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<div>George and Steve may want to delve into past accountability problems, but I agree with Jonathan Zuck’s forward-looking perspective.</div>
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<div>When we designed Stress Tests for this transition, we deliberately avoided re-visiting incidents from the past. That’s because any recitation of a particular accountability incident will inevitably generate objections about how we describe what happened.
You can just hear people commenting, “That’s not exactly what happened.” or “there were other factors at work.” etc.</div>
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<div>Instead of reliving history, the Stress Test team designed plausible scenarios that would test whether our proposal(s) would let the AC/SO community challenge the corporation for its decisions, actions or inactions, and hold the corporation accountable.
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<div>That said, it’s easy to see that some of the stress test scenarios are modeled on incidents that
<i>have</i> occurred in the recent past. But by generalizing with future scenarios, we get the benefit of stress testing — without the baggage of arguing over what actually happened in the past. </div>
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<div>—Steve</div>
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<span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span><<a href="mailto:accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org">accountability-cross-community-bounces@icann.org</a>> on behalf of Steve Crocker<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span>Monday, July 13, 2015 at 2:32 PM<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span>George Sadowsky<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Cc: </span>Accountability Cross Community<br>
<span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span>Re: [CCWG-ACCT] An implication of accountability models being discussed<br>
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[George’s note and this note were not coordinated in advance nor have he and I had this discussion.]
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<div>George.</div>
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<div>I very much like your proposed approach. I suspect the first step is actually quite hard and contentious. For each of the incidents of concern, I suspect different people have strongly different views on what happened. It may require getting some neutral
people to listen carefully to the competing views, gather the facts and present them in a balanced form. I am not happy having to say this, but I think that’s the environment we’re working in. Many of the people have strong ideas as to whether the right
thing or the wrong thing was done, and their presentations frequently support their conclusions.</div>
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<div>Steve</div>
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<div>On Jul 13, 2015, at 12:49 PM, George Sadowsky <<a href="mailto:george.sadowsky@gmail.com">george.sadowsky@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div>
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Malcolm,<br>
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[These are my personal opinions, and in no way are they meant to represent the opinions of anyone else or of any organization.]<br>
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Thank you for this note. I believe that it provides a balanced perspective from which to discuss issues of accountability.<br>
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I'd like to suggest a next step in the direction of due diligence. For each of the alleged misbehaviors, in Jonathan Zuck's or any others' lists, I suggest that the ideal way to proceed would be to:<br>
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1. Reach a common understanding of what the facts are and what really happened.<br>
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2. Characterize why the alleged misbehavior violated community norms or bylaws, or was inappropriate in any other way.<br>
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3. Discuss and decide what would/could have happened if any one of the several accountability models currently being discussed had been in force.<br>
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4. Discuss whether the proposed changes would be overkill, with respect to this specific incident only, i.e. judging whether the response is proportional to the alleged misbehavior.<br>
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I know that this is not possible in the large, but I think that it would be instructive, certainly for me, to choose some examples and work them through.<br>
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This suggestion is not meant to sidetrack the issue of developing an appropriate accountability structure for its own sake. As Malcolm notes, "accountability is<br>
desirable per se, and improvements should be put in place because they are<br>
desirable in their own right." That's an important part of the equation also.<br>
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I seek serious conversations on this subject in Paris. Anyone else?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
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George <br>
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On Jul 13, 2015, at 6:48 AM, Malcolm Hutty <<a href="mailto:malcolm@linx.net">malcolm@linx.net</a>> wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite">On 2015-07-13 04:48, George Sadowsky wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">But I would like to push back on your belief that past practice, while<br>
interesting, is not relevant to our discussion. I believe that it is<br>
relevant, if only to agree with George Santayana's statement that<br>
people who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.<br>
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[..]<br>
<blockquote type="cite">But it should also help the CCWG, in that where there is factually<br>
verified and agreed upon evidence of out of bounds behavior by the<br>
Board (or for that matter any other organization in the ICANN orbit),<br>
one of your "stress tests"should be to discuss what kind of reaction<br>
that behavior would produce if one or more of your accountability<br>
models had been in place at the time. I would think that this is a<br>
necessary test of any new accountability proposal. Wouldn't not doing<br>
this be a failure of due diligence?<br>
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Generally I agree with Jonathan when he says that accountability is<br>
desirable per se, and improvements should be put in place because they are<br>
desirable in their own right, and should not have to be justified by<br>
reference to some past misdemeanour they are intended to correct.<br>
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On the other hand, the advice I quote above from George is also compelling:<br>
if we fail to address identifiable problems that have arisen before, then<br>
that would be delinquency on our part.<br>
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So it seems to me that the question of past issues is not symmetrical:<br>
evidence of past problems is relevant input to justify a proposed accountability<br>
improvement, but a lack of evidence of past misbehaviour is not relevant<br>
input as to why a proposed accountability improvement is not necessary.<br>
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Malcolm<br>
--<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523<br>
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br>
George Sadowsky Residence tel: +1.802.457.3370<br>
119 Birch Way GSM mobile: +1.202.415.1933<br>
Woodstock, VT 05091-7986 USA SMS:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:2024151933@txt.att.net">2024151933@txt.att.net</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> <br>
<a href="mailto:george.sadowsky@gmail.com">george.sadowsky@gmail.com</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> <a href="http://www.georgesadowsky.org/">http://www.georgesadowsky.org/</a><br>
Skype: sadowsky twitter: @georgesadowsky<br>
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