Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody, this is the ALAC Executive Committee teleconference on the 11 July 2011. The time is 1301 UTC and the first thing we will do is a quick roll call. Gisella? And I'm not hearing Gisella. Okay, fine, well the roll call as far as I can make it is Cheryl, Carlton, Tijani, Matt, Seth and Gisella was here and Evan is due to join later but Evan is not here yet. Have I missed anyone?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It sounds like somebody is putting their breakfast in the microwave.
Carlton Samuels: That’s just me turning on my microwave.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Have a quick breakfast.
Carlton Samuels: I will have to heat up my coffee all over.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I hope you have all had a good break these past few weeks. In the meantime, of course the world of ICANN has continued to turn. And so now we have to go through the follow up from Singapore which includes the action items from the At-Large Singapore meetings. We have an allocated 20 minutes. We will probably take more than that, but what we can do is to plow straight into them. I invite everyone to click on the follow up from Singapore list of action items which is entitled “Action Items from At-Large Singapore Meetings 19th-24th June 2011. The first topic that we discussed in Singapore was the review of the At-Large working groups. And so several action items came out of that, the first one being Staff to post GNSO guidelines for work groups and the At-Large working group guidelines, have they been there because I don’t see them.
Seth Greene: No, well I will put them up today Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Seth. Next, update list of cross constituency working groups on At-Large AG Wiki page.
Seth Greene: And that as well Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, next, Cheryl to manage winding up and archiving work groups to be closed. We've got five working groups -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 00:02:44] and that will be something that will be going on for some time.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: For some time yes. The only question on there, we had five working groups that we earmarked as closing apart from - well the first one, the advice we heard from the working group chair, Carlton, was to close this. And I think that you Cheryl, said you were okay with closing this as well. But we didn’t actually make a formal decision on that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I thought we did. I thought we managed to squeeze that in when Carlton returned. I thought I brought that back in before the meeting closed and it was agreed.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It was agreed, okay, then Seth please take note of this.
Seth Greene: Sure.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And more to the point Seth, Matt needs to make time to My Diary for us to do that. It’s going to be - we will do an hour or 90 minute sessions for however long it takes. But don’t just have it sitting in action items and 14 days between meetings doesn’t help.
Seth Greene: Okay, right, got it Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay so Cheryl I'm going to leave this in your capable hands so we can move on to the next one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, place it in My Diary and we will do it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Excellent, thank you. The next is vote on, share and repopulate the At-Large Registrants Rights and Responsibilities Working Group. That is yet to happen. Can I ask Staff to follow up with Beau now and get him started on this please?
Seth Greene: Yes, definitely.
Evan Leibovitch: Could you possibly CC Rosemary on that as well because there might be some overlap with the consumer’s constituency because it seems like that might also be in their aims as well. Rather than having two different silos go up, it would be nice if there was a coordinated effort, by the way, hi everybody.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Hello Evan.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hi Evan.
Seth Greene: Hi.
Carlton Samuels: I agree, absolutely Evan which is why I was suggesting it needed to be in a comment so we’re hand in hand with whatever GNSO and their constituency parts are doing.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So who should put them in touch - well just get Staff to CC Rosemary on this and perhaps a little note for Rosemary to understand what is going on, please.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Maybe Staff should speak to Rosemary directly about it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes and first of all is there a meeting to do with consumer issues at 1900 UTC tomorrow?
Carlton Samuels: Oh lord.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Negative that’s consumer metrics.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Oh well gee maybe it could be just [inaudible 00:05:50] out of a packed agenda but I couldn’t discuss [inaudible 00:05:59].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It's non-negligible possibility Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm sorry maybe it's just the mood I'm in.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It's the evening time that’s what it is. Lucky you, you just want to get some sleep, in a few hours time.
Evan Leibovitch: At least you know what time zone you're in.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's 11 o'clock at night and you're making an action item for people to call people we are meeting tomorrow. For heaven’s sake boys just get it done. On the small likelihood that Beau conducts me the meeting he can talk to Rosemary.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, cool. So let's do that, let's ask Rosemary for an “Any other business” thing tomorrow just to inform what's going on and I guess the group will be there as well. And it will just be better to just emailing Rosemary.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Alright next Carlton to repopulate WHO Policy Working Group.
Carlton Samuels: Well we have three or four persons who have decided they wish to join up for this. We have two from the LACRALO group already. We’re still going to put out another call for more persons to join up.
Alan Greenberg: If that’s going to be done it has to be done relatively quickly. They’ve already had one meeting and I'm not sure if the second one is already scheduled.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The WHOIS Policy Working Group?
Alan Greenberg: Yep.
Carlton Samuels: The WHOIS Policy not the WHOIS Technical Services, not policy.
Alan Greenberg: Ahh.
Carlton Samuels: Those are two different things.
Alan Greenberg: My apologies I came in late.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes and I was going to ask, that’s another thing. But the WHOIS Policy Working Group itself, Carlton if you could take the lead on this and maybe send a couple of emails and out and try and repopulate this and get this working that would be great. As an aside, there is also a space in the WHOIS Review Team and I was going to bring this question now. Olivier Entano has resigned due to work pressures. And so we have a space to fill and I wondered whether anyone had any suggestions before sending an actual open call to the At-Large lists?
Carlton Samuels: I sent a note to Garth to see if he was interested to be a part of this review team, I have not heard from him yet.
Evan Leibovitch: Can I make a suggestion of also ending a message to the Secretariats list and see if [inaudible 00:09:09] in the ALSs. Does this have to be an ALAC member?
Carlton Samuels: No it doesn’t have to be an ALAC member.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The person they're replacing isn’t, hardly.
Carlton Samuels: It's not an ALAC member. What you really need at this stage of review is somebody who has been keeping up with those issues and so on. You wanted somebody to jumpstart, not -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: When we made the call for applicants the first time who else was in the huddle that came forward and put their SOI’s in?
Alan Greenberg: There were none. That was the issue. We had three applicants for the two working groups and all three were selected because we had three slots. The question I was going to ask is it our call or do the selectors have to make the replacement choice and we can give them one or more options.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We can recommend options; it's up to the selectors, so that’s Heather and -
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Correct, what we’re asked to do is to send names over. But what we do need to do is to collect those names because they are waiting. The amount of work that is outstanding, they've reached about half way through the work. There is likely to be a face-to-face meeting in Marina Del Rey in September I understand. And the final report will be sometime in December. They are about half way through. There is still plenty of work to be done. And certainly time for someone from At-Large to replace Olivier.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: My only hesitation - Carlton I'm happy to go with Evan or whoever said [inaudible 00:11:06], great idea excepting if it was someone coming from Upper Botswana land or the middle of New Bickerswain. That’s really not going to be helpful.
Evan Leibovitch: I was thinking like [inaudible 00:11:18] Williams.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: APRALO to send someone.
Carlton Samuels: That’s the problem I was point it out Cheryl. It has to be somebody - and that’s why I sent - well we can always do that but I sent a note to Garth just to see whatever if he was interested. He was the one that I knew -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 00:11:38] record, and that is that first of all half of the teamwork is done. There is already allocated budget, therefore any particularly expensive travel will be an onerous task for them to get additional funding for. So for someone who is located in a cheaper option for flight to Marina Del Rey would be quite appropriate. And secondly if we send someone who has very little background on these issues I think them catching up will be slowing down them on process. We really need [inaudible 00:12:25].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well I was thinking of people that are very well known on these things like John Levine for example. And I'm just throwing names like this thinking there is someone who lives in the UK who has links in the States who will probably spend half the time in the States and therefore travel costs are not going to be an issue.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Those are the types of people. But we don’t want somebody who is just starting fresh on this. They're going to be starting at the deep end of the puddle.
Alan Greenberg: And they're going to be expected to do a huge amount of catch up work, which is not insignificant.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Rather than the Secretariats list alone, let's put it out the Secretariats and At-Large lists with a standard form of SOI request. In other words, the same SOI that was sent out the first time ask for no more than a five to seven day window. It's not a big SOI.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Are the Secretariats not enclosed within the At-Large announce lists?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes they are.
Carlton Samuels: Well it would be but what Evan was saying, make it direct.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If we can put out a general call to the general At-Large announce list, an annotated call to the Secretariats list that says, “Do not forget your recommendation and encouragement of the right people will make our job easier, blah, blah.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Excellent, that’s an AI which I will take right after this call. Next, the Global Partnership -
Carlton Samuels: Before you do that, can I get a sense that people are enthusiastic or not for Garth.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If Garth puts in a SOI, him or any number of other SOIs would be considered.
Evan Leibovitch: I have no problem with him in the position.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I'm happy with him too.
Carlton Samuels: Just checking.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If he is the only SOI fine. If he is one of five, we will decide. But we can't just make a one to one request.
Carlton Samuels: No I understand and I'm not - just for my positioning Cheryl.
Alan Greenberg: If you're asking if you should strongly encourage him, I wouldn’t say anything to him which would imply he is a shoo-in if he puts his name in.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Ultimately we are going to ask [inaudible 00:15:31] ultimately it is not even our choice to make the end. We will be forwarding an SOI and then that will be either accepted or not.
Carlton Samuels: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And the fallback position when the ATRT fell short of someone from their sending body was to have the chair of that SO take the role. So the precedent would actually be for Olivier to take the job. I'm just not sure he has the time, energy or the information.
Carlton Samuels: Good, carry on.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, so next the global partnership collaboration. And Keith was to synchronize At-Large’s calendar of events with external events with the Global Partnership’s Calendar. Gisella any feedback on this please?
Gisella Gruber-White: Just to say I'm in the process of updating the At-Large External Calendar with the Global Partnership meetings. I sent an email to Mandy for her to find out if there is any further collaboration needed or if I can help in any other way to - with this action item.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I gather she was - was she on a break because I know several ICANN staff were.
Gisella Gruber-White: I haven't had an Out of Office from her. I think that if anything she is back in the office.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay.
Gisella Gruber-White: And I will keep the ExCom list informed on what the outcome is of the email.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Gisella. Next, the GAC Collaboration, Evan and Staff to draft ALAC motion regarding the creation of a small ALAC/GAC Group to draft a joint statement on the new gTLD applicant support. The motion was passed in Singapore with 10 Yes, 0 No and 0 Abstention. Evan was to organize a small meeting with the GAC representatives regarding the new gTLD applicant support in Singapore. I gather that took place. Evan would you like to add anything please?
Evan Leibovitch: If we were referring to the meeting that actually took place in Singapore that did happen. And there were - I'm trying to remember I know Avri, Erick, myself and Cintra and I might be missing somebody. But those were there from the At-Large side. I was actually delighted to see the people that showed up from the GAC side. The problem is now that we need to get a follow up. It was actually a joint draft statement that was made that was to be jointly submitted by ALAC and GAC.
The original hope was to have it jointly submitted at the public forum at Singapore. GAC was too pressed with other things, so one of the things that needs to be done is a follow up with the GAC to ensure that they haven’t forgotten about this because we still want to issue this joint statement. It goes beyond generalities and has some very specific recommendations to make on things like how ICANN should allocate the $2 million fund on various issues to do with applicant support. That essentially would help guide the Board and help provide very valuable advice to the JAS group as it goes forward.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Evan may I ask that you please follow up with the GAC because I am also concerned that they are now putting this on the side and forgetting about it.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, could there also possibly be a back channel in having At-Large staff talking to the GAC Secretariat and finding out if there has been any movement. I mean, maybe they've been doing something and I don’t know about it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Entirely possible.
Alan Greenberg: Wouldn’t chair to chair be a more effective way to do that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It would.
Alan Greenberg: Because then it's not only information, it's also a reminder.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, I will do that. I will send an email over to Heather with a CC to the GAC Secretariat.
Evan Leibovitch: Basically just something Olivier that says we’re still eager to move ahead with this. The fact that we didn’t meet the deadline of the public forum at the Singapore meeting does not reduce the need to have this joint statement happen.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I've got my hand up.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh sorry I'm not in Adobe.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, Cheryl please I couldn’t see you. I was looking at the other page, Cheryl.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay thank you. To some extent Evan I think that events have kind of taken this a little bit and it might need a slight course readjustment. And if we could readjust it to course, I would like to readjust it to course if possible to work more interactively with the activities of the JAS work group because I do see now, post Singapore meeting, a greater risk for those two activities to trip over each other if they are not in some form of coordination. Perhaps -
Evan Leibovitch: Thank you Cheryl but and the only thing I will say in response to that is what I recall of the joint statement is not at all diminished by events that have happened between then and now. As a matter of fact, what I've seen in the JAS group there might be a couple of things where that statement might actually help with a readjustment. People are starting to think of how to spend that $2 million in the fund. And the GAC/ALAC statement has some very specific recommendations. I will admit to not having totally kept up with the JAS group over the last two weeks. But to me it's important that the Board, the sponsoring bodies and the JAS group itself know these specific recommendations.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It needs to be [inaudible 00:21:52] together.
Carlton Samuels: Just to follow up on that Evan, I sent a private note to Tracy. And essentially it was to ask him if there was any forward motion that he knew of in the JAS group, I mean from the GAC to bring into the JAS group. He didn’t respond. That’s one of the reasons we mentioned it on the last JAS call. That was still in play. Because Cheryl had requested and out of that Cheryl suggested that we have a [inaudible 00:22:34] call to deal with all of the matters surrounding that seed fund and use of it. And -
Evan Leibovitch: That by far was not the only thing discussed in the draft statement; I just used that as an example.
Carlton Samuels: Yes, it wasn’t the only thing I was looking for was for more concrete steps or of the follow up from the GAC. We wanted to hear some more about the possibility of municipalities or government entities or so on. There were three issues actually.
Evan Leibovitch: Exactly.
Carlton Samuels: I specifically asked him to plumb through with the GAC and probably give us a heads up on it.
Evan Leibovitch: Well if that’s the case, then you're asking for essentially the same thing that I am, that we need to poke the GAC and get them to endorse the joint statement that Alice and I had worked on. And between the two of us on a personal level, we agreed on the wording and I just wasn’t sure where things went from there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: With the reminder, which is where - Alan I see your hand but I actually hadn’t finished my sentence. Where we’re getting to is that it might be worthwhile while Olivier does a chair to chair copy, Jeremy and our staff that it's appropriate to copy and if it's Alice and Evan who are the primary pen holders, they are the ones who should be copied. But also remind in that there is the [inaudible 00:24:17] and that there is an action item out of the recent JAS work group meetings which is looking at a single purpose call or discussion and that may have some bearing on this statement as well. As long as it will get coordinated that was my concern, thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: What I was going to suggest, is initially just I write to Heather and get a status update from her finding out what is going on - what she will probably do is kick the call to Alice or to those people in the GAC who are dealing with it. And then from that point we will take it up directly with them. They don’t expect Heather to be able to come back to us on details about this at the moment. From my previous discussions with her she has been working primarily on other matter, of course until Singapore, things have now changed.
Carlton Samuels: So, is the agreement now - this is really important because I have already been back and forth with [inaudible 00:25:24] on this. So, the agreement is that Olivier you will send the note to Heather and you will include those elements and you will also propose the possibility of a single issue call.
Alan Greenberg: Can I get in before we close this please?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes - Carlton -
Alan Greenberg: I have a suggestion.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I'm not sure that I would go as far as asking for a single issue call at this stage. The first thing that I wanted to do is try and find out if anything has happen since Singapore, with the GAC with regards to this issue.
Carlton Samuels: Alright.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Because I am unconvinced that anything has happened so far. Rather than saying we want this and that and that, I would rather say please tell us where are we at now? What stage have we reached? Can we move on to the next stage which is when we will ask for or suggest an [inaudible 00:26:23] email.
Alan Greenberg: Olivier it's Alan am I not being heard?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes you are being heard, go ahead Alan.
Alan Greenberg: I'm a little bit confused on all of this. We are asking essentially has or will the GAC be endorsing this statement. Has the ALAC endorsed this statement? Maybe I have missed it, it haven’t seen it.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh nothing has been put forward to the ALAC. As of right now what you have is a draft document that has been put forward to the GAC. I wanted to see if there were any refinements that were added to the document as it went through the GAC process and then that would give some for ALAC to approve.
Alan Greenberg: I'm not sure I understand why one has to serialize it completely. If this is going to be a statement issued by the ALAC as well, the ALAC is going to have to endorse it which means they have to have seen it.
Evan Leibovitch: Well okay -
Alan Greenberg: I'm just missing something in this process.
Evan Leibovitch: Alan the reason it's done serially is because Alice has said that the GAC may want to refine the nature of the wording but not the substance. And so what I wanted to bring forward to ALAC was something that had been vetted by GAC, something they were comfortable on voting with and then sending that to ALAC. If ALAC had problems with it then we rinse and repeat.
Alan Greenberg: Alright.
Evan Leibovitch: If there is a better way to do this, I am wide open to it.
Alan Greenberg: I just implied that I thought the ALAC should see the draft statement as well so they're not surprised by [inaudible 00:28:02] at the end.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay well this is not a secret document. I can go back into my archives and I will check. I think it was a Google document. But I can certainly send out - I tell you what I will send to the ExCom list the contents of the letter and I will leave it to everyone’s discretion whether or not that’s worth sending out more widely.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan.
Alan Greenberg: I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss something.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: In fact, I think Evan anything that we’re doing may I ask staff to put a Wiki page on this?
Evan Leibovitch: Well this particular thing has been done a Google document because originally while it was underway the GAC people were uneasy about making it totally public while it was a work in progress.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, we just need to watch the protocols a bit carefully that’s all.
Alan Greenberg: And this may be something that you want to put on the ALAC internal list saying this is very much a work in progress but you should be aware of where it is heading or something like that.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay, there you go. That’s what I will do.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay do that please, yes Evan, so not on the ExCom list but the internal. Good I think we’re pretty much set on this one and we can move on to the next one which is the communication tools -- ExCom to consider having interpretation on calls in which only one or two members requested, yes. I'm not quite sure. Oh yes, sorry I'm a bit confused here. Not on ExCom calls, on any calls. That’s one thing we would need to discuss.
And we've all heard the amount of time that was spent on discussing interpretation and whether we would allow within our budget call where only one or two member wish to have the call in French or in Spanish. I can see here Tijani says we still need to determine which ALAC working groups need French and Spanish interpretation and Scott would provide a filled out example of his project profile. That’s a different thing, so the first one was just the interpretation. Tijani have you followed up with Sylvia and Sergio or is it something that we can put it in progress please.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes I have discussed with Sergio about it and we agreed that he would see from the Spanish community and the LAC region and would see with Franco from the community in the African region so that we would see which working group is interesting for people in which they cannot participate because that is a problem of language. And with this we would define a list of working groups that we can ask for an interpretation for them.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay so shall I just have this as a work in progress?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It probably needs to be discussed if not at the next ALAC meeting, an ALAC meeting as well because it does have wide ramifications and I think we need to be very clear that there are times when having interpretation versus translation is very useful in for example briefing calls even when no one is indicating that they need it to participate at the time. But because the [inaudible 00:31:58] is being accessed by people who can hear what has happened in the call in their language. It's just not a single one to one ratio of I want to have language X on workgroup Y incase I want to be involved. It's slightly more complicated than that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, I think this is where we need to show more flexibility perhaps than just looking at a number and saying “Sorry there is only one person that wants to be on this call” because we don’t know how many people will try to access it afterwards. And I must say I have been impressed by the number of people watching or listening to calls later on.
Carlton Samuels: Well that’s what I was about to point out to you. That it cannot just be the active participants in the working group. The whole has to consider other members who might not be At-Large members who might not be directly involved but would have access to the outputs from these groups.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Carlton and I do note some positiveness from Christina on that when she did say they were ready to do more for us.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It also gets more complicated Carlton because it's the outputs that can be managed in different ways. That’s why I separated the difference between interpretation and translation. There are many workgroup outputs that could be handled in multilingual ways without having real time telephonic interpretation on the [inaudible 00:33:46]. Just need to work out which is needed for what.
Carlton Samuels: Oh yes, I quite agree Cheryl that not everyone would be but there are some of them that it would be important to have the interpretation available at the time because of how we work and what is happening. That’s all I'm saying. It's not this or that, it's here is something else that you should consider.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you and in progress as a result and we will continue -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 00:34:21] looking at the screen. Alan still has his hand up.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s the problem having two eyes and only one screen, Alan I'm sorry, I apologize.
Alan Greenberg: If the right way is to simple call out and interject, I will do that if I'm told. I think we really need to make sure we’re looking at a strategy not random actions. In parallel with this we are having various discussions and I look specifically at the ones on the JAS group, that saying the Wiki is where we’re going to do work or other people say the mailing list is where we have to do work and just talking at meetings is not sufficient. And if we want people involved in work groups we have to figure out how they can be involved in the working group not just understanding what is said on the teleconferences.
Working on a workgroup hopefully is more involved than just that if you're to be a productive part of the group. And if we’re talking about investing very significant ICANN funds in simultaneous interpretation we’re presuming there is a payback for it. And so I think we need to look at it as a strategy not just let's toss money into interpretation. I don’t have an answer to that but we should take it in the full context, not just one aspect of it. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Alan. That definitely is something - I see that Carlton is in agreement. And it's definitely something we will have to discuss on one our next ALAC calls, wider ALAC issue.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Before we finish that though, we really do need to remind ALAC members and those people in other regions who send us ALAC members that ALAC members that ALAC works in English.
Alan Greenberg: That has not been the case Cheryl and we have accepted it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: In fact it is a recommendation that we agreed we would be adhering to in the post review period.
Alan Greenberg: Then someone needs to do something about it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well I have said it during our meetings we can always say it again. We can always send a note about it again. It just seems to be repeating the same thing and those people from whom that note is intended is not listening obviously.
Carlton Samuels: Can I be recognized for this?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, Carlton please.
Carlton Samuels: Thank you sir. You know that we've had this said many times and I have endorsed it as many times as you’ve said it, for the LACRALO region especially it is a point of sore contention. I can tell you that when we brought it up on the LACRALO call, it was a great pushback. It is a part of the contention that we have available effective representation from the LACRALO region to ALAC that it has to be. And it is a very naughty subject and I can tell you right now that Sergio and his constituency especially believes that is a way to discriminate against them.
And therefore, we are promoting a policy that effectively locks out a whole group of people. And the balance of the evidence, if that is the case, then there might be some part to answer there. But it is something that we all should understand is a major problem in the LACRALO region especially.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Carlton next is Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: That is a big problem. When you say that people who are on the ALAC must chose English it is very fine but it is not inclusive it is discriminative. And in the African region we have a big problem. We try to send to the ALAC people who can use English. But you have a very fight choice. And it's a problem for us too. I do understand that we cannot enter into interpretation in everything we are working on. But there is also this problem of inclusiveness and of we need to make the other communities that don’t speak English to be as active as the others, as the English speakers. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani, any response to either Carlton or Tijani? I think we all understand the problematics very well. And one thing which I do find is although it has been possible for some participants in ALAC both in French speaking backgrounds or Spanish speaking backgrounds to actually work in their language. The fact that the work always had to be translated or well if it wasn’t interpreted during a call and it had to be translated afterwards.
I will give you an example of a very recent one - The writing of a quick statement from Akram, the letter that we are going to email to Akram to decide on the course for the AFRALO Summit. The letter has taken its usual couple of days to write but now it's in Spanish and it needs to be translated and that has been a logistical issue. The translation hasn’t come back as quickly. So we’re kind of slowing things down by having all of the interpretation efforts on each one of those decisions. And I understand it is a [inaudible 00:41:07] issue or it could be seen as a [inaudible 00:41:08] issue. But it really is a Catch-22 scenario, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you Olivier, just to respond to the chat that Carlton talked about. I couldn’t agree more Carlton, I think it is a discriminatory issue, for example, for a purely Spanish speaking community getting proper representation in the ALAC. If they don’t send someone who can bring their particular view to the ALAC and have those use effectively, heard, understood and debated it is discriminatory because they won't be heard. I couldn’t agree more. It is absolutely positively -
Carlton Samuels: I agree - I understand what you are saying and that’s how we support it too. Because that’s exactly -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If any language group does not want to be discriminated against, by the time it gets to the ALAC it should be in English.
Carlton Samuels: Well my dear you have your head on the point we raised in the Caribbean of course. But it's unfortunate that this is not the way because when we talk about effective representation in ALAC that’s one of the things that we’re talking about. Because we said you always work in English and then you can do the translations and so on and that comes out. But this is where it breaks down.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Alan.
Alan Greenberg: I will point out that I really object to us using terms like “it is discriminatory” because although the words may apply it ignores the fact that there are much larger parts of the world who don’t speak English, French or Spanish and we are being discriminatory to them. And there is some logic that says we should be serving those languages first. There are other UN languages among other things and I would try to avoid words like “discriminatory.” It's inflammatory and if it applies to French and Spanish, it applies in spades to a number of other languages. And I really think we need to avoid words like that. We’re going to get into a pit that we don’t want to get out of.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan that’s exactly my point, 60% of the world’s languages live in Asia. There is a lot of it English.
Alan Greenberg: Cheryl I noted that you didn’t say it and I felt someone had to. I had been expecting you to.
Evan Leibovitch: Alan I will take the opportunity to chime in and sort of make excuses -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 00:43:53] the LACRALO has an issue of discrimination and I am agreeing with them. It is discriminatory.
Alan Greenberg: Yes it is and in both the way you're saying and in the way they're saying but we can't fix everything in the world, ALAC just can't.
Evan Leibovitch: I want to just hammer home what Alan was saying on the choice of language. The idea that what we've been doing is discriminatory suggests that we have been actively doing something to disenfranchise. This has been of omission, not an error of commission. And has already been said, there are a whole bunch of languages we should be supporting. But I think it needs to be made clear that this is not something that we’re actively doing to disengage.
This is a matter of being able to operate quickly. This is a matter of being able to operate in a certain manner that allows ALAC to be most effective as a body within ICANN. There are certain major things that need to be sent out to the broader community and they need to be sent out in Chinese. They need to be sent out in Russian. And they need to be sent out in a whole bunch of languages. But I share Alan and Cheryl's discomfort if not disgust with the thought that we’re actively working to disenfranchise with this.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Evan, Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I understand what Alan said. Even if we use the six UN languages we will discriminate the other people who don’t speak those six languages. But the question is to make the maximum of people involved in the work. If we use three languages it's much better than if you use only one language. And if you use six it's better, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t think that we have to address it like this. If we can we have to do, if we can't it's another problem.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani and Carlton I heard your voice a little earlier, I'm not sure whether you wanted to say something.
Carlton Samuels: I was merely following the point that that has always been my position, the one that Cheryl and Alan annunciated. But I am just reminding you that this is not our position that I'm arguing. I'm arguing the opposite, I'm telling you what the opposite is and that is the word that is used. And that is the struggle to get them to see it differently. It's not a term that is coming from us but the term that is imposed by the people who disagree with how we see it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Carlton, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I just want to remind us that we’re looking for ALAC members who can function in ICANN as Evan said and that’s a wider world which we have no control over in the short term. We all have ideals where we want ICANN to go over the next decade. But we also have to understand where it is today, thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Alan and ever the language issue is igniting passion throughout the call and I think we may be spending too much time on this. I'm going to stick to the current bylaws of At-Large of the ALAC which is that the ALAC has to function in English. Clearly the issue of language is a wider ICANN issue and until our budget is multiplied by 20 we will not be able to satisfy everyone.
I'm really sorry about that and it's a case where we basically have to weigh the pros and the cons. The world is not perfect and definitely At-Large and ALAC will not be perfect until all of these languages will be served, very sorry about that. Let's move on to the next thing but just leave as an AI for Tijani to follow up with Sylvia and Sergio and which working group need French and Spanish interpretation and which one of the documents needs to be translated.
And if interpretation is not available during the call then maybe translation is available afterwards for some of the transcripts. That certainly will make it a bit more palatable for the [inaudible 00:48:39]. Next on the communication tools part is the Scott Pension to provide example of his project profile and also ALAC to fill out Scott’s project profile. This, if I remind you all, is about projects for communication such as videos or any other type of material that would be produced by the communications department for At-Large. I see Scott is sending, could I have an explanation on this please?
Seth Greene: Yes, hi Olivier. I have talked to Scott and I'm going to be working with on filling out an example using actually if you would like to indicate which ALAC policy statement should be used, using one of those as the main content of a video. And also he is going to be sending us an actual template of the form so that the ALAC can go ahead and fill it out as it sees fit after it gets an example. But in the absence of any one specific policy statement as an example, I will go ahead and pick one.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Seth and do you have a timeline for when he is going to send this?
Seth Greene: I have not been able to nail him down on that. I've been trying to get him to do it this week actually.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you. Next, the ALAC policy discussion which took place on Monday of that week and the first one was the constituency travel with the ExCom to follow up on the issue introduced by Tijani regarding the draft FY’12 travel support guidelines, the issue being the area. ICANN airline bookings have been in seat classes that cannot be upgraded with the passenger’s own frequent flyer miles. Is there a follow up on this or can we perhaps move further down on that and I don’t see this as being so important as to take any time in our call, Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I'll just comment. This issue has been raised a number of times before. And ICANN will now allow you to go to their arbitrary limit and book it yourself. And if that is sufficient then clearly anyone can do that. Or I think ICANN will in general also accept up to that price on tickets they book for you. I don’t think ICANN is going to move on moving things up to upgradable costs. I wish they would because it would be very attractive for me also. But I don’t believe it's going to happen. We’re talking about an upgradable economy ticket, sometimes two times the cost of their limit and I just don’t think we’re going to see any movement on that, thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Alan. Maybe we can keep this as a work in progress or a question in progress. We know who to speak and keep this outside the discussions here. Next is the ALAC policy statements and Carlton is to write a statement regarding the WHOIS policy review team discussion paper. And the comments are open until the 23 July. Time is passing by, Carlton do you have an update on this please?
Carlton Samuels: I will post the final literation that I have today.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you very much. Is the Wiki page ready for that?
Carlton Samuels: Yes I will post it on the Wiki page. Alright I'll just post it on the Wiki page and in probably a half an hour or so.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Excellent and if I could then ask staff to publicize that to the wider list and put a deadline five days from now?
Seth Greene: Sure Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you. And thank you Carlton for printing this up. The next is ALAC to decide if it wants to submit a second comment regarding the Joint Applicant Support Working Group Second Milestone Report which was based on the review of the initial statement of the second milestone report. I'm not quite sure whether we did or did not decide to do such a thing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think we decided not to.
Carlton Samuels: I think we decided not to.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perfect well, the no was seconded in which case we will not post such a thing. Next Edmond Chung to write the first draft of the ALAC statement on the communication plan for the new gTLD Program. And that is open until the 15 July which is only four days from now. Has Edmond -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I've heard nothing.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I've heard nothing from Edmond on that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Maybe could staff follow up with Edmond and drop a note to him right after this meeting to find out how that’s coming along?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I haven’t had time to be socialized with the wider community at this stage.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well it is the 11th here, it is pretty.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Exactly.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Looking at the actual - if one prioritizes things how many of you think that this is not such a high priority for the time being.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think the communication pan is such a dog’s breakfast that any - to put out their request for [inaudible 00:54:27] so maybe someone with a smidge of marketing skill might have some influence over it. But for the moment it looks like a dog’s breakfast as far as I'm concerned.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And may I put for the record that I have never seen the kind of breakfast that you serve to your dog Cheryl.
Alan Greenberg: Nor do you probably want to.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well in this case my dogs do better because I get dry kibble, this looks more like road kill as far as I'm concerned.
Alan Greenberg: Well we’re talking about the dog’s breakfast after the dog has processed it I think.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay if I can just ask staff to ping Edmond if he has prepared something and discussed it in the APRALO region. It appears that he has not. But on the remote chance that he -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: If he has something that we can look at great, it will be - we need to realize that it is not going to be widely socialized.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Exactly.
Seth Greene: If I may just add, I have actually emailed Edmond and regarding the next policy statement Erick, I just have not heard back from them. I just emailed them yesterday.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay well for Edmond he might have replied today or could have replied today. With regards to Erick he might reply later on today. We will have to see. We have these two statements. It's going to be the first draft on the ALAC statement on the primary issue report on the current state of the UDRP.
Carlton Samuels: Can I say something about that UDRP?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes please Carlton.
Carlton Samuels: Yes a draft statement on the UDRP was supposed to have been prepared by LACRALO. It was discussed in the LACRALO call last Thursday. The problem is it started out in Spanish and the English translation is lamentable. There has been some attempt by Dev to get the translation sorted out. This is again one of the areas where the difficulty arises.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We should just send it in Spanish.
Carlton Samuels: Well Cheryl anyway.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would be perfectly happy for it to go in Spanish.
Carlton Samuels: We wouldn’t. There is some work -
Alan Greenberg: [Inaudible 00:57:23] the ALAC that is.
Carlton Samuels: Not if it is going to come to ALAC, you see this is the problem. We are working on that. Just to let you know their commitment to some work on the UDRP statement, something has been drafted and the translation is an issue. We are trying to work it through with our colleagues in Latin America.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually I'm really not joking. I can't see why it cannot be sent to the ALAC in Spanish. The chair of the ALAC may then suggest that translation services within ICANN do a proper, accurate and fast interpretation of it. I don’t see why I can't come to us in Spanish. It just can't come out and be discussed.
Carlton Samuels: It's true but the only problem is it leaves out all the English speaking ones in the Caribbean. For example, Jaclyn raised the issue that the Spanish translation, she had a difficulty with the Spanish translation, the very idea she is against.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: This isn’t something that only the Spanish speaking part of LACRALO is left holding the pen on then that's an entirely different question. It's to actually to get it to work region wide before it even comes to us.
Carlton Samuels: Exactly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Carlton Samuels: Little quibbles like that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, Seth you still have your hand up.
Seth Greene: Oh I'm sorry Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Alright so that’s fine you're forgiven.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There we go.
Seth Greene: Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The comments until the 15 July, it's going to cut it very short as well. And I gather it's a parallel process to Eric Brunner Williams’ process. I don’t see any problem in having the two persons running in parallel. The question is, are we going to get an English version until then?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Probably not.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: There is a problem about having a Spanish version. That brings us back again to translation services at ICANN. If you want it to be accurate you cannot have it fast.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can it at least go onto Wiki pages in any language that you damn well please? At least then we have access to an original set of thoughts that were under discussion.
Carlton Samuels: I just sent a note to Dev to ask him to put it up on the Wiki page for that so that the original is there.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And that -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That helps us show that these things just don’t come out of left field five minutes before closing. That 15 people in the ALAC don’t go “We think this is a good idea.” We are constantly challenged including by people on this call, that we don’t engage the edges. Well if the edges are fiddle-assing about and not putting it in a form that we have access to and we’re only hearing about it, that doesn’t help us prove it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well I have noticed one thing which is the increased use of Google documents for writing such documents because they allow more than one person to edit a document at the same time -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:00:46].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: And it can end up being drafted in a number of hours. The concern that I have about it is that Google documents is not a very open system -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:00:59].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Sorry?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We can't use them in most of Asia.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Me as well, that is one thing barring the fact that it can't be used in all regions, I'm also saying that I would like to see if any document gets written in Google docs that a snapshot of it is made available to everyone on a Wiki page at regular intervals.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep, absolutely I couldn’t agree with you more. But also the Wikis do allow multiple editing, it's not a problem. The new Wiki does that specifically.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay if that works great. I haven’t tested the technicalities of it. But if one really needs to use Goggle docs then have a snapshot of it. And perhaps this could be a [inaudible 01:01:48] type of best practice to be reminded to all the regions.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can we make a note that needs to become part of Standard Operational Procedures for working groups, which may at least encourage best practices similar to that in the regions as well.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Is that an AI?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, just because I said it's an AI don’t expect me to report on it in the next 10 minutes, it's not going to happen. It will be a work in progress. It needs to be captured so it's eventually caught.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perfect. Alright so let's continue then. The only action item to have from this policy statement part on the Friday ExCom meeting in Singapore is to follow up with Edmond just in case he has something ready. And then see with Erick if he does have something ready today, if not also check or in parallel check - Carlton if you could check for the Spanish version if you have this translated to day maybe.
Carlton Samuels: Yes, I have sent a note to Dev. And I have told them - and this is following up and sharing suggestions which I think is a great one, to have them post the original Spanish version to the Wiki plus the translated one and do the [inaudible 01:03:23] there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I was about to put my hand up but I realized it probably wasn’t worthwhile, I will just barge in. We also need to remember that if we get more and more use of Adobe Connect rooms, we do have at least a beater form of the translation tool that Roman was working on that works in real time chat. And that’s the add in to at least at AC room. But it could very well be and I would need the techo-s to think about this, it very well be an add on to a Wiki page.
You can add all sorts of things onto Wiki pages, including blogs. And the fact that I can type in English and he can read it in Russian should work across the board. That’s something I did raise when we were talking about these issues in Singapore. But I simply haven’t seen it other than it's very early beater which I saw in San Francisco. But this is going to help us when it happens.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, thank you. And we will move to the next things, the At-Large Regional Leadership Meeting. I do wonder whether those are here. Are these not AIs for the Secretariats to [inaudible 01:05:00] on.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So perhaps these can be removed from the agenda please and put into the next leadership meeting.
Seth Greene: Certainly Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you. Next, ALAC and Regional Leadership Wrap Up Meeting. Well that’s again -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No that would have been some [inaudible 01:05:27] wasn’t it?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes I just wonder, I'm trying to decrypt those.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I wasn’t there for most of it.
Carlton Samuels: What is the issue with this one? There was a decision to do that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes there are sorry. I was just rereading those because I'm a little confused. The first meeting - At-Large Regional Leadership Meeting - Wednesday these are for six [inaudible 01:06:06] to do so this should be [inaudible 01:06:06].
Evan Leibovitch: Right.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The next one, each RALO should decide on one representative to participate in a group call with ICANN legal regarding the RALO bylaw changes the RALOS are considering. This is again, Secretariat thing. And I don’t think that the ALAC needs to be involved in that one either.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Not as such.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So then -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But one of you needs to keep the finger on the pulse on all of that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I'm definitely going to be on that call.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Keeping my finger on that pulse. Then the new gTLD Program, and of course you're welcome to join as well if you wish to have some fun for another hour, new gTLD Program, ALAC to review joint ALAC/GAC Communiqué support regarding applicant support in new gTLD Program.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Haven't we dealt with that?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That has been dealt with. Okay next ExCom to consider the following Adobe Connect Chat room comment from Danny Younger which is that the ALAC needs to stop its work on the robust objection vetting process called for by the guidebook. Can we count on receiving senior policy staff support? That’s something for us to consider.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There are really two questions there, one is directed at the ALAC whose job it has been to identify to have a role in these objection processes and there would be a bunch of ALAC discussion that needs to happen. That does need to go on our next ALAC meeting so that that process can be formalized and we can have something sketched out by Dakar for discussion at Dakar. And then [inaudible 01:08:17] by the February/March go live that may very well be when we might need to be exercising it.
The second question to the senior staff support into that is probably something that we should do the background work on but have the specific conversation s about in Dakar because that’s when the implementation of all of this will be in the focus of everyone.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl for this explanation. I see Alan has his hand up.
Alan Greenberg: Yes, on this one I think we or the ALAC have the decision to make first, do we want staff to draft or put together a draft procedure or do we want ALAC to do that, which can be refined and legalized and wordsmithed by Staff perhaps. The real issue is do we want to take control of it or do we want to get staff to propose something?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:09:21] conversation first and then by Dakar we need to -
Alan Greenberg: Sorry, yes Cheryl but I'm trying to make it clear that we have a decision prior to Dakar I think that we really should be making.
Evan Leibovitch: I agree.
Carlton Samuels: I agree with Alan.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay so this sounds like a natural thing for the gTLD working group I imagine of which I'm chair. So this would cause to restart this working group which until now has been basically tasked with replying to the applicant guidebook. And I guess now has the new task.
Carlton Samuels: Yippee.
Evan Leibovitch: Well I mean unless there are objections. It seems to me that this is a reasonable way to start and then at a point of the working group’s choosing then we ask staff to come in and start to refine things.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hang on, Evan I agree up to a point. I think it's a great source of first drafting and concept work to come to the ALAC from the gTLD work group, I think that’s great. But before staff gets involved the ALAC has to decide what's going on.
Evan Leibovitch: Oh okay to me that’s a matter of [inaudible 01:10:41].
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:10:41] it's ALAC’s job to do the objections but yep.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: The gTLD working group reports to the ALAC and the ALAC then moves on to involving staff. But I think we all agree on this so Evan yes that will be the next task. Does this have to be formalized? Alan?
Alan Greenberg: I just pointed out that this implies and I have no objection to this, I prefer it - that we've already made the decision or this group has made the decision on behalf of the ALAC that the ALAC will attempt to draft an outline of procedure first prior to delegating staff to do something on it. If ALAC is taking control of the situation, I strongly support it. But it's different than what was being proposed originally and I want to highlight that, thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It wasn’t being proposed originally.
Alan Greenberg: Well it was [inaudible 01:11:38] question.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The question was what senior staff would be [inaudible 01:11:41].
Alan Greenberg: I hope the answer is whatever is needed.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would like to think that was the answer too but we don’t even have defined what we might want yet.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So that has a green light to move ahead with.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can I suggest that there does need to be some formalization, a simple byline out of this ExCom to have the ALAC formally resolve at its next meeting that the new gTLD work group will undertake this particular concept development and early drafting task.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl, I second it. So that's an action item. Could you get that Seth please?
Seth Greene: Yes Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Fantastic. And I will require help on the process for that because I'm not quite sure how - because it's not a creation of a working group, it's just assigning a task to a working group.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, no it's a little bit like if we had given them a charter we would be giving it in addition to their charter. This can be the beginning of the good practice of having roles and responsibilities clearly delineated either in a charter or otherwise.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, good next, ICANN developing country Summit, that should give the ICANN Developing Countries Summit a 45 minute slot in the next ALAC agenda with Tijani and Dev who will report. That is in progress. I guess that’s for later. Next is the -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Tijani has his hand up.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Oh yes Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, no if you don’t need any comment it's not the problem. It will be done in the ALAC meeting but if you want a small briefing about what happened in Singapore about it. Some of you were present in the meeting and there was an organizing committee appointed. And the main decision is that perhaps it will not be organized in Dakar. But it will be best prepared in Dakar to be organized after that. Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you for this quick review Tijani. And of course we are going to probably touch on this in the next part of this call. ALAC executive committee meeting on Friday and we still have a number of things here and so the collaboration with registrars, At-Large members to continue adding ideas regarding possible At-Large collaboration with registrars to the following two Wiki pages and we have those two Wiki pages there which so far have remained desperately empty.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Have we invited the registrars to play on those Wikis or?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: These are Wikis for ourselves for us to be able to write first what questions would ALAC members like to be asked of the registrars? And the second one being that is for content for education materials. Once we have that information on those Wikis we would then transmit this over to the registrars. And then they would come back to us later. But we haven’t even gone though that first step. We keep on telling registrars we need this, we need that. We need to develop educational material and then we don’t.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay so this is one of those things that now the space is there we need to push, not just to the regions but out to the ALSs in rank and file.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Anyone?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: They're the ones who should be putting those things, populating those pages or making comments or sending it to Mr. Smith whose job it is to put it on the page. I don’t really care how it happens but it again shouldn’t just be this is for ALAC. It should be a question that we should ask the ALSs to ask their rank and file members. And either the questions or examples if they have something in their local ccTLD community that seems to be either fitting the bill or is an example of what doesn’t work. That’s an opportunity to bring those forward as well.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: All happy with that? I did think that - didn’t LACRALO develop some questions on this? Because I remember seeing some discussion going on about that on the LACRALO list in the past.
Carlton Samuels: Yes there were some questions that were developed. I will have to follow up on it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: They just need to find their way to the Wiki page.
Carlton Samuels: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It just seems to have gone missing so that’s why I'm a little concerned. Okay thank you, I think we can move swiftly on then to the next thing, this is obviously a work in progress. Next, the WHOIS regarding the [inaudible 01:17:13] evolution of WHOIS service, [inaudible 01:17:16] Carlton to forward the call [inaudible 01:17:17] for expertise for a drafting team to develop a WHOIS service requirement survey.
Alan Greenberg: Well I forwarded to the ExCom the note I got back from Liz which is now several weeks out of date saying yes there were slots available. At that point they had one meeting. I'm not quite sure of the status of the second one at this point. It may have been held already or may be scheduled. And they were looking for people with specific knowledge. I wasn’t sure if we really wanted to do a general call like that or not but I sent it to the ExCom.
I don’t think there was any further comment on it. I suspect the window is still open if we can do something quickly. But they're really looking for people who can contribute. We can either step away from it or we can try to do something quickly but it's got to be targeted if we do.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Alan any comments.
Carlton Samuels: [Inaudible 01:18:21].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: So what did you say Carlton?
Carlton Samuels: I'm agreeing with what Alan said.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, it doesn’t look as though as we are all raring to go. I'm not sure that we actually have any specific expertise or to understand what the expertise is that is required for that. WHOIS service requirement survey is something that would probably need privacy experts whilst at the same time requiring the law enforcement wouldn’t it? Or am I completely wrong?
Alan Greenberg: Well we are also looking at technology. This is a technical issue. Not what should we be doing but given the range of things that there is some interest in doing, how do we implement it?
Carlton Samuels: How do we do it? How do we implement it? That’s the question really.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Do we have any ITFers in our ranks?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We do.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: [Inaudible 01:19:17].
Carlton Samuels: Yes there are quite a few.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Maybe a call to the technical issues working group?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep.
Carlton Samuels: Could work.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: If I could ask staff to send an email to the technical issues working list.
Seth Greene: Certainly Olivier.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think there is also a difference between us having a need to be directly involved in some of these working groups.
Carlton Samuels: Create a necessary - that’s a question I ask myself too.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:19:51] their output some things. We don’t all have to be on the design team. Some of us can just drive the car.
Carlton Samuels: Bearing in mind what Alan said.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well I think we also have to use - I don’t understand what you mean here but I also do think that in order to keep people involved and interested there is so much work out there we do need to have some people involved in some of these processes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:20:26].
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Of course if it's going to be using the usual suspects to write a WHOIS requirement survey then of course that’s just going to add to our work load. But if we can find some new people to take part in this that would be an excellent entry point for them.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:20:43] people on the benches, it's a delight to have fresh people on the benches. But in the end [inaudible 01:20:48] people on the benches I think we need to rationalize a bit.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay we can send the call. If we get fresh people on the bench, great, if we don’t then we will just let it go. Alright thank you. Next is the ALS outreach. ExCom to discuss with RALO Secretariats the possibility of encouraging ALS nonvoting observers at various meetings, any comments on that?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well -
Carlton Samuels: It's wide open. They can do that whenever they want Olivier. We have open meetings.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Now perhaps we can have a reminder sent by staff to the various lists that all of our meetings are open. Just a little earlier I was asked whether anyone could attend the ExCom meetings today and I had to say yes, it's open. Anybody can actually attend it and in fact I see Danny is on there. Or Danny was on there.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Was on.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: But.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But there is a difference however Olivier if I may, between making that statement and proactively encouraging it to happen particularly at the regions. We still have a situation at lease at the regional meetings that I've been involved in and I'm just talking APRALO that we have the ‘single representative’ of the ALS. And see expected input into the call when the calls happen. And I thought what the intention was out of this particular resolution was to make it clear that it is a much wider and open opportunity than that. For example, with the APRALO meetings we expect to have 10 or 15 [inaudible 01:22:50] in the calls. There is only one person able to vote. But 10 or 15 of them are more than welcome to be in the call.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, you're absolutely right. And thank you for reminding me of this. I do recall the conversation now. In which case may we have a member of the ExCom, perhaps you Cheryl email the RALO Secretariats throwing the idea forward to them and see how the RALO Secretariats respond.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Rather than email, the short answer is yes. But that will probably end up with all the other emails in 1 million emails a week that everyone gets and you can go “Oh damn that didn’t get on the agenda, never mind.” Every one of us belongs to a region. Therefore I assume every one of us at least goes to our own regional meeting.
Is there any opportunity there for us to speak on behalf of our ExCom and the ALAC specific to this and make sure it happens? That would be Seth's job and Gisella's job to get on the agendas for the next regional meetings? And then make sure it gets followed up on so it's more each of us in our regional meetings going how is this happening? The secretary of the APRALO what are you doing to reach out to people?
Have we opened up our lists? Have we asked people to actually mail their member lists with the date, that sort of stuff? I think that will be more effective. It might take three months but I think it will be more effective.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks Cheryl and Alan your hand is up.
Alan Greenberg: Yes I wasn’t at the meeting where this was brought up but I would certainly remove all focus on nonvoting. We have bloody few votes in any of our meetings, certainly there are ALAC votes but those are clearly ALAC members who vote. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want other people at meetings. And most of our working groups are completely open and in fact to the extent they have votes, everyone has a vote. I would defocus the nonvoting and go back to looking for grass roots participation. I strongly support what Cheryl is saying about doing it more on a one-on-one and rah rah and let's beat the drum than just another email.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Carlton and next it-
Alan Greenberg: It was Evan I think.
Carlton Samuels: It's me -
Alan Greenberg: Carlton and then Evan.
Carlton Samuels: I will endorse what Cheryl said. At the LACRALO meeting I know of a fact that at every meeting we have discussion where we encourage people to come and observe, just to see how it works, how it happens and how policy discussions begin and then become a policy statement. And so on, we do that all the time. We also encourage them to look at the ALAC Public Announcement Pages and follow those up. I think it would be probably more of the same but certainly a better way to approach it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Now you can.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Carlton next is Evan.
Evan Leibovitch: I was just going to follow up on what Alan was saying. The way that NARALO calls had always been run at least while I was chairing them, was to try and have a consensus amongst everybody who was on the call. We rarely had to come to a point where things were so divisive that you had to call for a vote. And that way everyone feels like having taken the effort to actually participate in the call that they had a say in making the consensus. I really don’t see why that can't be extended to other environments.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think it was the wording Evan. I think the point of that sentence was trying to capture that we wanted to actively encourage more than just the delegates who by definition probably are the voting delegates to get more involved and feel that the doors are always open and their voice - [inaudible 01:27:32] having heard at all corners. For example, let me give you an example of an At-Large structure in Asia Pacific and that specific island’s chapter of ISOC.
That is 36 countries and they each 13 delegates and two reserves. And what I've been busy trying to push every time find any one of them who is not jointly but severally interested in those things is CG come along, Susan come along, David Archer come along. And you don’t have to come along all the time. Just come along whenever you're interested. It's trying to make it clear that we would be happy to have 50 people on a call and on the rate occasions where we then take something to a vote, we have a list of who can put their hand up. That’s not the problem.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay, great well thank you. I think we've got pretty much all the same idea and we all agree. I can see Alan also and yes, so what we should do is how we mentioned earlier; we should all go to our respective RALOs and mention this during our regional calls, perhaps as a small note in the agenda in each one of the regional calls.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Mr. Chairman.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, please, yes Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Can we make a competition or give them a prize? Free ICANN t-shirt to everybody in the region who gets the most nondelegated At-Large structure of individual representatives to their meetings over three months. I don’t know, just do something.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I can see you are not Cheryl anymore and you’ve come up with this evil word called Free which for ICANN is something that is unheard of.
Alan Greenberg: Hold on, ICANN meetings are free if I remember correctly.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, they are.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Of course that’s right they are paid for by the registrars and registries.
Alan Greenberg: Of course.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Anyway I think we’re getting a little tired already and we haven’t even gone through half of those AIs. Let's move on please to the next one which is the topic of Confluence Wiki pages, staff to subscribe to all Confluence pages as a defense against spam. That should be a quick one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well that may not have happened because I'm doing an awful lot of that at the moment aren’t i?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I can see that and you're being questioned for such a thing.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep.
Alan Greenberg: How does one get permission to be able to remove spam?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: For some reason in some cases you can click the delete and it works. And in some other cases you don’t actually have the opportunity with [inaudible 01:30:42].
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think you might have different levels of permission. I believe I have permission to do just about anything anywhere anyhow to anyone. But that’s kind of historical. You might be able to get permissions allocated to be on staff. Olivier if you can't do anything to a Wiki page then you don’t have all the permissions you need.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I can do to most pages but then some suddenly I can't. Not that I really wish to do.
Alan Greenberg: But how do you delete comments? Do you actually go to the comment and then you have a delete there?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yep.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: To remove.
Alan Greenberg: I didn’t actually look maybe I have that ability.
Evan Leibovitch: Those that have it use the [inaudible 01:31:28] Alan.
Alan Greenberg: Yes I was thinking of the old Social Text where you just edit the whole page and deleted the text. Okay then I will look at the pages I own, maybe I have the ability.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep, if you don’t have a remove - I removed some stuff in the old GNSO space because I didn’t know what your privileges were.
Alan Greenberg: I may not have been - I tried to and I couldn’t but I may not have been looking in the right place to do it. I will do that again.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, it's actually live at the base of each of these stupid comments that come in.
Alan Greenberg: Okay, I'll look thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: And if you can't then we need to make sure that people have the - if you’ve got ownership of a page in space you certainly need those privileges for that page in space.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay thank you. We will move on to the next thing. But let's keep this Confluence Wiki Pages part as a standing AI as to find out if next time staff has -
Carlton Samuels: Confluence pages.
Evan Leibovitch: Actually.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually.
Carlton Samuels: I have to drop off now because I am due for a meeting at the campus. So I'm running behind.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks for having beard with us for an hour and a half.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's a huge one but thanks Carlton. Can I ask - before I ask can I make a request to find something out and a suggestion for us to consider? I assume - so this is the request part, that there is a way of closing off comments but leaving them there. In other words allow the addition of comments to cease on any given page. Just the same as you can decide whether you put comments on the page, I assume you can stop them continuing.
It might be a good thing if we come up with an established policy that ALAC and the community agree to and understand that says once for example, a page had been devoted to a particular topic that has now become inactive or the program has finished or the statement has been made that we then close off those opportunities for comments. And that would take a huge amount of these frivolous things off.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I have no objection about that. I don’t think anyone else has. It really depends on -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: [Inaudible 01:33:48] the questions we really need to ask -
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: [Inaudible 01:33:50].
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: We need to - well I'm sure a statement is possible. We just need to check how that is done. And then we need to establish 15 days after the delivery of a statement of the ALAC based on the work on a Wiki page comments will be closed. We all know what's going on.
Evan Leibovitch: I would also, while we are talking to technology staff, ask them if there is a way to allocate or deallocate permissions from some master passwords without always having to run to staff to turn these things on on our behalf. There must be a better way rather than to require technology staff every time we need to change permissions on a page to add somebody to give them editing privs.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes there is. And for example when we first looked at Confluence Wiki I think Heidi could decide who or who didn’t have what privileges bemuses she was given that privilege to have that. But just on that we probably need Evan to be a little bit careful of whom - if it gets too easy then you will have a lot of legacy issues. Mary who has long left the region is able to still carry on and do stuff. I just get a little nervous about the control of that.
Evan Leibovitch: Actually I was thinking just specifically to have either the executive or the chair and vice chairs and that’s it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Just point -
Evan Leibovitch: [Inaudible 01:35:24] staff and some of the volunteers.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Question taken and we will be kicking it over to staff to pass it on to technology.
Evan Leibovitch: Cheryl does that address your concern?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It does to some extent. I mean one thing that strikes me is of course is to limit it to some extent in addition to closing off open for comment spaces at a particular point in time. This should not allow anonymous contributions. But then you would just get doubled up so you might as well allow anonymous contributions and manage them a different way. Alan has his hand up.
Alan Greenberg: Yes I was going to ask a question, when we went to confluence, IT made the statement that they had very significantly increased spam filters so this wouldn’t be a problem anymore or at least minimize the problem. And it wasn’t for many months and then these things suddenly started. Now I don’t know if people suddenly discovered them or if something is broken and have we at least mentioned to IT that this seems to be a new problem? It may be something they can fix.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: [Inaudible 01:36:32].
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s what I was asking Alan. My guess is that like anything else with people who have enough time and opportunity because we had said that we would allow anonymous comments that an anonymous comment means that anonymous comment can be made. And that includes crap.
Alan Greenberg: Yes but I thought that they did have some spam filters they were certain that were going to moderate - I don’t know what the process was.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: You can't auto generate them. I'm pretty sure that they are not simple auto generations which they can be in the Social Text. At least the spammers have to work a bit harder which is why the quality of the spam is going down rapidly.
Alan Greenberg: Okay thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl, thank you Alan. I'm going to take the ball over to Seth and Matt about this because they should really follow up on that. Seth have you recorded all of what we need to do here please?
Seth Greene: Yes I have it Olivier. And by the way, there are supposedly many new spam filters and the IT people do know about the new spam that is coming through.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: But I do think we might also be able to make it very much an automated setting that we can set a date in the system that automatically closes off the comments on a date we decide. But that might be too advanced but it will happen eventually. Even if it's manual it will help at this stage. But someone and that would be staff, needs to own that.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you, next the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan and we have a whole list of AIs there. The first one being ALAC should give Kurt and Carol feedback on the metric regarding ALAC’s goals in the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan. ALAC to try to develop specific long term strategic plan for outreach with aim of getting funded and that includes metrics, etc. a whole list of things here including outreach to developing economies -- effectively a discussion between Kurt, Carol and the ALAC. Any comments on this?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: What's the closing date for the feedback?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well there doesn’t seem to be any specific feedback. There was a closing date for the official feedback which we are long past.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: So what is our timing on this discussion? The reason I'm asking and to make it clear on why I'm asking these questions is that it seems to me that with matters of outreach this needs to be [inaudible 01:39:37] particularly for metrics and concepts of metrics if not agreement on what he metrics are. But this needs to be punted to the regional leadership and the ALSs, if that’s the case that's going to take longer than between now and next month.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well this definitely appears to me like a long term thing. I think that we would be hard pressed to come up with anything within the next few weeks. And certainly it's a wider thing. Now whether we will be in time for the update of the 2012 Strategic Plan is another question. I have doubts.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: The good thing about strategic plans is they are actually updated at least annually if not more frequently. And they should be. Could we be reaching out to our regions to say a piece of specific work you need to come to Dakar prepared with is this issue? And that gives you this amount of time to come with measureables, to come with conflicts, to come with plans, to come with concepts and projects that may or may or not help you reach those, what enablers you would like to see, all that stuff. And that would fit in with us having those bits of information by December which would at least help us fiddle them into the prioritization that we need to for the next financial year discussions.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I'm happy with this, anyone else to comment on that? One thing of course which will be discussed in Dakar are metrics for all sorts of things including performance of ALAC members and various performance issues and metrics. So that would in my view fit very well within the broader scheme of things.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: My god we - can we have t-shirts and coffee mugs with numbers on them? They could even be digitized numbers.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Cheryl once again, I have to remind you we have no budget for this. You find a rich Australian sponsor I'm sure we can have coffee mugs.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I don’t know I might be able to find a rich Asian one. It's quarter to one in the morning, be nice to me. If I want to have some fun, let me have some fun.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Alright. This whole issue here, that is a wider thing and I think that we do need to put together some kind of plan for us to bring this forth to a full session in Dakar. And it's not something that we’re going to resolve now.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No how about we resolve to call a meeting of the regional leadership and the ALAC, however many of the ALAC wish to turn up to discuss these specifics and allied things on the Dakar agenda because that would be really radical and I would suggest no later than August or September.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Could this be a topic in one of the future regional leadership monthly meetings.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes it could be.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Seth if we can check the size of the agenda. If the agendas are not too large over the summer, then perhaps we could have it as just a point in their monthly meeting agenda. On the other hand the agenda is too big already and I know that there is much going on in the regions at the moment then we might need to have this as a separate call.
Seth Greene: Okay, thanks Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Next is the new gTLD Program if no one else has anything else to mention. Oh Tijani does.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay I think it is important to introduce it for the next ALAC because if you're not done immediately after the calls only to introduce it and then perhaps to remind it by emails several times. I think the output of the regions is very important.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I couldn’t agree more.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: You're saying the RALO calls or the Secretariats calls?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No I am speaking about the RALO calls.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay so each one of the RALOs would also have a section speaking about this?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Sounds good, Seth you have this written?
Seth Greene: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you now any other points on this? Moving on the new gTLD Program we have spoken already about this in an earlier action item, the funding for ALAC objection filing and dispute resolution fees. I think we will just batch it with the earlier AI. If there isn’t anything else to add.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Seems fair.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It's basically the funding for the ALAC objection filing and dispute resolution process. This obviously is a much longer and much bigger thing and that will be taken care of by the new gTLD Program working group.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Weren't we all going to get a bunch of dockets and hand them in if they did? I'm sorry that was me being naughty.
Alan Greenberg: Is this item actually done?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Is the what - sorry?
Alan Greenberg: Isn't this item actually completed?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It is complete.
Alan Greenberg: Why do we need to move it into the other part? Let's put a tick mark on it and move on.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It's moved to the other part because it is part of the new gTLD Program part that will be tackled by the new gTLD group.
Alan Greenberg: But we have - we do have funding now. We have to come with a plan to use it but we do have funding.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Supposedly.
Alan Greenberg: Well yes.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Next, ALAC policy statements and these have already been covered above with Edmond and Erick so we will also pass through these. And the next one is the AFRALO summit GA in Dakar.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Just as you - can we get to Seth before we get to Dakar?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Oh Seth.
Seth Greene: Thank you Cheryl and Olivier. I was just going to ask Olivier if under the 2012-2015 Strategic Plan did you cover the last two AIs, the one regarding the ALAC to refine its goals regarding advice to the Board? And under that the ALAC to give Kurt its calendar corresponding to the ’12-’15 Strategic Plan?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well we didn’t look specifically at those and thank you for reminding me of this which is somehow a little different from the earlier part. The refining of the goals regarding advising to the Board is I think a work in progress isn’t it? That’s something in which we wanted to touch on with our meeting with the Board and we ended up speaking specifically about other tasks which were probably a little more important at the time, Cheryl your hand is up?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Not so much to the first part you were coming off Olivier so you may want to come back to what else you want to say. To the second part in terms of the calendar type stuff to Kurt, I wanted to ask when we were discussing this hearing at the global partnership calendar I assume that this calendar of events, and that would include things that the ALSs are going to put in, is going to be a publically shared document and therefore Kurt in his new role and indeed any other senior executive who had a reason to look at outreach and opportunity, from an ICANN perspective would also have access to it. Or have I got that wrong?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It is hoped that he would. My view is yes our calendar would be open.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Anyone have any objections to this? I see no one rushing to the door. Yes it's going to be open which obviously would mean that we just need to tell Kurt about it once we've got it up and running.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, exactly.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Does this answer your questions Seth?
Seth Greene: Yes thank you Olivier. Although my ask one more thing regarding the Danny Younger comment under new gTLD Programs - are we marking that as completed?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: It's not entirely completed. It is batched with the earlier work. It is punted to the new gTLD working group which Evan is in charge of.
Seth Greene: Right.
Evan Leibovitch: And I restore sanity.
Alan Greenberg: Yours or others?
Evan Leibovitch: I can't keep track of others let alone my own.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Actually I'm impressed Evan you’ve got it as long as you have considering the tricky things going on.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Very well, we are reaching the end of the AIs which is our first 20 minutes of the meeting. The AFRALO summit GA in Dakar, staff to ask constituency travel to clarify visa requirements for Senegal from other African countries for the AFRALO Summit and GA. Can we -well we are going to touch on that in a moment. These two last AIs are now opening up to the next part of the meeting. The second AI being staff to put on At-Large Dakar meeting agenda and meeting with the ASO as suggested by the ASO. Number two I guess in hand and staff is going to deal with this. Number one, Seth any?
Seth Greene: No, nothing has been done on the constituency travel issue yet. I could just forward the question or matt is actually the best person to forward the question over there and get an answer I would imagine very quickly.
Matt: I spoke to the person who is taking up my new role, I sent him the information that I had and just asked him to please hurry and clarify it for rest of the travelers. But I don’t know when he is actually going to do it. I do have some information for we are affected and it looks like most members will not require a visa.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Within country travel is going to be easier?
Matt: Uhm.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Within continent, I'm sorry.
Matt: Which one you mean the African Continent?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes.
Matt: That won't be that big of a problem. I know you guys are going back and forth and I'm sure nobody saw it. Members of [inaudible 01:52:27] and [inaudible 01:52:33] union are not going to require any visas. So again, most travelers will be fine. But some travelers will require a visa.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Perhaps it would be important to identify each ALS representative at this stage already. And then check on whether they are likely to face a visa problem or not. If they are, perhaps the process can be tackled earlier rather than later.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes [inaudible 01:53:04] speaks earlier than later is a good idea. I wouldn’t go for the ALS reps though, the country should be obvious. I don’t care whether they send out more.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes, so the country specifically sorry yes.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yep.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Hello do you hear me?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Yes we do.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I said that it would be good if we can get the list of the applicant countries that need visa. We don’t have to verify with each areas. I think that a list exists and perhaps we can find it ourselves. But it would be good perhaps there are changes. The most updated one can come from the constituency travel and with this we can check.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you. I think we've gone through the action items now. Is there any other comments regarding any of the earlier AIs that we have now covered. Now we will move to the next thing which is point two in our agenda preparation of the AFRALO Summit GA. Now if we follow the same amount of time that we have gone for the first part, we will be there for six hours which is not going to happen. What we are going to do is have an abridged discussion here maybe about 10 minutes or so just for us to get the ball rolling and then we will all be able to go home after that. Any suggestions? Are you okay with this? Tijani?
Alan Greenberg: Only if we can get rid of the echo it would make it easier.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well when Tijani hasn’t got his line open it won't be a problem any longer. Well Tijani is going to sleep now I think he needs his line open.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you I would like to [inaudible 01:55:30] it will not be a summit for AFRALO. It will be a GA; it will be a lot of things for AFRALO. It will be a [inaudible 01:55:38] program. It will be a showcase. It will be a GA. It will be Developing Country Summit that enriches AFRALO with [inaudible 01:55:45]. It will be an AFRALO ICANN meeting. There is not a summit for AFRALO. There is a GA and a lot of other activities for AFRALO. The second point, we have too much work to do.
It’s a very huge program because you remember we had a capacity building program already prepared for Nairobi but we couldn’t do it because there was not funding. Now we have the funding. We have to refine the details of the program. We have to decide on the [inaudible 01:56:24]. We have to decide on the logistics and we have to coordinate with the other parts of ICANN such as the fellowship program.
This is for the capacity building program. For the showcase we want it to be [inaudible 01:56:44] a showcase. We want to show [inaudible 01:56:50] material and to make use of the presence of the whole ALSs to make a special showcase. It is also a lot of work to do and we need to tackle this work immediately. The GA is one of the most important events in this program. And we have also to elect our new officials and our representatives in ALAC.
It will be an important event but I don’t think it is the most important event. The outcomes of the GA must be set inside the Developing Country Summit in which we have to have an active participation because we are presented with a lot of numbers, a great number of ALSs. We need to be the most active community in this Developing Country Summit event. It will not be the Developing Country Summit itself it will be preparing event for the Developing Country Summit we have to be the most active in this event.
Also we have our AFRALO Afri-ICANN meeting that has to be a special one because we have most of our ALSs present. There is a lot of work and I don’t - I am foreseeing - we need the participation of all people and we NEED your participation. We NEED your support. We need your support. We will try to set up staffing from the next call which will be on the 13 of this month. We will try to set up a preparing working group for this meeting for the Dakar meeting. And we need also to coordinate with the other parts of ICANN as I said before. This is only an introducing if you want things but I want to hear from you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you very much Tijani. And the first question that I have is how do you reconcile the fact that the actual Developing Country Summit will not take place with the fact that you wish to also involve the Developing Country Summit into this. I'm not quite sure I understand you on that.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay I will tell you. As I told you before during the meeting that happened in Singapore and some of you were present. The meeting decides we are not prepared for the summit and we have to prepare more. Dakar will be preparing for the summit. It was discussed like this and I think it will be like this. But we will prepare ourselves as if we were participating in the summit. And if it is not the summit we will participate very actively in the preparing event of the summit.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay it's just there is one thing I just fail to understand fully and I might have the wrong idea. But preparing for a summit that they might not be able to attend? Or is this summit designed for to be funded in such a way that ALSs will be able to attend in the future?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: It will be in one upcoming meeting as I [inaudible 02:01:12] in the meeting. Dakar will be a preparing step for the summit which will happen perhaps at the upcoming meeting of ICANN.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Right perhaps I am getting too much into details. I will pass. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: Yes two things, one the summit which was going to be held in Dakar and now we are going to talk about it, up until this point the only aspect of it that was designed was that we were going to commission three specific papers and present them with no opposition during those time slots so that everyone would have to or be able to attend, thus making it a summit.
There is certainly not to date been any talk of budget to send people. I think we need to be careful what is really in plan and what conceivably could happen between now and then. I can't imagine there would be a huge travel budget associated with it. I may be wrong. I like however the concept Tijani is talking about when he said we need your help.
I'm not sure who the ‘your’ was targeted at. But I like the concept of for regional activities like this getting some involvement from outside the region. And I don’t know how you structured or how you include people. But I do like that idea and I think we want to try to encourage it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Alan. Tijani you have any feedback on this?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, I have to tell you that when the ICANN Board agreed with [inaudible 02:03:15] to hold this summit their only one condition was there will be zero dollars for it.
Alan Greenberg: Okay.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, that’s right. The summit will not be funded at all by ICANN.
Alan Greenberg: Things could always change. Certainly at this point we can't presume it will be.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Alan that’s why in our AFRALO meeting in Singapore we adopted a statement that we sent to the Board saying that we consider that ICANN has to support strongly the summit because some of this is important for developing countries. Again it is more or less pressure to make the Board find a way to fund it.
Alan Greenberg: No I understand. I was just pointing out that it's not something that is already decided. We shouldn’t presume it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Alan. Thank you Tijani. Tijani I do have something that is bugging me here you mentioned it was not an AFRALO summit.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes it is a Developing Country Summit.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: But the Developing Country Summit or workshop is a separate thing than the AFRALO summit?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: For AFRALO it is not a summit. It's a GA. It's a capacity building program. It's a showcase. It's AFRALO- ICANN meeting. That’s the whole activities of the next meeting for AFRALO.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I might be doing one and one makes three here. I might be calculating too much but it looks to me as though ICANN is going to fund At-Large structures to come to Dakar to discuss a summit that will not be funded.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes. It is too because we will discuss the Developing Country Summit.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Well I just wonder whether the intent was not more to get AFRALO to discuss AFRALO discussions rather than -
Alan Greenberg: Olivier if I understand what Tijani is saying is there will be African ALS people in Dakar and therefore they can participate in the discussion of the Developing Country Summit. It's not that they're being brought there to discuss it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Oh, okay but it just sounds like they have been at the moment.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No but Olivier our request for a capacity building program [inaudible 02:06:11]. And ICANN decided to give us six slots as you know for three RALOs. We group all together to make one GA to happen. It is a GA to happen with AFRALO but with the GA we have the capacity building program, we have the showcase, we have the AFRALO-ICANN meeting, we have the Developing Country Summits. All together these 18 slots will serve for this entire program.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay the only thing I wish to make sure is that the 18 slots which are being funded through ALAC and through the fact that many other RALOs have given their spaces over to the African region for this will not be used for a wider, specifically for a wider ICANN issue which ICANN should be funding entirely separately and not rely on ALAC to fund. Any other comments on this? Thank you and with all this it is now quarter past 1500 UTC. I think we are all getting a little tired now. It's been a very long call. I thank all of you for attending. Before closing the call off is there any other business that we need to attend to today whilst we are on the phone?
Evan Leibovitch: Even if I had some I wouldn’t be aware of it.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm afraid I do have one. And that is are we going to do anything for the further notice of inquiry on IANA? And if we are, are we going to as an executive just shamelessly plagiarize all the good bits out of the CCNSO documentation I passed you on?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: That’s a quick question and I completely forgot about this. I admit on being busted on this one.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I requested it to be on the agenda but I will bring it in under any other business which I'm sure I just heard you call for.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Which I did and it's a good point to ask for this question. Any suggestions from anyone? Well ALAC has come up with quite a nice first response and certainly it would be a good thing for ALAC to write something on the second. The question is how much time do we have and I'm afraid I haven’t got the figures right in front of me. Perhaps you are aware of this Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I would suggest that it is probably going to be smarter for us to at least shamelessly plagiarize the bits that we agree with out of the documentation that has already been offered to us and write new text out of that and then give [inaudible 02:18:53] and place for the community to have some input into it. That’s going to be the easiest way if we are going to own it as in the executive and I think we probably do need to own it. If we want to do it that’s the way I’m suggesting we do do it. Now if we don’t want to do it then there you go.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Anyone against doing it? I should have asked everyone for doing it and everyone would have jumped on their feet and waved their hands around. It looks like we are going to do it by the usual. If no one is against it then I guess everyone is for it. I see Tijani is okay with that. Yes, let's do that. Assigning the task to somebody, I'm going to ask for a volunteer.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think if we set up a Wiki page and if you agree we can plagiarize what I've circulated to ExCom, perhaps if the ExCom could give me some direction on the bits they do or don’t agree with then I can perhaps cut and paste and re-word some based on those areas. So ExCom can say yay, nay or indifferent. And I then I will put some text together onto the Wiki page. I will own that much of it.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thanks for accepting this process. And with that and for staff to start a Wiki page on that ASAP that would be linked to the first. Seth are you still here?
Seth Greene: Yes, Olivier we will do that.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: All I need is for the ExCom to tell me which bits they do or don’t agree with or are totally indifferent about.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Okay so we will do that in the next two day.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Another point the improvement of the At-Large and to finish it and we are waiting for the table that Seth agreed to prepare for the work teams so that we can finish the work as soon as possible.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: There was an email sent to us and Heidi about 20 hours ago on this Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Probably among the number of emails I still need to churn through at the moment. I will check for it and if I cannot find it because I don’t recall having read it yet. But if I cannot find it I will ask for you to resend it to me.
Seth Greene: Certainly Olivier. Yes the tables are ready Tijani. I just asked Olivier and Cheryl a couple of quick questions and hopefully I can get that out today.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: I have found that. Yes I will read this after this call and follow up.
Seth Greene: Thank you Olivier.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Alright thank you to everyone for having attended this long of a call. It's two hours and 25 minutes into the call.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes but we had all that time off between now and Singapore. It's a luxury.
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Enjoy. Thanks to all of you for attending. Thank you Seth, Matt and Gisella and speak to you very soon in the next few calls and I believe there are more calls later on today, so speak soon. This call is adjourned.
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