sometimes the entire statement we are making is only a couple of paragraphs and any keywords that we need to put in are going to be there. That is simply a matter of the author of the document making sure that any keywords they want used are either in the executive summary or highly placed in the introduction to this short document. I really think that is a non-issue.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, what I note Rinali mentions, we could label the one pager as an executive summary would solve the whole thing. Right, I think we spent too much time on that one. We will leave it to the discretion of the author and the chair, but with a point that wherever necessary, an executive summary should be included. It would be interested to have both executive summary and key words if the document is more than say two words there. That will probably fall under the templates as well that we spoken about early. As Cheryl said, or just put it under the same batch as the other templates. Next, ExCom to repopulate the working groups, especially the budget and finance sub-committee with a chair of the ALAC leads, the matter in which the sub-committee is to be repopulated has yet to be discussed and decided upon. You heard that I made a call yesterday for volunteers for the budget and finance sub-committee. Cheryl disapproved with the manner in which I made the call. I think that ultimately that call was one for volunteers to join the group. The group can now chose what it wants to have from the volunteers. Rather than us having to look out there and find out and search for people to join the group, who don’t actually have much knowledge, especially with the newcomers, knowledge of their background and their knowledge, and so on. It would be a lot better to find out, because the budget and finance sub-committee is something to deal specifically with budget and finance, I don’t expect every Tom, Dick, and Harry to wish to apply to join that group, it is quite a targeted thing, and so it would be good to see interest from all those who have a background in strategy, in budget, in finance, and that is where we would probably get applications from. Any comments? Any serious comments? Evan? Okay, so I take it that we are in agreement. We have sent out a call. Heidi, have we had any large amount of applications of people who wish to join that group?
Heidi Ulrich: I have not seen any. Matt, have you?
Matt Ashtiani: Uh, no.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So, what I suggest is that we look at the actual list of people who currently are on the finance and budget sub-committee, ask those who are on there whether they still wish to be on there. We obviously have to change some of the people on there. I gather some people have actually left being an active member. We would look at the gaps within that finance sub-committee with regards to geographical balance, and get in touch with each one of the regions where there is geographical balance that is missing and ask the regions to suggest someone as well since we don’t seem to have applications, spontaneous applications coming in. I can see Evan agreeing with this. Rinali, Tijani? Yes, Tijani, please.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you all Olivier. [inaudible 28.55] the improvement [inaudible 28.59] into working teams into the sub-committee. So, are they now considered a member of the sub-committee, because if it is so, we have all the regions represented in this [inaudible 29.22 working teams?]
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani. It is a good point. The concern I have about work team C is that the [inaudible 29.37] on work team C have had replies from you and I.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes and Dave.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And Dave as well, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, I think that what we have to do is to really look at the whole list and take it one person at a time and find out from each person whether they are going to continue. I do not wish to end up with a budget and finance sub-committee with a lot of people on it and only four people turning up in the calls. So it is going to have to be people who are active and I know already of a couple of people who are active, I would say that Ganesh Kumar is a very good prospect for this. He has shown a lot of movement on this. He has helped very much with the latest statements, so I think that is one person, but we have to identify people in other regions as well to add on this. So, we can have a call to the regions. If you want, I can look through the current list of the finance and budget sub-committee and email first each one of those people that are on it at the moment; find out their interest in remaining on the committee. If I do not receive a reply from them within five days, I shall consider then that they are not interested anymore and then will ask the region to supply someone in their geographic region. I can see that Cheryl is coming with a suggestion for the whole makeup of the committee; two people per geographic region or RALO, 50% ALAC, 50% RALO, and she is reminding us that this is actually part of the ALAC improvements implementation, so it is not a suggestion. I stand corrected. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: That means that we will 20% in sub-committees, two per region as it stands, and 50/50, ten plus ten is 20. It’s not too much?
Unknown: It’s five and five.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I think it is five and five Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So, Cheryl says it is ten. Yes, ten is fine, ten is manageable. Twenty is not. Okay, so let’s keep it this way. Could I please have an action item on what I have just said. So, repopulate the finance and budget subcommittee with two people per geographic region, and 50% ALAC, 50% RALO. Five plus five effectively, and the first step being getting in touch with those people who are already on the finance and budget sub-committee.
Matt Ashtiani: So, you said two from each region and what else?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: 50% ALAC, 50% RALO, so one person from a region from RALO and one person from the region, ALAC.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Be very careful how you cite it. Be very careful how you cite it in your [inaudible 33.37]
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Can you read this one again please then?
Matt Ashtiani: Yes, ExCom, Olivier Crepin-Leblond to repopulate the working groups, specifically the budget and finance sub-committee which the chair of the ALAC leads. The manner in which the sub-committees repopulate has yet to be discussed and decided upon; that needs to be changed -- two people from each region, one person from the RALO and one person from the ALAC.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Tijani, your hand is still up?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes. I do think that it is good to have one per RALO as member of this sub-committee, but for the members of the ALAC, I don’t think that it is necessary to restrict it to one per region. We can have more than one per region from ALAC. We need volunteers and we need at least people who understand or who want to work on the subject, so if you restrict it to one per region, perhaps you will not get the best completion.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, I see disapproval from Cheryl or Evan. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Just to remind you all what a standing sub-committee is as opposed to a work group or activity based on Wiki list, smoke signal or any other mechanism of communication you might want to do. The sub-committee would not nearly be involved in as it has been and should be. As always part of the wider community, but the core group that would do the work on strategy, and budget, and finance activity input, that the budget/finance subcommittee may also be in control under the implementation of ALAC improvement recommendations of budget allocation internally within ALAC and in terms of decision on what seems put forward from the ALAC on behalf of perhaps competing interests from aliases, individuals projects and regions, and if it is anything other than a regionally balanced one, you will hear [inaudible 36.23] cry and it would end up in the [inaudible 36.26] office on unfair treatment on one region or geographic or interest group over another, so be extremely careful how you put this committee together. When you talk about membership of committees, you are talking about the ability to take something from a consensus issue and outcome to vote, and when you get to vote, you need to look at balance extremely carefully. That is why the wording was from the improvements implementation from the work team, that it has expanded from a five person sub-committee of the ALAC which is geographically balanced. Notice I didn’t say regionally balanced, I see geographically balanced, because we need to make sure that it is possible for a non-com appointee to serve on that committee in the ALAC as opposed to just a RALO appointee to the ALAC, and that’s the RALO, the additional task which expanded it to not five, but ten members. The additional part was to have a representative of the RALO, that’s name was an alias, form of it, or executive, or anything else. It was somebody that the RALO’s maintained at their best interest in that. Just to remind you all.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you very much Cheryl, and I am taking note of this nomenclature. Evan did you want to add something?
Evan Leibovitch: Simply this entire discussion is way to over-engineering the situation. We are talking about sub-committees and working groups that right now, if anybody cared, we wouldn’t be having this conversation about having to repopulate them. We don’t have people knocking down the doors of the subcommittee, saying “Oh, you’re not letting me in. Oh, you’re not letting my region in.” I am sorry but this is all way over-engineering. Yes, we have a target we would like to achieve, but the very fact that we have to talk about repopulating tells me that it is not populated in the first place, meaning that we don’t have a whole lot of people that are knocking down the doors to get involved in this, and I am right now, my preference is getting people who yes, we would like a regional balance, but right now, we need to engage members of ALAC, we need to engage members of the RALO’s. If I had my way, we would go to members of the ALAC who are otherwise not represented on other working groups or committees and say you have your duty as a part of ALAC, just as on the board of ICAAN, every member of the board is a participant in at least one sub-committee. For those other members of the ALAC who are otherwise not engaged, we would say, alright, you need to be involved in a working group or sub-committee, this one needs your help. But beyond that, our goal right now is to have people who are actively participating, not just having a roster that looks good on paper, but has nobody actually showing up. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan. I think, we, speaking specifically of the ALAC sub-committee on finance and budget, which is arguably one of the most important sub-committees that we have because of the fact that without any funding, we are not going to get anything done, or at least we will be able to do a lot less than what we wish to do. This is also the reason why the chair of that sub-committee has to be the chair of the ALAC. But, looking at the membership list, and you saying, well we have to repopulate it because people are not interested, it is actually is not the case. The case is if one follows the nomenclature that Cheryl has taken, which is having one RALO representative per region and also one member of ALAC that is geographically balanced, at that point we will notice that some of the people on the list of members, the current list of members, are not going to be able to operate. For example, Gareth Shearman is not is not ALAC anymore, so we would need to have someone to replace Gareth on this committee. Sylvia Herlein is not ALAC anymore, so we would need to have someone to replace Sylvia on this sub-committee, etcetera, etcetera. I am not going to go through the whole list, but there are people, and I guess Cheryl being not ALAC anymore, would also have to be replaced on this sub-committee, so this is why there is this discussion that we have at the moment.
Evan Leibovitch: I understand, but we also have people on ALAC who are being, shall we say, drastically underutilized, who are not currently members of other working groups or other sub-committees, and I think perhaps we need to approach them and say this is part of your duty, get involved in a working group or sub-committee, and you know, for instance, just using my own region as an example. You know I am engaged in things, you know Ganesh is engaged in things. Well, if we need to replace Gareth, then we need to approach Eduardo.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, we will have to look through this. I was thinking we should approach Ganesh because Ganesh is on the ALAC.
Evan Leibovitch: He is on the ALAC and he has got the skills, but I am concerned about, he is really showing his medal, and I want to make sure we don’t burn him out.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well, on the budget and finance sub-committee certainly not. I think he would be the ideal candidate for this.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Good. You are correct with regards to the other working groups and maybe then we can have this as an action item that the chair, helped by the staff, should be emailing each one of the new ALAC delegates and get them to join working groups and not just saying we are going to join as such, but get them to join and activate those working groups, so we all have a main area of responsibility within the organization. If you are okay with that, then that is fine. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just a reminder that it is not actually optional. It is a requirement of the existing expectations as performance and requirements of an ALAC member, that they serve on at least one sub-committee or work group. Not an option, it is a requirement.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If we get the link from last night’s meeting, I will, but it is in the same link as we were looking at the materials for review to send to non-com so that staff can get that link again.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you. So if I can have staff make note that in the letter that needs to be emailed out, we have to mention that this is a requirement of ALAC members. Okay, I think we have spent enough time on that subject. We can then move on to the next part if I can find it. Olivier to follow up with the ASO Chair, Louis Lee, on further cross contingency work. This hasn’t been done yet. Just no bandwidth so far. That is a long-term goal.
Any feedback on this? No? So next, staff to work with Cheryl in preparation of the rules of procedure working group; that is in progress. Then five: Olivier to ask the regions for input on the framework of interpretation working group interim report. I have not asked them. That is an AI to me, and if I can ask staff to remind me after this call, so I can send a call out. Then six: Heidi to determine the number of staff hours that went into preparing the Dakar capacity building events. That was not actually finished, no bandwidth.
Heidi Ulrich: Actually no, no, no, that one was finished.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well, that is not what is says on my screen.
Heidi Ulrich: Sorry, it is finished. Would you like the information or just?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, please could you tell us.
Heidi Ulrich: Okay, so I calculated fifteen hours worth of calls, five hours worth of viewing with meeting staff and five hours on the ground, so a total of twenty-five hours.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you Heidi. Could I ask Tijani, since you are dealing with the follow up on that, could I ask you to record these or do you want Heidi to email those figures to you, and then include them in any metrics that you are going to produce with the AFRALO.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Exactly. That is exactly what I wanted to ask Heidi to do, to have those inputs so that I will include then in the general report and then [inaudible 46.37]
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perfect, thank you. Alright, so now we will move over to the next thing, the ALAC meeting of the 22nd of November. Do we have yet another long list here. I suggest that we all go directly to the open action items, no update required, I think is just a copy of what we have had before. Staff to update the list of cross contingency working groups. That is being done. That is being dealt with just now on the ExCom. Second, number two is umber two, is the same as what we have just dealt with on the ExCom action items. Number three: Beau to chair and repopulate registrant rights, that is also being discussion. Carlton to chair and repopulate WHOIS working group, being discussed. Giselle to synchronize at larges calendar of events with global partnerships calendar. Gisella, any update on this please? We are at number five of the open action items on yesterday’s call.
Gisella Gruber: It is ongoing. I think that action item [inaudible 47.55], it is an ongoing action item. As dates come through they get put on the At-Large calendar.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. Can we move this to the ongoing please Matt?
Gisella Gruber: Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Matt? You might be muted. Can we move this to ongoing please? I’ll take it that we will. Next, Tijani, Sylvia, and Sergio to determine interpretation. We have just spoken about this, so we will do the same thing as what we have done previously. Seven: ExCom to ask RALOS to come to Dakar with specific long-term strategic plan for outreach including metrics, one [inaudible 48.40] per country and so on. Dakar is passed, I think we can just add this to the next action item, which is ALAC to try to develop long-term strategic plan for outreach for getting funded, and we will have the same, well we just dealt with it in our ExCom action items, so we will just have the same outcome for that. Nine: ALAC to refine its goals regarding advising of the board. We have just spoken about this. Ten: Olivier to report to Rod regarding the connection problems being of particular concern to ALAC which by its nature is highly distributed geographically. I have not done that. I have spoken to Rod when I saw him at the Dakar and mentioned this, but I haven’t sent him an email as such. Is there anything else that needs to be done on this, or have connection problems improved? I suggest closing this action item since I have spoken to Rod. Seeing no reply from anyone, I take it that there is no objection to this, so that can be closed. The newly assigned action items; Olivier to forward his letter related to the conditions of the AlmaDeHotel to the ALAC internal mailing list. I did that yesterday, have you all received it?
Unknown: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. Thank you. Matt Ashtiani of our staff to conduct a vote on the SOI and EOI question. The question is do you agree that ALAC members, ExCom members, regional leadership, and liaisons should have an SOI published on the ICANN website? I believe this hasn’t been done yet. I haven’t seen anything in my mailbox. Matt, any update on this please?
Matt Ashtiani: I am still not able to do that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay. In fact, speaking about votes, are you sending the other votes today as well on the ALS application and?
Matt Ashtiani: Yes, as soon as I am able to send out all the votes, I will. If you would like me to concentrate on the vote today, then I will do that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thanks. And then staff to make the language of the 360 proposal more international. It says here was not actually finished, no bandwidth. So that is still in progress. Any comments on this and then we can move on to the next part of our meeting which will get us to do some actual work. No comments. Items for discussion and decision: We have a number of open policy issues. We have spoken yesterday and allocated lead people for most of these, except the last few at the bottom, starting with inter-registrar transfer policy part C; policy development process. This is 3G and I would suggest that we jump directly to this rather than having to go through each one of the things we discussed yesterday and which have already been allocated. Is everyone okay with this? Okay, so, the IRTP part C policy development process is something which is highly technical which Alan has reminded us about yesterday. We have not commented on part B or part A, why would we comment on part C? It looked as though we edged toward not having a comment on this, specifically TT (unsure of correct spelling 52.44) was going to have a look at it, but I certainly for a newcomer, and in fact for all of us looking through this, it looks quite unlikely that we will have both the bandwidth nor the experience to be able to write something, but maybe you disagree. So, I open the floor for discussions.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Two things; first of all, I agree whole-heartedly with the position you have taken, and Alan and I both before in the meeting yesterday and we haven’t said anything on the others so why should we bother doing it now. That is the general thing. It also is important I think that with the, there is an opportunity here in all of the core for public comment, as I think I mentioned in the FOI workgroup outputs as well for the community and indeed specifically the ALAC to decide what it will or will not bother putting something into, and it might be an opportunity which you would like to consider as an executive committee. A method for you to not always put in full-blown statements. Two things in the public comment phase, especially as it is getting in a new design of comment and review, and then second phase or react to the reviews and comments, and then re-comment cycles, or two cycles. That is going to shift things a lot. It might be a good time for the executive committee to start to think about how it will manage situations where [inaudible 54.41] comment to date on something, as a result of the third cycle of public commenting that is new to [inaudible 55.00 - R10?], you may wish to make a short yes, we agree, no we don’t agree, or oops we think you missed the following information, or have you thought about tight rules, short type input, in their sort of final phases. So, you might need to rethink a little bit about the parts of material you put in as an organization and ALAC into public commenting in the future. That said, you also have the opportunity now with the new methods for the starting to be looked at, for example the ways you can list your AI as a to do list and things. You may be able to sift and sort what you will and might respond to in any given month more easily, and have it publicly recorded more easily, and I think there is some work that might be able to be done on that. I’d like to carry that over for a future meeting. Finally, I just want to remind everyone on this core why executive committee meetings either had a review of public comment in their agenda anyway, and that was not so much to re-review what had happened in an ALAC or community meeting if we were doing it face-to-face, but rather to ensure that someone owned the job once the ALAC or community had decided it would be responding to it. Now, there is an onslaught of public comments that comes out from time to time. Occasionally, the executive committee also has to take it on itself to decide whether or not you will respond as an ALAC. That in general, this particular agenda item was designed not to be so much as a full blown rehash but rather more to be an Okay, ALAC or the community has decided we will be responding to all [inaudible 57.07] public comment, [inaudible 57.13] public comment. You know, just to put it in perspective, because it sort of got I think, a little bit lost in translation. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl. So there are two parts, [inaudible 57.31] which you just raised the one in assigning people to the public comments for those that we are going to answer, is exactly I think what I am trying to do now, so that obviously is correct. The first point which you meant which is to start on the reorganizing of action items and being able to go through these things in a faster way is definitely something which I would feel is something we need to talk about in a future call. I would be interested in hearing feedback from my colleagues, Rinali, Evan, Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, as I said before, I mean you I gave you my thoughts about shortening our calls and they should be how to deal with the action items, and also with the public comment items. So, I would do it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you Tijani. Rinali, Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: I haven’t much to add.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan hasn’t much to add and Rinali do you have anything else to add?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: Not really on that matter, but related to our very, very long meetings, I like that Matt had put together the consolidated action items list and I think that if we can have a changeable status to each one of the items, it will be much easier for you as chair when you review them and you know which ones that you can skip so that the meetings can go quite fast.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yeah. There is one problem that we are faced with and that is one of action items that are similar to each other because we tend to dictate action items, some of them pass from one meeting to another and some are actually added in a meeting and we end up with a duplication of action items which makes us waste some time. Certainly, a consolidation is a good plan.
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: I think one way that I have encountered in dealing with such matters is to have a particular header or category for an item, and then if you list the action items itself and if you see that they are just cut and paste, you can see if there are duplications or they are actually different, in which case you will be able to decide based on that information, which should be short, which ones should be dealt with it at a particular meeting.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: There are categories already as to which ones are ongoing, which ones as you can see which ones are ones which need action or updates and so on. Perhaps, further categorization, I agree, would be a good idea. We haven’t got the time to discuss this in detail here, but Tijani, I look forward to receiving, in fact if you could send your suggestions to shorten the meetings to the ExCom and we do this as a standing amount of work that we have to do so that Rinali can also bring her input into this. I am mentioning you Rinali specifically because you have a fresh set of eyes into the way that we do things here and sometimes we can be just so taken up by the things we are doing, we are not able to actually have a new fresh view of what we are doing, so I will rely on you to be able to tell us, “hang on, you guys are wasting a lot more time on this than you should” or should bring some equilibrium to the equation. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, if you permit me, I will mail it to the ALAC committee because I raise the point and I want to give my input to the whole ALAC members, and the ExCom are a member of the ALAC, so no problem.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I have nothing against you sending it to the ALAC list. The only thing I would like to avoid is to get all the ALAC to work on this whilst really it is just a waste of resources. It is spending more time on process than what is actually due. So, yes, send it to the whole ALAC, get their feedback, but I would like to keep the discussion about this on the ExCom.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Rinali?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: Yes, one point to say that because I am new to ALAC, I am still observing and listening a lot, and there is a lot to learn, so I have a learning curve. The other thing I want to ask is about next month’s calls because they have to be scheduled and December is a particularly difficult month because there is a lot of traveling, so I wanted to know in advance in terms of when you see the meetings will take place.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Rinali. In fact, there is a calendar which will tell you all of the calls. Could I ask Heidi to send you details of how to access that calendar? It is a Google calendar, or maybe Gisella can be in touch with you on this.
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: Okay.
Matt Ashtiani: May I Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, Matt, yeah, you could record that as an AI, I think it is a little bit formal to put as a formal AI, really, yea, put it as an AI so we make sure that it gets done. I see Heidi said Gisella will send a calendar. They are sent usually on the fourth Tuesday of the month and the ALAC ExCom meetings do change a little bit, but we will have them set shortly. Okay, so moving on, so now we have decided that the IRTP part C policy development process appears as though we are not going to move forward on this and have a statement on that, so I see no disagreement that we can avoid sending a statement on this, unless Alan comes back to us and decides that it something that is really important. H: Board technical relations working group, BTRWG final report deadline 30th of December. The feedback we had from yesterday was a bit of a mix. Cheryl could you please enlighten us as to what you took out of yesterday?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Certainly. What I took out of yesterday is that I undertook to report to this meeting the background, so rather than take up the time of the whole of the ALAC, if the executive committee wants to know any background on this report, on the review of the, particularly ordained and historical model that we are looking at and the review that happened there then I would be available to help you with that at the end of the call. You actually have a huge amount of resources to pull up.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s right.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just the short version is we had a historical situation which means there is a seat on the board in rotation which is devoted to a representative of the technical advisory groups which are allocated in the report. [Inaudible] of ICANN it subject to review. The review has made two primary recommendations, correct me if I am wrong; I think there were only two primary recommendations. The board interacts with, a repurpose slot re-modified and technical liaisons grouping, and it is that recommendation, their recommendation that all do that, that is basically the nature of the mind saying of the corporate public comment.
And it is one of those situations under Sebastien feels there is some [inaudible] and we all would say very little needs to be said by the ISOC formally but something needs to be said by the ISOC the reason that something needs to be said by the ISOC is that at least, three guys and certainly in a [inaudible] actually does have a good technical advice, is a very important thing to the advanced community, so; it would be releasing this, to say nothing but to say much more than ¨damn¨ good idea, we all like what the report says, it’s probably not necessary and if that offended our very Sebastien [inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl. Sebastien?
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you. Sebastian. I think I’ll go easy with all you; we don’t need to get involved in a discussion except if we want to, I would say not directly but say…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Have we lost Sebastien?
Evan Leibovitch: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It really is incredible isn’t it? The moment someone talks we end up losing them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible] come back.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: He might as well, had just been cut off. Ok, well he seems to have been cut off somehow. Well from what I heard from you Cheryl, it looks as though, unless we just want to put a pat on the back, and say yes, very interesting, very good, we agree. We should just reframe from squandering our resources into have anything more than that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would encourage you to do a pat on the back.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, so we have to...
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And the reason being, the reason being if [inaudible] of the record is that in a world that is trying to [inaudible] the size of the [inaudible] world much smaller, over other thing to lose do you really want it to be, technical advice security, stability of the [inaudible] run but a lot of lawyers [inaudible]
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Why not? We have a vault. I don’t know what kind of vault we have but seeing that Sebastien is not coming back on, let us allocate this to someone. Do I have any volunteers here? Who would be ready to write a small paragraph that may not even require an executive summary if its short? I don’t see anybody jumping up and down with joy or happiness and wishing to do so.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And since Sebastien is now gone.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible] your executive.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I beg your pardon?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Cheryl here, I was just saying. You could allocate it you own your executive.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, the trouble is I’m not quite sure who else has the bandwidth at the moment to be on the executive for the time being. I’ll work out and put on action that I may need someone to write this, and if I don’t find anyone to write it, I’ll write it myself.
Evan Leibovitch: Olivier, this is Evan. I would suggest contacting Allan, and if he’s got a bandwidth issue then I’ll help him out, but I can’t take the lead I don’t know enough about it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yeah, ok. So, noted in [inaudible] to write to Allan, and ask him whether he would be able to write a short paragraph, about the board technical relations working group final report to go into the public comment process. Next! Dot (.) Asia, one and two character allocation proposal; and now if I rightly said yesterday, we cannot get our idea in liaison to write anything about this; and I want to know whether we have anyone else who is versed in those specifics or whether we should write something in the public comment on that specific subject. Anybody likes to say something about this?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: How about Charles? How about Charles Marc.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Sorry who is this?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: This is Rinalia.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Sorry Rinalia, Charles, yes we could however - well there is a question and I open; I’m giving it to the group here, actually. Is there a question of conflicts of interests, knowing that Charles and Edmond are both in ASO Hong Kong, they work - do they work on the same office? [inaudible]
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: There is a huge risk or at least a huge risk they might be seen as a conflict because they work in the same office and they are part of the same well, same volunteer organization ISO Hong Kong. I see, Sebastian mentioned some ex idea in liaison that would be probably Shian Tseng and I question if we can get Shian Tseng to do anything, at this stage in time [inaudible] that was before my time , let me just ask Cheryl on this, Cheryl...
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think, anything - this is a bit historical because of the action Iraq has already agreed [inaudible] on single character [inaudible] because it would be making a general comment on - I trust it would be endorsing the general comment on the necessity of the first round and the requirements for one and want to be saying that if you are allowing one character you would allow two characters [inaudible] in the GLTD space, that kind of without specifically saying that 1 and 2 characters name within the Asia TLD is a good idea, I mean what is does do is craziness, it would be legal argument if a single character names in the environment, and a ccTLD environment and the gTLD environment would not be [inaudible ] to come [inaudible] but I would suggest while you’re a doing what you’re doing into the [] resolution it should be supported by [inaudible] you kind to pushing into that direction anyway but without any fear or [inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl. Next is Sebastien.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yeah maybe I’m wrong, but it’s a gTLD? And the gTLD from the second round of the gTLD and if I remember well you already said yes for this type of announcement other gTLD from the same round. Then the question it’s not much about the GM it’s much about the gTLD and what happen for other in the same category and you might just think what you said about the previous request of such type of a change. And on the other gTLD and say we are consistent and have no reason to not say the same.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Sebastien; it could be that [inaudible] Consistent without previous advice? Thank you Cheryl. We could say that, yeah, I mean not, thank you Cheryl. I certainly note that we have given advice on this subject in the past. The question is whether do we want to reiterate this advice, do we want to, do we have the time to do so, I don’t think it’s going to be another huge thing, I take your point with regards to the idea and the JAS which we actually need to support and I take no doubt so, or I remind everyone that we had in the past supported single characters, because of the GJK, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, where a single character means a complete word.
Sebastien Bachollet: Sorry, Sebastien once again. I’m not sure that we’re talking here about IDN’s, If I remember well, we At-Large ALAC, agree with the one character [inaudible] and other gTLD from the same round and is an ASCII character one and two.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So, we can point to that then, Sebastien?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yeah.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: What you’re saying is that we can to those statements.
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes and say we’re consistent we say yes to [inaudible]. Don´t mix the two, I know I’m not sure it needs to be mixed it and yes if you do the job on JAS group and then the other think you [inaudible] it’s good but, they are two different topics from my point of view.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Sebastien. Rinalia, may I ask you since you’re the ALAC member from that region to follow up on this, is this something would you feel confident, you could follow up on with the help of the staff? And [inaudible] our previous advice on and staff would be able to find that our previous advise on a single character gTLDs and what’s happening in this specific case we have there.
Rinalia: I’ll try, ah, have the staff send over the information, they have to because I can’t find stuff on the website yet.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: You’re not the only person; you can’t find anything on the web. I think you’ll find the majority of us having hard time finding.
Rinalia: Oh, here it is, I’d like [inaudible] highlighted the statement.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, so there you go, it’s already on theirs, so. Ok.
Rinalia: There is correspondence on this. And from that we can then - yes Cheryl, you wanted to say something?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry, As Sebastien points out, that specifically into IDN’s which is obviously very important [inaudible] as well, but what we have also seen in the general TLD world is that ALAC has absolutely no problem and it’s supportive of, 1, 2 and 3 character TLD. It doesn’t matter whether they are numerals, ASCII characters [inaudible] something else comes up with.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If they are meaningful to the end user say we are supportive, in fact they said not meaningful if that simply useful.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: If I could ask then, staff to staff help Rinalia on this since it is her first big talk, we’re throwing her direction and you have to get things done so, ask [inaudible] to help her on the helping out, to find out where are the previous one. Can I have acknowledgment from the staff?
Gisella Gruber: Yeah, we will do that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, so [inaudible] I just hear myself being space, that’s better. Ok. Yes. Now I can actually hear you, you sounded, I don’t know, very 1980 can you update me with what you said? Oh dear, Oh dear, ok, so staff to help Rinalia in finding archived material on ALAC’S advice previously made in other top level domain with regards to in 1 and 2 character, second level domains. Thank you.
Evan Leibovitch: Olivier, I just, earlier in the conversation it was mentioned 1, 2 and 3 letter and I just want to make sure that we’re not necessarily saying, that we think 3 letter CCTLD is a great idea.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: But Evan, we’re not speaking about CCTLD we’re looking specifically for the DOT Asia 1 and 2 character our location proposal, which is the second level, it would be like A DOT Asia and A B DOT Asia
Evan Leibovitch: Ok, sorry, I thought we’re also talking about single letter TLD’s
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: No, no. (Ok) I think we’re far from single letter TLD’s except IDN TLD.
Evan Leibovitch: Yeah, that’s what I meant.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The two issues are separate. Well, there still just TLD’s, understood. So, next, Jay, preliminary issue report on [inaudible] WHOIS. As you’ve noticed there has been a big discussion on the ALAC list, on this. I suggest that we assign Heidi Ulrich to work on this issue I know that she has much knowledge about it and she has been also following on the WHOIS RT the work of WHOIS [inaudible] a working group and need feedback or thoughts about this, Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: Oh, well my hand was up on the other thing. Well, earlier in the auction item so was mention that about Carlton restart repopulating the WHOIS working group, I don’t know if the 2 things are connected.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: They should be.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: They can be, the problem is I have not being able to ask Carlton. We can put it as an extra item so we can ask Carlton to where come this specifically and consider having working with Holly; I don’t know it is up to you.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, I’m just suggesting since we already have an IA about Carlton restarting who is the working group, restarting a working group without giving it something to do isn’t always such a great idea, the good thing about this is that when giving Carlton the task every populating the WHOIS the working group we now have something exclusive for that group to do once it gets rolling.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, that’s a good point, anyone else on this? Ok, in which case then, let’s do this, let’s send this to Carlton and have Carlton use this specific job of drafting a statement on the preliminary issue report on [inaudible] WHOIS who is as their first task for the renewal for the WHOIS working group.
Evan Leibovitch: But having said that I’d really like your idea of getting Holly involved, so I would CC her in this and ask her to get it and ask her to become involved in the ah, in the WHOIS working group as we move forward on this section.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan and Cheryl has put her hand up, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Certainly, I’m just wondering how other regions would see all, about the executives committee to the leadership of their region. What [inaudible] volunteer. Their leadership will be on what subject, that’s all and I suggest you [inaudible] my check.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, thank you. If Holly wishes to be original WHOIS working group, it’s really up to her, if that’s the case. I was looking specifically at having Holly (interruption).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It’s not up to her; it’s up to our region.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, so it’s up to your region to select which (interruption)
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We, we certainly would like to object that an executive committee in the ALAC would be very [inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl.
Evan Leibovitch: OK, Again we are over at reengineering things, you mentioned Holly at the beginning because she is involved in the WHOIS review team, that is the reason I suggested asking her not because of a [inaudible] affiliation, so again we are over at engineering things specially this being a workgroup, we are going to have a hard enough time finding active people who are interested, I was not even thinking about regional representation. I was thinking about asking people into this group who are actually useful resources that were skilled in the issue and were able to drive the issue forward.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank You Evan. And I would tend to agree with you on this, ah, we have just to get Carlton on that, I don’t think is for us to start looking at the end of the knobs, what the region wants, what the region doesn’t want, I was definitely not looking at having the regional reps filling the WHOIS working group, specifically asking Holly to do that.
I just said what I said, because has admitted the wish in the past she wishes to get more involved with the anything that is WHOIS related and she sounded as though she was good [inaudible] to be able to write something, and to take a lead on that. I have to remind everyone when that when we are saying we are assigning someone to it, we are not actually telling them do it or die, it is a question is a case of would you be able to do it would you be able to do that, would you feel as part of your responsibilities within ALAC, within a [inaudible] leadership etc, if that is ok we the organization you are in. Evan you may be muted.
Evan Leibovitch: No sorry.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So, I think we have gone thru those, It is 1549 which means we would be ending this meeting in one minute, may I ask that we spend another 15 minutes discussing follow up on yesterdays ALAC meeting.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan your hand is up again.
Evan Leibovitch: Sorry, forgot to take it down.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, thank you. So, follow up on yesterday’s meeting, there were few things which we did not have total closure on, the one I first want to speak about, the one specifically dealing with - let me take a look at my paperwork, now it is back on the other side - it is somewhere on my screen, sorry about this, now I get the problem of the pervasive, non pervasive computer. We received request from Kurt with regard to the joint applicant support working group , not a request, from our discussion we had with Kurt there was a discussion on implementation, having a group of ALAC work with staff in order to move on to the next stage in the process.
I have received several emails to that extent, one has been sent or forwarded to me by Carlton, if I can just look at where that email is, Carlton basically told Carla, that he would expect that I would get in touch with Kurt, or with the working group very soon into doing follow up work after the [inaudible] my response to her was that I first would try to find out what the ALAC executive committee had decided [inaudible] sometime next week. Unfortunately having neither Carlton nor Avri on the call - Evan would you know anything about what’s going on there, because I’m afraid I haven’t been told about what the next step is.
Evan Leibovitch: Well, you mean from the staff perspective or from ours?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: From our perspective, because what we’ve been asked is to select a team that would work with the staff on our site.
Evan Leibovitch: Ok, implementation planning team. Well, if you think about it, the gTLD working group that we reassemble it is on for was constructed almost exactly for that purpose, to get involved in the follow up, to get involved in overseeing and working with the implementation, so it’s as if we anticipated what Kurt was going to ask for and be ready for him.
I would take this request from Kurt prompt it to Avri, have this come up in the gTLD working group and let that group between themselves find out the right people to work with I mean, this is one of those to me, nice times where staff comes to us with a request and we’ve been anticipated and ready for them.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, any other comments, from many ones here, agreement from Cheryl, agreement from Rinalia, Sebastien? You want to say a few words on this, please?
Sebastien Bachollet: Yes, If I can do it quickly, I know that [inaudible] and staff is taking time, too much from my point of view, but we need as a board subgroup working on that, we need quickly people to [inaudible ] of talking with [inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Sebastien, I See Tijani has his hand up so Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Ok thank you. Many go to the computer here. I would like to know if the request from Kurt was directed to ALAC leadership or to JAS leadership. ALAC, so we need to form a small group for implementation from ALAC. That’s correct, yes. Do you know if we already have that? What I was trying to say before. The gTLD working group that is being reconstituted was done with the express purpose of knowing staff was going to come to us, that’s the whole purpose, we are now hitting the ground, running and we are probably more prepared than the staff is. My question is, is this group already formed?
Evan Leibovitch: They had a meeting on Monday; they had a telephone conference on Monday already. It is up and going forward.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I never heard about it, it’s the first time I hear about it. Ok, no problem.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh I’m sorry about that, but is anyone else not aware of this? But there has been a gTLD working group.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan, Tijani. Evan may I just suggest that you email Tijani the details of this working group and so Tijani can join it.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No, no I’m sorry; I am member of this working group. But it’s the first time I hear about the small implementation team from ALAC it’s the first time I hear about it, that’s it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: There’s confusion here Tijani, the small implementation team which Kurt is looking at is something like three or four people maximum,
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I know.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The working group itself has a lot more than three or four people what the working group will have to do, will be to suggest who they would like to put on there. And I think that the working group needs to - from their membership, they need to be very fast doing this, yes you are correct Tijani, the three or four member team is not set up. So that has to be selected by the group.
Evan Leibovitch: That´s right.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So that has to be selected by the group, what I would like to ask you as the ExCom is to give me the green light to also interface with our GNSO partners, and ask them to join not our working group, not whom we are going to bring into the overall implementation planning team, but to basically tell them that they should find people on their side. For their part of the implementation team because that’s what I have been asked
Evan Leibovitch: Ok. Olivier, first of things if Kurt is asking you for implementation people, surely he´s asking the GNSO for the same thing. It´s not our roll to ask the GNSO to contribute like this, i mean certainly having working together with them it’s a good idea but as Tijani notice, and as your answers Kurt went to the ALAC he did not go to the JAS group which I know it’s not splendid so he did not go to [inaudible] he went to you. So if it’s the staff’s choice to deal with this from the constituent component as close to working with the joint group itself. We can work together actually but I think it’s a bit of a limit on how much an engagement needs to happen giving the staff already made the decision that they were talking directly to JAS.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Actually Evan. It’s actually a little bit more complicated than this. Initially when we spoke to him during the ExCom discussion in the afternoon at [inaudible] on Friday afternoon at [inaudible] he spoke directly to us and he asked us for this. However, for what then also happened, it’s in the meantime he also spoke to Carla Valente, and Carla has then - when coming back to - to continue things; has then written to Carl and Anterafik and said that she heard that during the ALAC dot com meeting it would discuss the possibility for some members of the JAS working group working with staff on implementation of a support program.
Saying members of the JAS working group working with staff on implementation of a support program, doesn’t only means At-Large people, it also means people from the GNSO so that was responded to… by Carlton who said that he therefore asked me, during that session he asked me to write to Kurt officially and explore a framework of action that we have discussed and I had no chance to communicate yet since we haven’t had the chance to discuss it and this is why, the discussion its open here.
Evan Leibovitch: And Sebastien fears are already getting realized.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That things are moving at certain speed, and we basically are being pushed into action for this, which is the reason why I suggest that the working group that we have, the new GTLD working group should work as quickly as possible to say like three or four people on this.
Evan Leibovitch: All right, now I’m more confused than ever.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes. You’re in the clan.
Evan Leibovitch: JAS, or ALAC and GNSO separately, who? What is being asked for? If sounds that Carlton, and Carla are asking for different things? Can we at least - have we nailed down what is being asked for? Because the easy answer is to tell everyone - guys let go back to the working group and get ourselves a team, but then since this being done in parallel with the JAS, this is just going to wind up confusing everybody and slowing the process down; so are we clear on exactly what they asking for?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It’s not the JAS, Evan it’s not the JAS. It is some members from the JAS working group, that how Carla has worded it.
Sebastien Bachollet: May I try something here, may I try something here? The JAS it’s not meeting since Dakar and [inaudible] and the other part is that both ALAC and GNSO are the convenience of JAS group, and at this stage it’s not in the duty of the JAS group to do anything else and finish the work. Instead if you both the ALAC and the GNSO gives them more tasks to do and that could be done; the question is, how it could be done in a short time?
I understand is that the staff is [inaudible] from past, my [inaudible] and do something even if it’s not the better way for the objective to move ahead with the idea the JAS put in the table. And my suggestion it’s, you bring a small team and if GNSO want to bring a small team and they jump together, why not, but stop somewhere, don’t wait for something happening out of the blue.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Sebastian, so let me reiterate my suggestion, I shall forward that email to Avri and to Evan if you wish since you are the ExCom member in the - on this call here I can carbon copy you Evan or I can also carbon copy the executive committee.
Evan Leibovitch: As you wish this sounds perfect.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So I'll sent this thread over to Avri with a copy to the executive committee and, I will ask for action to be taken over within the next 24 hours from this, hopefully this will be able to be done so we can actually have a reply sent to Kurt by the end of the week, and by the end of the week I mean not 23:59 UTC on Friday, we will be looking at Thursday or Friday morning UTC so we that we don’t end up being channel aside or something. At the same time, and this is because it was mentioned on the discussion and because I don’t want any misunderstanding between the GNSO and us.
I will send an email to Stephan to advise him that we are doing this, not because we need to advise him of what the ALAC is doing, but because Carla has made it as members of the JAS working group, and members of the JAS working group are both At-Large members, and GNSO members. Is just a matter of courtesy; what he wants to do with it is up to him, if Kurt wants to have members of the GNSO on this implementation team as well that’s up to him as well, I’m not here and we are not here to tell anyone what to do when it’s not something that is within at large. Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: No. I absolutely I agree fully with what you are saying, support what you are saying and, if we get something into a recess we should be able to do this pretty quickly. And in any case the likelihood of people being designated from that working group, who were not part of the original JAS group is very small.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok, thank you. And I will also carbon copy Carlton as he is one of the chairs of the JAS, just as a matter of courtesy as well. And of course he is a part of the ExCom. Ok Matthew you need me to write - to tell you any specific action item on this?
Matt Ashtiani: Yes, can you please stated as you like it recorded?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Olivier to write to the chair of the new GTLD/At-Large working group, regarding Kurt´s request for an implementation, JAS implementation follow up. And I Think that’s open enough for me to just forward things. I’m not going to have an action item that its three lines long.
Matt Ashtiani: Got it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, so then the other points I wanted to discuss was that of the LACRALO discussion that is currently taking place. And those are the discussion on having a showcase and a certain numbers of events that they wish to stage in San Jose. Certainly we’ve seen an enormous amount of benefits that has come out, that has taking place, all the events that had tanking place in LAC RALO. And I can see a strong support of all of our community for a GA, for showcase, for all sources of things to happen for LAC RALO events to take place in the region, during the next meeting in March.
I understand that there’s a conference call taking place in LAC RALO tonight, tonight by night, today for them. The problem is, I will not be able to attend myself because I’ll be in an aircraft at the time, so I would write after this call, sending my apologies to Jose Arce with a copy to Dev of course and a copy to At-Large staff, and say that I will not be able to join, however and this is why I need your approval, I would like to ask them that if they wish to submit a proposal, and specially an actual initial budget they should submit it as soon as possible because time is essence, and if they can submit this over to us by the next 24 to 48 hours.
I rather will be discussing this on their call which is specifically going to be about this, then I would like to have the green light from you to be able to them take action quickly and write directly to the chair of the board, with a copy to the CEO of ICANN, a copy to CFO of ICANN, a copy to the COO of ICANN, and raise the matter immediately with them of the fact that we need to reexamine budgets for this, the floor is now open for discussion, Tijani?.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I do appreciate your idea to [inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani. If I had an answer for you, I would reply to you, I don’t know either, but unless we initiate the dialog with them we will not be able to find out. I know there is some funding left from the AFRALO event which was funds that were kept just in case things happens, so we do have a starting point here. I also do know that we look set to have a huge headache with that region.
And I’m not mitigating my words, have a huge headache with that region and by we, not only At-Large, ICANN in general will have a huge headache with that region, noting that members of that region have considerable cloud with the press and with public opinion in that part of the world so, ICANN can throw millions, and literally millions in the new gTLD process, as it does, and as it has done with publicity companies out there. All of that can be quite easily mitigated and watered down by action of a handful of people who are very harmful regionally speaking, so this is the line that I would be taking and emailing those people I also wanted to add on the carbon copy also Cherine Chalaby who is the chair of the board finance committee.
I would also add in the copy of those people, Sebastien Bachollet who is on the board here, also happens to be in the board finance committee but its important for him to be aware, since he is the ALAC selected director. Any other feedback on this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If I may? Speaking only as an executive chair here [inaudible] delegated authority, people [inaudible] wait for [inaudible].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl, any other feedback or points or suggestions. Evan, Tijani, Rinalia?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: No.
Evan Leibovitch: Not here.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Nothing.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So do I take it that I have your de-facto agreement on this to proceed forward?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes please.
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Look if we don’t ask we never going to get, and it looks as either if they are. You know the answers that we are getting is no, or that we have gotten in the past is no. Another point which I have here, and this is been told to me in unofficial channels, was we actually like things to be tested out first and when we see that it works, then we might have a better ear, and listening and thinking “Oh! We want to this again!”
Well we tested this out with AFRALO and its being a fantastic success, I’m going to remind everyone that what happened in AFRALO is a fantastic success and certainly I do hope that they put their money with them out, this telling us that they would look at it with a new eye, it’s not a case of ICANN not having any funds whatsoever.
What we’ve seen in Dakar is something which have star struck a number of people and certainly the contract with this publicity company which is just under a million dollar when we’re are looking at $80,000- $90,000 altogether puts a perspective in things; so I can give it my best shot., Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes thank you Olivier, I agree with you that if you don’t ask you’ll never get anything, but I do love to ask for [inaudible]. I would never ask for funding after the budget globing, that’s why I don’t want to ask for something I’m sure I [inaudible] but on the contrary, we have a remaining fund from our AFRALO, and we can make use of them for San Jose; that’s a very good idea, but asking for an additional budget, I’m afraid we have [inaudible] and sometimes you are better not to ask - to the head of the Board Finance Committee. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani. Well I think that if we don’t ask we are not getting any response anyway is a case of not even trying. So I will try, and we’ll see; if we get a no answer well probably get less upset, than if we get a no answer while we are analyzing the budget. I realize it’s totally out of the budget, and I realize that the AFRALO meeting was able to be held in part thanks to the sacrifice of other ALOS, thank you Evan for reminding us on this.
And in fact that LAC RALO itself was a case of sacrificing, and saying, yes, we are ready to sacrifice our budget, but, however things change, and certainly it’s a tough position, is it worth a headache? At a specific time now where ICANN needs to look good at all levels. Anyway what I’ll do. I will send an email to Jose Arce as I said, and take it from there, and keep you updated on what’s going on in there. But the plan is to ask for more money thru more official channels; rather than thru side channels. The bottom line really will be rather the board finance subcommittee might decide that they will like to make an exception, or to push forward for this strategically.
At the same time the question will be whether our staff will listen and agree with a board finance committee; and it might come down to that at the end. But this is just speculation, so… we´ll see. Okay, so these are the two specific points I wanted to bring forward to everyone else as a follow-up of yesterday’s call. Is there anything else that others would like to bring forward in the discussion as a follow-up to yesterday’s call? Have I overlooked anything? But I don’t see anyone jumping up and down just trying to look at the ALAC call yesterday. We had the conflict of interest declarations for ALAC members. Well, that’s going to be pointed over to the correct working group for this. You’ve noticed that staff has [51:40 inaudible] filed a request for people to send their little bio and their little photo and so can I just remind everyone to please send those ASAP.
The ICANN Academy I understand is moving forward. I’ve been carbon-copied and this is certainly moving fast. The motion on the JAS working group is the one which I think we need to be particularly attentive to and all the other points are in our hands now, so on my side I don’t have anything else to report. Does anyone else have anything else to report? And if that is not the case, then I’ll ask for any other business.
And I don’t see that; the only thing I see is we are over two hours when we were supposed to be one hour and a half - any other business I would like to bring is the timing, the date and the time of the ExCom Poll, the monthly ExCom Poll. My thinking was that the monthly ExCom Poll is to be the week of ALAC’s Poll that this week is on Wednesday at 14:30 UTC, which is the time that we started this meeting. The [inaudible] ExCom Poll is set with the legal polls is maybe a good way to moving forward to what everyone thinks about this date and time for the ExCom Monthly Poll the fourth week of every month. Just as we are trying to obtain an idea on this [inaudible] and I’m sorry for that, for everyone else, but I’m okay with all the times, by the way, so is really down to the times of those people that have to wake up earlier or stay up late.
Gisella Gruber: Wait, we are getting Rinalia back on the call if you can wait just a couple of seconds.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay for those of us who [54:08]. Everything is okay with [54:16] time, so okay with that as well.
Gisella Gruber: 14:00 is 10 PM in as we are waiting to get her back on line, we dialed her and she couldn’t [54:36] We’ll have to come after her again…
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So it is about half past midnight now where she is…
Gisella Gruber: Correct.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: There was also a question about having [inaudible] times for the ALAC call. In other words, having an ALAC call on some months at the current time and some months at a totally different time, so as to not always penalize the same people or to have the same people be there in the middle of the night. How the people feel about this?
Rinalia: Yes? Thank you. What I want to say is that the time is okay, it is a bit late but it is okay. The problem is having it back to back one day after the other. That really affects how you are able to function the next few days. So, if we could split up the days in terms of when we have the ALAC call versus the ExCom call that would be great, instead of one day after the other.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay thank you Rinalia. Well, the ALAC call is always on the fourth Tuesday of the month.
Rinalia: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And that has remained at - it is at 16:00 UTC? No, sorry: 15:00 UTC?
Rinalia: Call at 15:00 UTC is correct.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I’m for keeping that the same every month for the fact that it is not easier for people to be able to predict especially if they do not check their Google calendar. I know that some people have wished this to happen a little bit earlier, maybe an hour earlier. I’m not sure how any of our members on the West Coast of the United States feels about it, but it does make it very early for them. The other thing is we did say we would add this to discussion on the mailing list, so maybe we can throw a few times on the mailing list and find out if any earlier time would be good, but I’m not sure how one hour would make that much difference for you, Rinalia.
Rinalia: This is a question of when you actually go to bed, but it’s okay. This time- tonight was 10:30 PM, but it’s okay. Ten o’clock is also fine. Eleven is a bit late.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Stop being a little bit late, I know. So what we can do for the ExCom, since we have a little more left people of course then we could actually have the ExCom at the time today, but you are saying you wish to have it maybe on a Thursday rather than the Wednesday right after the Tuesday. Staff, is there any barrier to this happening? Or anyone else?
Gisella Gruber: Olivier, if I may?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Please Gisella.
Gisella Gruber: Forgot [inaudible] on the 1400 UTC.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: This is where it becomes difficult because we both have working groups.
Gisella Gruber: It is, certainly that’s a thing that’s the issue with the rotation I know the rotation is very bizarre you also will face this huge wave of meetings ALAC has a global view on, just remember all of that, if I may just, excuse me again, for the months the call is the date the time and then we talk about rotating times and then saying something different. It’s really been hard on everyone’s schedule if mid month score, which then a week ahead of time you have a better view on your availability but at least if everyone got this on their schedule every month at that time is just like makes anyone personal lives and professional lives around it much easier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Gisella. We still didn’t resolve our problem we are having the Tuesday and the Wednesday with the call.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Can we have it on Friday?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: How does Friday looks Gisella on the schedules. You might be muted.
Sebastien Bachollet: She’s cut off.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Oh you got to be kidding.
Sebastien Bachollet: Maybe you need to ask if middle of the weekend for Cheryl is a good idea. I know that she will answer, she can do everything, but maybe, I would like you to consider she is also part of those meeting and if it’s Saturday morning or the night it’s just not good.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I know whether that’s the thing you know, the earth being round, the time its different for everyone, and it certainly makes it difficult, that is why there’s a very few calls on Friday because several people who are on the antipodes are already on their Saturday and Saturday morning, thus it makes it difficult for them as well, cause that really messes up their weekend, if there is any weekend, that Cheryl can never have.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: May I propose that we finish this session?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, since Gisella got cut off its probably easier to -
Gisella Gruber: Sorry I’m back.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well the discussion we were having while you were away was to think about Friday; however Sebastien reminded us quite rightly that it makes it Saturday morning for Cheryl and anyone who might be listening from the antipodes. It’s one of this things and the Thursday s I know it gets very busy specially [inaudible] working group for me.
Gisella Gruber: Should we, if I may Rinalia, what is the I know this is going to be crazy timing. I’m just looking at the world clock here; saying into using UTC codes could see 2100 UTC would not help much. 2100 UTC would be far AM for Rinalia, 10:00 pm Paris, and I don’t know what your mornings are like 6:00am its 2300UTC for Paris, so maybe [inaudible] with the options as well.
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: This is for what day Gisella?
Gisella Gruber: Possibly the Wednesday Thursday or Friday. If we do this on a Wednesday night it would be very early on Thursday morning for you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Can we take this to the list. Because I see the clock ticking on that and I’m a little concerned that we are not going to just find an answer right now so well take it on the list, Gisella, can u take the lead on this to guide us to what is your convenience that will be great. Rinalia you still up, you want to say a few more words?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: No, no, no.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ok. I gather you’re all probably looking at this call finishing so you could be able to get some sleep, I see just for the records that Cheryl mentioned 2100 to 2300UTC often works for meetings on her experience; it really depends on the timings in Asian pacific region. And with all this any other business to discuss, and if there’s no other business to discuss then I declare this meeting to be adjourned.
Evan Leibovitch: There’s another matter regarding the future challenges group but as I said I’ll take them offline.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Thank you very much Evan. Thank you all of you, apologies again for making this a bit long, but we have made some progress again today. And I’ll say good bye, good night, and good morning to all of you.
-End of Recorded Material-
