Discussion Notes 08 April 2010:
Participants: Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Sebastien Bachollet, Carlton Samuels, Dev Annand Teelucksingh, Patrick Vande Walle, Lutz Donnerhacke, Carlos Aguirre, Rudi Vansnick
Apologies: Evan Leibovitch, Seth Reiss
Absent: Adam, Sylvia, Andres, James, Hawa
Staff: Heidi Ullrich, Seth Greene, Matthias Langenegger, Marilyn Vernon
Sebastien: We currently rely on a small number of people who do the work in the WG. The workload needs to be spread more equally between the members of the working groups.
Patrick: It would make sense to merge IPv6 and DNS WG into one WG for Technical Issues. Also, there is a new issue related to technical apsects of WHOIS which would also fit into that WG. We need dynamic working groups, which can deal with new issues as they come up, eg. the new gTLD WG is only needed as long as the process is ongoing.
Carlton: I support the consolidation of WG. We should look at the issues we are most interested in and for which we plan to submitt comments when we design the WG. I concur with Sebastien in that too few do too much. We need to find a way to engage more participatns in the WG. For the moment, I support Ad-Hoc working groups.
Lutz: I don't think ad-hoc WG worked last year. There should be standing WG responsible for certain issues and we can then always for sub-WG (or work teams) dealing with specific issues.
Carlos: I concur with the previous speakers. We need to ensure that our members have the knowledge to participate in the WG. This brings me back to my presentation in Nairobi: We need to spend more resources on in-reach and capacity building. We also need new tools such as the very useful e-learning tools available on the ICANN website. However, there are currently only available in English. We need more languages.
Heidi (on chat): There will soon be webinar in foreign languages (other than English)
Cheryl: We need to look more closely at the structure of the WG. We have been working on high-level guidelines for the work of the working groups. (https://st.icann.org/data/workspaces/at-large-improvements/attachments/08_april_2010:20100401210638-0-21300/original/GNSO%20Working%20Group%20Guidelines_ver%205%20Feb%202010.pdf
)
Sebastien: It is important that our representatives in the AOC review team can refer back to the AL working groups for advice.
CLO: This is one of the reasons why I asked for shared wki workspaces.
Part II: WGs’ role in At-Large Improvements Implementation project
Seth: I will work closely with the WG leaders to help them getting started. There are two parallel processes: working on AL improvement and recruiting and revitalize the WG. Let's have a look at the recommendations:
Simplified Improvements Plan: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tLWfIP-TYeKgrmqH6AW-Q9g&output=html
Seth: with regards to recommendation 1, we are in contact with ICANN's legal department and it looks like this will not use a lot of resources. The WG on the Future Structure will not be involved in this.
Sebastien: I disagree, It should be the other way around. The WG should submit a proposal to legal.
Seth: Should Recommendation 3 be addressed by The WG on the Future Structure, Accountability and Transparency of ICANN?
Sebastien: I am the only member of this WG currently on the call. I am not sure whether the WG are sufficiently consolidated to begin work on the recommendations.
Patrick: I suggest a simple one page website on how to run a WG. At the moment, we are focusing too much on process and not enough on the actual policy outputs.
Carlos: I agree with Patrick. We need to focus on capacity building, out/inreach. Everything else will follow. People are participating because they are passionate and knowledgable about the issues.
Rudi: ICANN can not expect to have the same quality output from volunteer working groups.
Carlton: Concur with Carlos. Participation is about having the knowledge and capacity to do so. I also concur with Rudi and Patrick.
CLO: Process will help us to make the policy process more accessible to oustiders. We have to make sure that we don't end up in a situation where the only people who provide policy advise are the members of the ALAC.
Patrick: in many venues, whoever shows up to a WG meeting is considered a member of that WG. The final output will then be put out for comment. We can only take a comment into consideration made by those who contribute.
CLO: Do we still have consensus that the WG should be involved in the At-Large Improvement process? We need to know now because the Improvements process has a set of milestones and deadlines.
Sebastien: I think the current level of participation in the WG is not sufficient to deliver timely advise on the AL Improvements implementation.
Carlos: I think we need to revitalize the WG first
Dev: Agree with Carlos that we need to focus on revitalizing the WG first
Lutz: We need to make the discussions in the WG more relevant. Too often, the discussions are held by the same people
Heidi: I agree with Patrick that the technical issue WG are more about specific Policy recommendations. However, many of our WG are more about processes. I also agree with Carlos that we need to focus on capacity building.
Seth: Many of the suggested improvements try to improve the foundations to keep policy advise. We believe it will be easier to recruit people if we have ask them for advise on specific issues rather that in a vacuum. However, we can of course also ask the ALAC to do it.
CLO: Is it the current WG structure practical? From what I am hearing it is not. We need to look at the two sets of WG: the technical WGs which are close to consolidation and those that came out of the Summit and whose continuing purpose was to focus on At-large Improvements. However, what I am hearing in this call is that the WG do not have the capacity to participate in the improvements process. The work will therefore be returned to the ALAC.
Patrick: I belive it makes sense to merge the two WG that focus on technical issues and I will go ahead and tell everybody about it. Many WG members seem not to have known about it.
Lutz: I hope all Chair/Co-Chairs will provide their monthly reports
