[CWG-Stewardship] CWG - Draft Report for Singapore

[Milton L Mueller]

Jonathan, Lise

I am sorry to say that I find this draft report to be slanted to an outrageous degree. Its summary of the public comments and the survey results seem to be distorted in ways that lead the community to a particular view. This report will have to change, and dramatically, before it is fit for public release.

The first point you make in this report, which apparently was drafted by ICANN staff, is “Overall there was very strong support for the current IANA operator (ICANN) and that the IANA functions should not be moved from ICANN, or tendered for, at the onset of the transition.” Taken out of context, this statement makes it seem as if there is little support for separability.

By our count, more than 2/3 of the public comments supported separability of the IANA functions, and separability was one of the key principles adopted by the group at the outset. Moreover, around 63% of the public comments supported the basic idea of the Frankfurt proposal, i.e. to create some kind of external authority to contract for those functions.

Even by Bernard’s method, 13 of the public comments opposed Contract Co. and 18 supported it (a 58% ratio in favor of Contract Co) while 24 allegedly made no comment (one of the flaws of Bernard’s method of counting, but that is a minor issue at this point).

The report says that “There was no strong agreement amongst survey respondents with the proposal to create Contract Co.,” which is roughly true, but it doesn’t also say “There was no strong agreement amongst survey respondents, indeed there was strong opposition, to the idea of an internal option.” What accounts for this bias?

The simple fact is that we are currently split between advocates of an internal solution and an external solution. Neither can claim consensus and one-sided references to “a majority” (of 2 votes in a survey that included only 32 people) is not helpful. The key survey questions on the basic issue are all bimodal, with no clear tendency either way. I have no problem with a clear statement to that effect, or even a summary of what arguments people have made supporting or opposing either option. I presume the purpose of this report is to inform the community in Singapore of this fact in an attempt to find proposals that can move the process forward.

A prejudiced report is going to make that more difficult. Furthermore, it is a huge mistake to frame this as a kind of opinion poll at the Singapore meeting as to where people stand now (especially when they are presented with a highly distorted take on how current opinions break down). What we need now now is not polling but deliberation and discussion as to the merits and demerits of various structures, legal advice on the feasibility of both internal and external tracks, and exploration of any options that we haven’t thought of yet.

If you want help modifying the report I’d be happy to provide you with suggestions. Overall, it can be made a lot shorter and a lot simpler.


Milton L Mueller
Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/
Internet Governance Project
http://internetgovernance.org<http://internetgovernance.org/>




From: cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org [mailto:cwg-stewardship-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Robinson
Sent: Sunday, February 1, 2015 3:22 PM
To: 'Bernard Turcotte'; cwg-stewardship at icann.org
Subject: Re: [CWG-Stewardship] CWG - Draft Report for Singapore

All,

To set expectations and remind one another of the purpose of this Discussion Document and of this draft.

The overarching purpose is as described at the outset of the document as follows:

1.      To inform the community of the work undertaken and progress to date

and

2.      To seek community input on key and intractable issues in order to assist the CWG in its deliberations
In order to achieve both 1 & 2 above, it is imperative to get the document into circulation within the community as soon as possible.

With the publication of this draft to the CWG, we aim to obtain the following from the you:


A.     Input on areas of substantial concern with the document as drafted

and

B.     Input as to which questions should be added to the document in order to best direct community input with regard to purpose 2 above.

Accordingly, please can you provide any input as soon as possible and, in any event, by 48 hours from distribution of this document to the CWG i.e. 18h00 UTC on 03 February 2015.

Thank-you.


Jonathan & Lise
Co-chairs

From: Bernard Turcotte [mailto:turcotte.bernard at gmail.com]
Sent: 01 February 2015 17:41
To: cwg-stewardship at icann.org<mailto:cwg-stewardship at icann.org>
Subject: [CWG-Stewardship] CWG - Draft Report for Singapore

All, please find attached the draft report for the Singapore meeting and the updated timeline.

Questions and comments welcome.

Jonathan and Lise would also like input on questions which could be added to this document which would provide useful feedback for our work.

Cheers.

B.
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