Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So, it sounds to me like we’re getting everyone we’ve got with Africa fully represented, thank you Africa. Let’s move to the agenda. The first point on the agenda, of course, is to ask is there anything that people would like to add to the agenda. If you’re in the room, wave your hand. If you’re not, make yourself known to me. Any additions to the agenda?
Christopher Wilkinson: Cheryl, should the agenda include the updates on the by-laws amendment?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, the update on the by-law amendment isn’t really a matter for BCEC, but we can pop in a discussion under any other business. At this point it’s got a life of its own. The regions, in a number of cases, have either put in support for the African regional view or will be doing their own, and you noted the extension of the public comment period to the 15th , but yes we can have a look at that under any other business, thank you Christopher, anything else?
In which case, let’s adopt the agenda and move to the first point, which is the summary of minutes. The summary minutes, you will note, have been prepared with a reasonable amount of detail of who said what. That’s one mechanism of doing them, I’m a bit ambivalent as to which way this committee wants to record its minutes. I have no problem with the HU said this and JN said that system, but if anyone has an objection to that mechanism, just let staff know, and we can alter that.
What we also then made sure that Heidi did note was that when a potential African who was expected to put in an SOI was named in the minutes, their name was also truncated to initial only, so when Yaovi did mention that there had been some interest from someone of note and indeed, renown, in the African region that has been minuted, but is there just as an initial.
And it’s at that point that I would like us to consider later when we’re under our processes how you want to deal with recording of anything identifiable in the minutes from now on, as we move into a higher level of confidentiality. Are there any (arotoral) changes to the summary minutes that anyone wants to suggest?
Christopher Wilkinson: Not exactly an (arota) but two small points. Occasionally we come across initials which are not identified; I sometimes have to guess who we are referring to. I guess it’s not that important. I’m also down as stating that having a director with previous Board director experience would be convenient and would simplify matters. I think that I was referring to Board director experience in general, rather than specifically ICANN Board experience.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, let’s make that change obvious then. Make it changed so that it’s obvious. I’ve not had enough coffee this morning. Sorry Christopher. And indeed, of course this is why an important criteria for the proposed criteria for applicants. Hong, as you weren’t available at that meeting is there anything you’d like to (inaudible 0:04:10) in the summary minutes, one moment Yaovi, you happy Hong?
Hong Xue: Oh, I’m okay for now, I’m checking the –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, I just wanted to know if there was anything you wanted to clarify. Yaovi, go ahead.
Yaovi Atohoun: I just want to submit that as I have seen that (Phoebe) has shown an interest, I wanted to (inaudible 0:04:34).
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Yaovi. I am much more comfortable with that. I was most concerned with things that are particularly identifiable to individuals who are outside of the committee or staff being in the minutes, so I will certainly encourage you to make that change. Does everyone else agree?
Male: Yes.
Male: Yes.
Heidi Ulrich: Cheryl, what was that change?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Is that the region has some candidates showing interest, potential candidates showing interest. Now, back to - with the initials, I have done it in the past where the initials simply - on the main page, next to our names we just copy in another column and notes that HU would be Heidi Ullrich and GW would be Gisella and Marilyn would be MV, and that’s not a problem, we can do that.
(Inaudible 0:05:44) indicates that the unknown initial, which I suspect is PD, that’s one of the things that Yaovi has now suggested be retracted, because that was referring to Pierre. So I think with that bit of tidying up that will be fine. Thanks very much, I appreciate that.
If we just move on to the action items now. Heidi, without going through these in gory details, I know you’ve gone through all of these yesterday, is there any business that’s outstanding?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, a few. The first one is when the call for SOIs actually goes out, a notice to be sent to BCEC containing all final documents and I know that that actually has come to call two meetings ago, and I do apologize for that. Cheryl and I discussed that yesterday and I will be sending that out later today, so that one is to be done.
I’m just going through the outreach issues. Those that did not already have editing rights to the BCEC candidate workspace now have been given editing rights. You should have received an invitation or a notice yesterday, if you did not, that means that you already had editing rights. The explanatory text to be added to the table on, again, the At-Large candidates work space, I’ve added that, so that’s been done.
Marilyn, our staff member Marilyn Vernon did prepare a test case, which was posted to the big pullup site that you’ll see when we pull that up today, so that’s been done.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh, now Marilyn. I thought you were actually a serious candidate. Thank you for that.
Heidi Ulrich: We have, I’ve worked with technical support on the adobe connect room problems we’ve been having. We’ve polled a few, I hope that when you came into the room today you did not, you were not being asked to – there was no barrier to coming in. That’s been solved.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’m afraid that is not the case. I certainly was being told it was a private meeting and I need to wait for permission.
Heidi Ulrich: Okay. Well I thought we had solved that. We had tested that, but apparently if it’s not working. Okay. We also currently have a technical person, Joshua Berman, on the call right now. He’s actually in our adobe connect, so he’s monitoring that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Joshua, you may have seen that when James was trying to enter the room, and now Hong is doing exactly the same, and I let James in, but you know, we --I was having a little challenge – which is only a problem if staff hasn’t opened up a room and you know, and therefore I can’t get in to let anyone else in, which has happened on a past call. Okay, anything else then, Heidi?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, actually the next one is about the press release. I have actually been in contact with one of – the relevant staff person, and Barbara Clay now is working on that, so I’ll get back to you on that, but I don’t expect that to be a problem, and I’ve alerted them that we need one asap, so that should be worked on. The issue of the tool kit; the exact action item is staff has developed a tool kit to be given to the members of the BCEC. If we could perhaps now, or under any other business, discuss what that tool kit should consist of, or as you wish, that would be most helpful.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We’ll pick that up under agenda item four. Because it’s a place in space, and what we need might be within the Wiki space or it might be in the offsite BigPulse space -- another decision which is very important to make. I’m moving now to get on with matters of confidentiality and privacy. That’s the important point, thank you, Heidi.
Heidi Ulrich: And the final one is that Cheryl and staff was to ask ICANNs legal team to prepare a text to be placed on the public site. This was in regards to the request for actual written text that it is, that the BCEC can move ahead, or the whole selection process can move ahead up until the point of the actual selection, prior to those by-law changes being passed by the Board. Cheryl, if you’d like to talk a little bit about that, we did –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We have had the call, and it is still a pending action item. The request for something in writing was requested to be given in writing, so we’re playing tag but it will be done. We are with it. But in that call, legal counsel made it very clear that if it’s isn’t illegal in any state or jurisdiction, we can do what we like. That is intended to be a little bit flippant but I do understand what he was saying, there was no impediment for us to do this. He didn’t really see that we needed his writing, because it’s not advice, it’s a simple fact. However, we were requested to ask for it, and ask for it, we have.
I assume we’ll get it, so that one needs to be carried over. All right, thanks for that Heidi, if we can now move to the matter of review of received applications. How, Christopher, have you had any opportunity to get to your email? Have you been able to see an invitation and credentials to get into the big pulse space where the SOIs are listed?
Christopher Wilkinson: yes, we drove 10 kilometers this morning and found a hotel with a Wifi, and I visited that site, and read the two SOIs which are deemed by somebody to be complete, but I didn’t get round to reading all the SOIs that were obviously incomplete.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Because they are coming in. We’ve got them coming in each day, in fact, but we do have – as they are coming in I think it’s important that we – we won’t be, I gather, getting a prompt that says more SOIs have come to this page. Heidi, can you just double check with Ralph at BigPulse if that is the case?
The reason I am asking that question is I had an early login, as a tester of the system, so I had my credentials and had gone to the page and it showed some eight or nine, including Marilyn’s test one there. When the fresh credentials came out, I noticed that there was a new name on the list, and it was simply a matter of refreshing my page and that showed up.
But if we were to get two a day for the next ten to fifteen days, I was wondering how we, as members of the group, are going to be prompted or reminded to go and look at the page, because there is a fresh SOI up there. In fact, that’s a piece of logistics that I would just like someone to explore.
Christopher Wilkinson: Okay. I’ll try and look this up.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: From your point of view, Christopher, it means that you don’t have to go through hell and high water to get to a wifi connection if there’s no new ones up there, then you can leave it until another five or ten days, but if they’re coming in, you’ll know okay, now there’s three more for me to go look at, or there’s five more for me to go and look it. It should make managing your life a little easier.
There’s another logistics issue, and notice I’m avoiding the issue of discussing any names with the exception of Marilyn who clearly we need to delete, unless she had aspirations to being the occupier of 615 on the ICANN Board, which I don’t think she does. Let me know if I’m wrong there, Marilyn.
Marilyn Vernon: You’re absolutely right, Cheryl. No aspirations.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We do need to remove Marilyn now from the list of SOIs received, so we need to have that removed, and we have also had a – Heidi has received a reply from someone saying they now wish to withdraw, that they have had put in their statement of interest, then thought more on the matter and believe their experience is not at a high enough level, as they believe is required for this role, which is, I think, a very honorable and sensible thing to do. And we also need a mechanism for removing that person’s SOI from this list as well. So they’re logistical things, if you could look into that for us, Heidi. Go ahead, James.
James: Thank you. On that list, I just wanted to add that whenever you go to that page, you always have to put in your password, so I was wondering if there couldn’t be a feature so your password was remembered. Of course, for security reason maybe you have to put it in all the time, and then I have to go and cut and paste it and look for the email and cut and paste it because the password is not something that is easily remembered.
I was just wondering if there could be a remember password, so once you’ve cut and pasted you don’t have to go through that process every time you come to the page.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, okay. Thanks for that James. Heidi, I’m back to you and staff to follow through with, because that’s not my experience, but then I’ve spent an awful lot of time in BigPulse spaces and pages and perhaps my password, because I obviously had to do the login once, has been maintained.
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, I’ll look into that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, double check that. It’s not impossible, but it’s certainly an inconvenience. Christopher, you’ve only logged in once to that page? You’ve not had multiple logins? You didn’t have a problem similar to James, did you?
Christopher Wilkinson: I’ve actually got the password copied in the notes in my diary and I just type it down whenever I need it.
James: Well, I could do that as well, it is a lot easier than cut and paste it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We’re getting far too used to all this technology. We’ve forgotten about pen and papers. Thank you for reminding us. So yes, the ability to have someone edit both Marilyn and the individual who requested to withdraw on that matter.
The individual who has requested to withdraw, I would be very happy to write, as chair of this committee, and thank them for their time and hope that they do continue to show an interest in the world of At-Large and link them to the appropriate webpage for the region they belong to. Is that what you all should like me to do? If so, I will do it at the end of this meeting.
Male: That’s okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Go ahead, Yaovi.
Yaovi Atohoun: I just have a comment. When I was going through the link (inaudible 0:18:55.2) there is not a PDF format. The content says I have comment, comment, comment for the content, so I don’t know if the program is (inaudible 0:19:09.3) or if the format can be better.
Because the word comment seems like the (inaudible 0:19:15.1) to each answer, comment, comment, comment. I don’t know if you are getting what I’m saying. If you take a (inaudible 0:19:22.3) and you click on show results, or PDF, the content, in the content you have a lot of comment. So this word comment, I don’t know if you can remove it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, it’s an option that people can provide additional – it’s really only a heading for the material provided. It’s – I don’t suppose it’s an insurmountingly difficult task to ask BigPulse to change the word from comment to content, because it is provided content, it is applicant provided content. But I guess I would ask is that really something we desperately need, or can we go on as it is. What does everyone else think? James?
James: I think it’s okay. When you look it seems basically just the heading, so I didn’t have any difficulty with it, actually.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, if you can try to ignore the fact that it says comment, and just know that it is content, then it works.
Yaovi Atohoun: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yaovi, did you –
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes, I’m okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Good. Now you’ll notice my particular encouragement to avoid naming and nomenclature as we discuss the signing and the review of applications. My reason for doing this, of course, is that these calls are recorded and as a matter of course, up until and including this meeting, we have had the recording of these calls, mp3s, listed as part of the record of our regular meetings.
So as we move to operational – operation and procedures, I guess we now need, ladies and gentlemen of the BCEC, to come to a very important decision, and that is now we have real applicants, we have real details, and a real need for confidentiality, and the need for us to have full, frank, and fearless discussions on these candidates. From this meeting on, how do you wish to have things in terms of records and recordings managed?
Because this must be made scrupulously clear to ICANN staff, the instructions have to be clearly given by me to the staff and we have to make sure that an error does not happen, once we’ve made those decisions. We’ve previously decided to not release names until the 48 hours after the close of the applications, so it would appear to me to be bizarre in the extreme if we’re to start naming names in our discussions that were to go to the public records.
Male: Cheryl, this is a significant point. My recollection of the two year service on the main nominating committee was that the substantive discussions, both face to face and on conference calls were not recorded. I think future meetings should not be recorded.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. James?
James: Well, I was going to suggest that since the meetings are recorded, for confidentiality, if the candidates, if we can call them as A, B, C, D, E, F or One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, so when we talk about candidate A and Candidate B, and Candidate C, etc., rather than calling names, but they would be listed on the SOI where we have the summary of all the candidates, so we just code them as A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, or whatever. And that gets around calling names.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s certainly one way to approach it. Heidi has raised her hand. Heidi, I can’t give you permission to do anything, because you’re a controller of this room, but would you just please to listen to what Hong is saying first, before you respond, Heidi?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, of course.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I’ll give Hong the microphone first. Go ahead, Hong.
Hong Xue: Thank you, Cheryl. According to my experience with nomcom, yes indeed, it is useful to encode the names of applicants, either with the numbers or letters, so we don’t need for the names, we use numbers. But if you wish that we should call each other’s names, then that’s another issue.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I suppose we’re all fairly well identified. That boat has sailed.
Hong Xue: Okay, all right, that part’s - no problem.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you very much, Heidi, back to you. Although Seth as the microphone. Seth, why do you have the microphone?
Seth Greene: I do not know.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Who gave Seth a microphone? That is revoked immediately. Dear me. Heidi?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes, I just wanted to let everyone know, and I don’t know what I’m doing here – if you’re seeing something in the adobe room –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Apparently you’re sharing your computer with us.
Heidi Ulrich: Okay, I’ve kicked Seth out, apparently. Regarding the recordings, what we can do, we can have Adigos still record them, but not post them. So we can have them for the record someplace, so if we need to, we can have access to them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I do like hybrid approaches, and I must say that does give me some comfort, that should we need to go back and listen to a discussion that only we have access to, that’s a mechanism that can be afforded to us. I also feel very comforted by the proposal of some form of encoding, and I think with the experience that the Nominating Committee has had on that, that would be most useful as well. If everyone is in agreement with an encoding system, just to start with? Christopher?
Christopher Wilkinson: Yes, I agree with the encoding idea – I like using the numbers, if there are only six of them. I still have a problem with recording. I guess I’ll explain that later.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure, if we can just separate those two traits for now. I think we do have a strong argument for encoding, in which case a column for encoding will need to be put on the BigPulse page that we have, where the SOIs are. When, Heidi, you’re discussing, or whoever, I assume it’s Mattias or someone who works directly with BigPulse, or Marilyn, I don’t care who, as long as it happens, that we also need a column now for our (inaudible 0:27:27.9) ID code.
I’m not particularly (fast) if it’s alphanumberic or some combination of the two. It can be reverse alphabetical for all I care, but I do think we need something there that we can all use as a handle. Okay, with that then, we come to the record or not to record. I’m painfully aware that we have only slightly less than 50% of our members in one region represented at all here today.
And I am keen to get all regional views. Christopher, with your permission, can I poll that question to the full list, the full committee?
Christopher Wilkinson: Yes, by all means.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And if that’s the case, is it possible for me to, if I use, for example a doodle poll, there is a comment section. Can you make sure that whatever comment it takes for not recording that you not only share with us here in this meeting, but you also put into that comment, if at all possible? Or send to the list by email? Just so your views are clearly understood by everybody, that’s all.
Christopher Wilkinson: yes, I obviously have views about this, but I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. ICANN has several years experience of the nominating committee handling confidential, personal information, and I think we could – which has not caused problems to the best of my knowledge, so we could just check what they did already in this context.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We have the benefit of having a current nominating committee person on this call as well, so I’ll ask Hong to clarify. Hong, what’s the status of – and it’s a far more confidential system that Nomcom works in, what’s the status of recording or records of nominating committee activities at this stage?
Hong Xue: Well, Cheryl, what is interesting is that we have no such precautions at all. All the meetings are actually recorded, minutes are taken and circulated for confirmation, so is exactly like the other meetings we did. But issue here is that Nomcom itself is confidential, and never posts anything to the public. So actually-
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You have your internal records.
Hong Xue: Indeed. So what you suggest is exactly the same as the Nomcom practice right now. I’m okay with that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, well I might just make that a part of the preamble to everyone understands what the current Nomcom practice is, and encourage anyone to make use of the comment section on that, and we’ll put that out to a poll. Now, since that ends then, I think what we do need to have formally noted in the minutes and on the page for today’s meeting is the very clear statement that it is publically accessible that all discussion of statements of interest and review of applications will be in camera, and records privately held by the committee, and not available to the public.
So we sort of closed that loop. Now that has in fact really given us part of our BCEC operations and processes, which is what we needed to start discussing now, but it’s also – I think Heidi led to some of the tool question that we need to discuss. If we are going to look at each and every one of these PDFs, which is not a problem and we can look at the responses that individuals have put in, each of us will have a value or comment to go back to Yaovi’s earlier point.
Probably he wanted to make comments rather than have things listed as comments; we really do need, I would have thought some place, I don’t particularly care if it’s in the BigPulse world or not. I suppose there is an advantage to it being in the BigPulse world if indeed it is a page we can go to which is linked off our group candidates statement of interest page, where we can have the nomenclature, the name that there is and just equals to whatever, and we can use those numerals if we so desire, as an identifier.
But if we had a place which was only for login and then editability by us, where you could have the numbers One to whatever, and the ability for any of the BCEC to make comments or notes, as they are going through for example, candidate SOI number three, and if someone felt that something candidate number three was a particular shining example or merit, make note of that, and others could go, oh yes, that’s a very good point.
I agree, or I disagree. I think when we were discussing enablement and tools that’s what we had in mind, but I would like to now throw it open to those on this call to see what it is you need to make your collaboration and sharing, both insessionally and in other words, when you’re not on the telephone together with each other, but as you’re reviewing the results.
And indeed, the PDF, you can go into a place and space and make your personal set of notes available for sharing with others on the committee. Is that your will, first of all, and what would make that work, secondly? Hong, perhaps as a current nomcom person, I’d like to hear from you first. How with your recent experience would you like to go forward with that?
Hong Xue: You mean our recent record?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I mean sharing your opinion on what candidate number three said about 6.5a versus what James thinks about number three’s response to 6.5a. How and where do you want to record that? We could put up a spreadsheet for the want of a better word.
Not a Google doc because that has difficulties for you, but some sort of table on a page where you all could record what if anything you wanted to comment on, how would you like to build a better model?
Hong Xue: Cheryl, this is exactly something I want to mention. Based on my experience in Nomcom, we do have the online system, is a voting and a polling system, but have no recording system, or the meeting writers, application writers, candidate’s information. Candidate information is also stored in the online polling system for the advocacy, for the debate, actually recorded in the staff’s filing system. But what is very clear is that we never use this public application software, such as Google or Wiki.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right, we cannot do that.
Hong Xue: It is not only publically accessible, but not even this public platform that can be used. So I suggest we use first all, a specific online system. I don’t know how this polls works, whether they can store information or not, or we can only vote through it. And second our very trustable staff can take care of these information.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. Okay, thank you Hong. Christopher, can I ask your opinion of what Hong said? Because it’s something that I think Heidi could have a discussion with the staff about facilitating the work of the nominating committee, clearly a tool exists.
Some of us believe we need a tool, or you need a tool, if one exists, it seems sensible to look at one, and if not find out whether we can have one created in the world of Big Pulse, which I fairly confident, Hong, we can, I just think if one exists there’s no point in recreating it. Christopher, go ahead.
Christopher Wilkinson: No strong opinions at this stage. A tool would be useful, especially if we get lots and lots and lots of candidates. If we have a small number of candidates maybe that all will be a bit superfluous and we can do most things out of poll.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Possibly, but seeing that we’re about halfway through and you’re about to head into double figures, I think a tool might be useful. Okay, thanks Christopher, James, your views?
James: Well, I think we do need something to collaborate, although the more candidates you have, the collaboration tends to become confusing at times, because everybody might have a different opinion, you may not get too far. My experience in dealing with a group of people, where you have a group of candidates, is basically to ask everybody to select their top three, you put them in a pool, and you select three out of that, and then you discuss those three. You very quickly get to a decision.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure.
James: Or you very quickly get to the top three. Otherwise if you have too many candidates we might spend a lot of time in this tool moving forward and backward and forward, and not make a lot of progress.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. What I’m hearing from that in particular is the need to have an early mechanism for us to check the quality of an SOI against the criteria that’s already been established. Would that be a fair way to encapsulate that, James? They either do or don’t meet the criteria? Those that don’t probably don’t need the earliest of the reviews.
If you then look at those that do meet the criteria and prioritize them that will also assist. That doesn’t mean that you can’t go to those that don’t meet the criteria, look at why they don’t meet the criteria, and you have the right, of course, to ask for further information should you so desire. But you may find, by doing a sift and sort to begin with, that you have a wealth of talent that already meets the criteria and the majority of you are putting in your top prioritizations anyway.
But it’s probably a good thing to have a mechanism to record that. I assuming that what nomcom has as a tool, does indeed do that as well. Heidi, are you picking up what the need of the committee is? Is it answering your question on what is meant by the development of a tool?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes. I’m still going to think about this a bit more, but yes, it’s getting there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Obviously talking to whoever is on staff for nomcom could be an excellent first step, and I’m happy to be involved in that conversation if you like. We might also just remind – if you’re looking at simply picking up a tool that nomcom is using, Hong could I ask, does it have, for want of a better word, an open field? In other words, you mentioned it was polling and voting.
Does it allow for example, what James was suggesting? Where one could prioritize from say one to nine or one to three? Each person could sort of prioritize against an identified statement of interest, whether they think it’s the top, middle, or not very high preferences?
Hong Xue: Cheryl, yes indeed. The system does have this function. It is a system specifically invested by ICANN and developed by a professional program company, specifically for nomcom, and I guess we cannot afford to that. It’s been used for many years, every year they update the information, make it new for the new nomcom. It functions very sophisticated.
It can store all the candidates SOI and we can make polling prioritize the ranking of each applicant, so everyone can, of course, check this is eligible, this is not, and there will be a ranking generated automatically, and what is even better that we can will the result of the polling, so who has more votes. But this is for polling. We have the final face to face meeting to make the final vote.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Right, fine, which we can do in a telephonic rather than a face to face, but yes. What Hong suggested as a tool would be extraordinarily useful. Heidi, when you’re tracking down this, obviously it might be something that can only be used by nomcom, and if that’s the case, then we should see what key features of it might be applicable to us and -- for some reason I’ve got being happening on my computer, is everyone else’s – is it just me? Okay, I wonder what that’s all about. Okay, Yaovi, go ahead.
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes, I just want to ask you what Hong said, I was also on the nomcom last year, but she has experience more than me because of many years in nomcom, so I want to wonder can we also use just the difference that we have, just a limited number of candidates. But what would be good would be to see how we can apply this.
In Nomcom we have a staff, ICANN staff behind the system who is working every day on this, but I don’t know if this is in BCEC if there is staff behind the BCEC who can also work in using this tool, because if you put in information you need somebody to work for you on that one, that is my only point I want to drop.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s very good advice, Yaovi, because we don’t have unlimited resources, staff or otherwise, but it may be that we end up having to cherry pick the very best of what we would like for a tool, and just create something that works for us in our limited circumstances.
Let’s explore this and let’s have some feedback, that’s probably the most significant action item from today’s meeting, then. Now, in terms of your next steps and timeline, do you want to start making any sort of prioritization and reviewing, sharing if we get this tool between now and the next meeting? Or do you want to devote your next meeting, which I believe will be before or after – it will be just before the close of the period.
What’s the date of the next meeting? I’m sorry, I’m trying to see – no, it would be after, because we close on the 21st. Okay, the next scheduled meeting would be the 25th? Correct?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So that’s good. Our next meeting can be devoted to a full review of all of the applications that have been received, and you can start to do this prioritization, so any tool, collaborative tool would need to be available for this committee to be using at the meeting on the 25th. If that’s the case, then the whole of the meeting on the 25th will be in camera. In other words, there will be no mp3 launched up to an agenda site, etc., etc.
The agenda would simply reflect review of SOIs received, and that’s it. Nothing else would be public, just that fact that on that date we are reviewing, which would be no different than knowing the nomcom met at a particular meeting.
To that extent, can I ask this committee as we come to the close of our available time here today, and before we move to the important matters of any other business, do you wish to have a culling of any nonconforming or statement of interest that does not meet your published criteria? If you do, fine.
If you want to say well, rather than cull, we would like to look at in what way does it not meet the criteria and seek more information? Equally fine. But those are decisions that you do need to settle today. Go ahead, James.
James: My view is that those applications that are incomplete or not filled out properly, we should just ignore them for the ones that people took the time to fill in properly. Otherwise we may find we’re chasing a lot of –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Chasing your tail?
James: I mean, if you’re going to apply for a job, you fill in the thing properly. And these people are people with experience so I don’t see why they wouldn’t fill it in properly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, James, of course, you’ve worked with me long enough to know that I’m very much on that side of the spectrum of view. Let’s see if the rest of the group gives you support on that. Yaovi, how do you feel about the use of if it even meets the criteria, it has been properly filled out or not, and if not we cull and you only deal with those that have been properly completed, or near properly completed, I suspect, if someone might miss a single thing we might wish to review that. Yaovi, go ahead.
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes, I agree with what my colleague said. If we have enough candidate, and I think that is probably the case, so if we don’t have proper information, we just consolidate the SOI and (inaudible 0:49:09.2) which means I will be happy not to work with, so yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. Okay. Christopher, you views?
Christopher Wilkinson: Basically in favor of reducing the number of dead applications, so I think culling, to use that term, is valid. Not quite sure who does it, whether it’s the Chair or the staff, but the one option would be to ask the staff to do the basic culling including a sort of reminder letter to the candidate saying we have found that your application is very incomplete, do you wish to resubmit with a complete application?
That would be one possibility to try, because I think in all of this we are dealing with two separate issues, one is privacy, i.e. individuals positions should not be exposed unnecessarily in public beyond what we have told them will happen, and the other is the position of the committee itself, and ultimately ICANN, in the case of disputes.
Who has the last word as to what information should or should not be available outside this committee further down the line in the event of a disputed decision? I’ve no definitive opinion about that, but I think we should be aware of that issue, particularly as these procedures are not tested in the same way as the nominating committee procedures, over the years.
So, yes, I certainly in principle agree to setting those over to one side and not wasting time on incomplete applications of which we seem to have received quite a few already.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Indeed. And of course we still have a significant amount of time for more applicants to put in as well. Thanks Christopher, Hong, your view?
Hong Xue: I agree with all of them. I think we need to give them a shot to make a supplementary submit for incomplete application.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. Can I come back to Heidi then, Christopher mentioned an outreach to applicants who had not fully completed, and I guess there is the margin of error where it’s a new and unfamiliar tool, not realizing that they had to confirm before they moved to the next section, or whatever may have been the case. I thought that in fact there had been some outreach to those who were incomplete. Am I wrong in that?
Heidi Ulrich: You are correct in that. We have gotten back to several of the applicants who have not filled in, well, they’ve either not filled in their SOIs completely, or one completed her – completed their SOI in Spanish, so we replied to her asking that person to send in their application again, in English.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes. In fact, you’ve been proactive in the outreach to give people the opportunity to make sure that their SOIs are completed to the best of their ability and with the greatest accuracy. Correct?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And you will continue to do that until the close of SOI acceptance period?
Heidi Ulrich: If that is the wish of the BCEC, yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, I think because it’s been applied to people so far, we need to continue to apply it to people who continue to come in. So I would suggest that it is not a matter of if it is a wish or not, it’s something that happened already, so we need to continue that standard. I would like to thank staff for that standard, because I think it’s a very good thing to have done.
If that’s the case then, Christopher, coming back to your point, it appears that we are giving people a great deal of nurturance and assistance from staff point of view, so I would like to suggest that at the next meeting, there will be a page somewhere, quite possibly in the off ICANN world in BigPulse, or in this new tool depending on what we end up with out of the action item that we’ve got out of today’s meeting.
But there will be a page somewhere with that proposed has met the criteria list, and an obvious these are the ones who haven’t met the criteria and why listing, for the committee’s consideration. I think I’m perfectly happy to work with the necessary technical skills of staff to get that done.
It does, however, leave us with another issue that you do need to discuss, and we weren’t able to discuss it last meeting because Hong was not at the meeting, and so while I had intended to bring it up under any other business, I am going to do so now. It does belong under operational processes.
But Christopher, you did want to bring forward, and I’m aware that we’re coming to the top of the hour, though we did start a few minutes after the hour, you did want to bring forward the matter of the by-law review, so I’ll just suspend the final part under section four, and five, and go to any other business now for you to raise those points. Go ahead, Christopher.
Christopher Wilkinson: I just wanted to update. I have no points to make, my points have already been made in Brussels and in the public comments, but I’ve noticed unless this is resolved quickly, we may get into a muddle at the end of the procedure, because we can’t make formal decisions at the end of this procedure if the by-laws issue has not been resolved, and legally stabilized.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, that is why we can only go up to, but not including the selection from the slates that your committee puts together. That just has to stay poised until the whole by-law situation is sorted. Heidi, you’ve had a number of interactions with staff and advisors on this, and you’ve certainly been intimately involved in the work of the ALAC on this particular matter.
Is there any comments you’d like to make under this point in time? Remembering that it’s of interest to BCEC, but BCECs business can continue on to completion of its slate preparation. We’ve had that established.
Heidi Ulrich: Yes. I don’t think I have anything to add. I know that legal will be sending the text very shortly stating that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, good. And now to that end, Christopher, the by-law review and the public comment that goes around that, until all public comments come in, and indeed, until they are reacted to by ICANN, and then until the Board makes a decision, other than being aware, I’m not sure what we can action on that.
At least we have the intention of the Board to have seat 16 established at the annual general meeting in Cartagena. Could that fail? Absolutely. Could they have to go through a second round of public comments on by-law changes? Absolutely. Can we do anything about it from our position? I doubt it. Other than have done all of our work, so whenever that final dot lines up, we are ready to go.
Heidi Ulrich: Cheryl, we’ve just lost Christopher, so we’re dialing back to him.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you. Okay. That is important, because we’re about to move to the matter that one of the ALAC executives raised, regarding regional representation on the BCEC. So if you can bear with me please, James, Hong, Yaovi, and is (inaudible 0:59:18.8) still on the call, or not? I haven’t heard. I thought I heard that (inaudible 0:59:28.9) and yet I’ve heard nothing from him.
Heidi Ulrich: We have Christopher back, but Dewayne has dropped and we’re dialing back.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Christopher, you are back on the call?
Christopher Wilkinson: Yes, I’m back on the call. I was dropped.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Excellent. I didn’t want to move on until you were back on the call, Christopher. Okay, so I think we’re between a rock and a hard place, and all we can do is make sure that we’re all organized and follow our timelines to the best of our ability, and what is out of our control is out of our control. But yes, we certainly recognize the issue. Now we do have another matter which would have come up under any other business at the last meeting, Hong, and it directly refers to the Asia Pacific region, so I was very keen to be sure that we had representation of the Asia Pacific region here.
And most importantly, it refers specifically to you, so I was even more keen to make sure you were on the call when we discussed this matter. It was pointed out at the – correct me if I’m wrong, Heidi---executive committee meeting following the ALAC meeting that was before our last BCEC meeting, by Sebastian Bachollet that the BCEC was designed, in his view, by agreement with the ALAC to specifically avoid having any person who was in the electorate for the voting on the slate of candidates being involved in the selection of the slate of candidates.
And he pointed out to the executive, and I undertook to bring it to this committee, that with your position being changed to become the caretaker interim or current chair of APRALO, that you would be casting a vote as part of the electorate, and he was concerned that that caused some problem where you were acting in a capacity of culling and getting to the slate as well as then later casting a vote.
Before you respond and before I ask the rest of the group on this call to respond, let me share with you my responses. My responses as not only Asia Pacific rep on the ALAC but also as an active member in this process, was that as influential as Hong is, I doubt that she can single handedly bias the outcome of the slate.
Sorry, Hong. I know you’re good, but I don’t think you’re that good, to bias all of us; that it is a regional wide group for a reason, and there are not just one but two representatives from At-Large structures on each of these, and that it would be a consensus outcome on the slate, and not biased by any one region.
That said, I did recognize that there was an intention to keep at arms length those people who were forming the BCEC and those who were being a part of the electorate, but I also made the following points. The following points were that some regions will have a directed vote being cast by their chair or the chair’s nominee, in the election, and that I thought it was well within the right of APRALO to say it is not a problem because APRALO will be instructing their leader, whoever that nominee is casting that vote.
In my view it may as well be you, but then I’m clearly biased – to cast the vote in a particular way. And so that no personal individual biases would be in and no corruption of the system could be possible. So that’s what I said, just so you all know, but I’m not the BCEC. What does the BCEC think of this? I probably should let everyone else speak and then Hong hear what everyone has to say.
Hong Xue: I have a – I’m sorry – I know Christopher wants to speak, but I’m quite keen. Can I have a few seconds?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Do you want to speak first, Hong? Well I just would have liked for you to hear everyone’s views before you react.
Hong Xue: Oh well, I will make one thing absolutely clear. Thank you so much for Cheryl’s persuasive advocacy for this. She could be a lawyer better than me. Based on my limited legal training, I do believe there is a potential conflict of interest here. I actually wanted to raise this issue immediately after Brussels, but I’ve been busy with something else, as Heidi, you know very well.
Now the issue is that I see my term will actually expire before the BCEC process, but it’s saying that because of the delay of the by-law revision, it’s not going to happen that way. Okay, that made it absolutely clear. In legal term we call this reasonable doubt. Even though I may not be biased, and I’m quite sure I would not be and would listen to the region absolutely, but I do believe that people pose a reasonable doubt about my neutrality and potential to able to draw (inaudible 1:05:45.4) should be respected fairly.
Sebastian’s point is validly taken. In that case I would take this opportunity formally and put it in the record to ask the BCEC to think about replace me and appoint another one from my region. I’m quite happy to retreat from this group and fortunately you haven’t touched any extremely confidential issue at the moment.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: (Inaudible 1:06:17.3) why this has to come up now, before we get too far, and thank you, thank you very much for making your point of view and your offer very very clear, but I will point out it is not up to the BCEC to replace you at all. It is up to the region to propose a replacement for you - to the ALAC for the ALAC to endorse that, or not.
Hong Xue: Oh, oh well, the procedure is quite complicated. Thank you for reminding me of the procedure, while complicate issue. Now I want to listen to the colleagues. I’m quite happy to leave.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think you’re a strong enough character, and if we can’t have a full and frank discussion on this matter, I fear for the process totally. So, in my view you should stay. It’s not a voting matter, you won’t have a vote on this, but it is important that the views of the BCEC, which is not fully represented here today, are at least aired to begin with. Christopher, go ahead.
Christopher Wilkinson: Well, first of all this is complete surprise to me, because I was not associated with the earlier discussion, so I reserve the right to come back to this at our next meeting. Secondly, since I haven’t had the opportunity to do so, I think I would like to extend my congratulations to Hong for her new position in the Asia Pacific. Congratulations, and I’m glad this reflects the confidence of all your colleagues.
Regarding the eventual conflict of interest, I think it’s basically between Hong and her region. If she’s offering to be replaced, then as the future Chair she probably knows the people well enough to find a replacement. It’s not too late to integrate a replacement. Actually it’s not too late for some of our so called members to start appearing and do some work.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Or be replaced. Yes.
Christopher Wilkinson: I would respect and welcome a replacement if that’s what Hong and her committee wishes to do, but that’s a very preliminary reaction. I don’t think we’ll solve this tonight.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, but it has to be raised.
Christopher Wilkinson: My main comment is to congratulate Hong on the expression of support from her members.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you, Christopher, Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: My understanding is that Hong is moving to ALAC, correct?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Say again, Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: Is moving to ALAC?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no. She is not moving to ALAC. She is the chair of the region. Okay? And the chair of the region has the possibility – each region has a vote. The region may choose to have their Chair, or some other leader cast that vote. And it may be a directed vote, or a personal vote, depending on the regional rules. And Sebastian has raised the question that if Hong is part of the committee that is arranging the slate of candidates, the he believes there is a conflict of interest if she then casts a vote.
Yaovi Atohoun: Is the decision already made? Is she already elected to the region?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, she is the chair of APRALO.
Yaovi Atohoun: Already done. Okay. So there are options. She can be in the committee and then she cannot vote with her region, she can have a replacement. So we have two options. My personal opinion is that she can continue BCEC, and being the president, but she cannot vote later. That’s one option. The other option is we have a replacement from her region to the BCEC from now. We have two options there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sure. There are at least those two options. James? James, are you there?
Marilyn Vernon: Hey Cheryl, this is Marilyn. James dropped off the call. He should be dialing back in shortly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay, fine. Thanks Marilyn. Hong, it’s not getting easier. But I do need everyone to remember the regions put forward their two people and the ALAC endorsed those two people. It’s up to the regions to make those changes. It is a matter that’s been raised, and it must be discussed. Obviously now Hong, it must be discussed in the region as well.
Hong Xue: Is it possible for the region to recommend you to replace me, and change you –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I already have a vote.
Hong Xue: Oh yes. You’re on ALAC. Oh yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: James, I don’t know how much you heard of what Yaovi was saying.
Hong Xue: Oh I heard a new solution. This sounds good. So he said either quit here or –
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There are always solutions; we just have to find them. James, now you’re back. You heard nothing of what Yaovi was saying. Yaovi, could you just repeat briefly – you saw two ways forward. Could you just repeat for James who had dropped off the call?
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes. What I am saying is that Hong (inaudible 1:13:12.2) very useful as a member of the Nominating committee, so my suggestion is that she can continue with the BCEC but later she will not be voting as the leader of the region, so she continues the work with the BCEC but she will not be voting. Or the second option is that the region will be replacing her in the BCEC, so those are two options in my point of view.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay. So James, as you heard there are two ways. Hong and James I think it’s important that you see both. Hong offered to say replace me on the BCEC now, before the slate is sorted, and maintain her vote which may or may not be directed by APRALO in the final selection process.
Or there is what Yaovi was also suggesting, maintain her important role on the BCEC now, but not exercise a vote and have the region have some other person exercise that vote on behalf of the region, when the selection is done. So James, I know it’s all knee jerk reaction, but it’s important that it is at least beginning to be discussed, and that everyone is aware, and it’s part of the record that it’s being discussed.
James: Well, I understand the issue and the conflict of interest, but if Hong is going to continue, then I think she should vote. If she is going to continue and put into discussions and don’t have a vote at the end, I don’t know if that is a lot of – you’re adding value on one side, but you’re not really getting the value.
So my personal opinion is that I don’t think – although I understand the conflict of interest and potential for conflict of interest, I don’t think the way that this committee is set up that that is such a big issue. But if she’s going to stay, then I think she should vote, rather than stay and don’t vote in the end. and the other thing is, if she is contributing to all of the discussions, and then you have somebody else vote at the end is not part of the discussion that’s had no input, I am not sure how they would vote or what rationale they would have for voting, because if they would not be part of the process.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, in fact that is the bizarreness of the system that has been set up for you to work in. Once you have selected your slate, then it is up to those on the slate to convince the electorate that they are worthy of their vote. I suppose the only particular bias, and I’m not sure that it’s a negative bias, would be that someone who has been through the process that you are all going through would have a high level of understanding on the value of each of the candidates who made it to the slate.
I suppose there would be a potential problem if we had a situation where Hong continues her role in BCEC and was then leading a region who got the support of two other regions and then petitioned for a candidate to be put on the slate that your committee had rejected. I see that as a risk. So if Hong did not prevail in her debate with all of you and you all dropped someone that she thought particularly worthy.
And clearly she wanted to vote for, and then she managed to get two other regions and have that person put back by petition, I would see that as a serious question and one I would be wanting to raise bias and conflicting, but I do hear a full spectrum of extreme caution to opinion of minimal risk, and I think it’s essentially that Hong has heard that.
We haven’t heard from North America, and I would like, if possible, Heidi to ask Annalisa to give her view on this in some way, if at all possible, because I do think it’s something that each region needs to be aware of. It is, in my view, APRALO’s business, because if APRALO choose to direct the vote from the region, they can choose to direct that vote through whatever person they want.
And Hong undertakes to vote as directed, then I see little risk or little problem, or little opportunity for future criticism. But, there’s always opportunity for criticism, because we deal with humans. Humans do funny things sometimes. So Hong, I guess the ball’s back in your court, unless someone wants to make a final word.
It is important that it was done in public, it is important that it was raised with the committee in a form that we are going to have on the record, because it is, I think, something that perhaps when we look at the design of all this for next time round, we need to be quite certain that we don’t come down this pathway again. Any final words on this?
Christopher Wilkinson: I want to make sure to James it is clear that the BCEC is not the forum for the actual vote. The actual vote is the ALAC members themselves, and the regional chair. I hesitate to give the Asia Pacific and particularly China any advice from my humble position.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Christopher, that is very wise.
Christopher Wilkinson: But listening to the discussions, the simplest solution would be for Asia Pacific to decide that the actual vote would be exercised by another person, a vice chair, the retiring chair, none of my business. Just abstain from exercising the vote and make it quite clear that the responsible for exercising this vote will be delegated to the vice chair or somebody else. Problem solved.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well, Hong. I think you’ve got lots of advice, and our region has some discussions.
Hong Xue: Cheryl? Can I have a final word?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You may. I was going to give you the final word, and I want to thank everyone for taking this additional time, but it is a very important issue. And it is one that I think needed to be properly aired. Go ahead, Hong.
Hong Xue: Okay. First of all, thank you very much for the kind deliberation, there are very informative and thoughtful and insightful, enlightening to me. Second I absolutely do not want BCEC committee to be standing criticism. That’s really not acceptable at all, especially is it’s going to be criticized because of my little change of position in my region.
Thirdly, I’ve heard all your advices, and they are all very valuable. I’m going to go back to my region and I’m going to solve this issue within the region as soon as possible. I want to make it clear that Asia Pacific is important and big region, its function capacity in this committee should not be restricted for any reason. It is my personal situation here, it should be eliminated immediately.
I hope that the future participation from Asia Pacific would be full, effective, and valid. So that’s – I make it very clear, none of it is back to this point. So my regions interests should be prioritized and I myself can be ignored completely, so back to you, Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you Hong. And yes, Hong is chairman of a very strong region of significant and diverse views, but when it comes together with a decision, believe me as having served at the pleasure of APRALO for almost five years not in some form or another, one is not exercising control of the region, one it at the regions control.
I think it’s exactly as Hong said. It now goes back to the region, but it is something that all of you, as BCEC committee members with Asia Pacific, needed to know and understand, and I think it’s very valuable to assert some of the regional opinions, and I think what we might do, Hong, is seek out North America’s opinion on this as well so that you take all of that information back to our region. Thank you one and all, thank you Heidi.
More action items than I hoped we would get out of it for staff out of this meeting. Just to note, at our next meeting there will be a public agenda page, and that page will say at point 3, review of received SOIs and that that will be in camera and there will be not public transcript or recorded material made public of this meeting. And we will see you all in a fortnight and there will be a bit of work online including a poll. Good night.
-End of Recorded Material-
