[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Please participate - poll on RDS PDP WG leadership team characteristics

Thu Feb 4 11:16:26 UTC 2016

Hello everyone

I wonder if we can turn this discussion around.  There is a flavour of exclusion and insider-ness here which I think does us a disservice.  It is clear from the comprehensive interest in the subject that we have many people from all kinds of situations whose experience, input and knowledge is valuable.

Could I suggest that we aim to develop and encourage new approaches, new views and different voices?  They illustrate our inclusiveness, our transparency and they build interest and resilience in ICANN as an international institution.  Our final policy recommendations are stronger for that inclusiveness that recognises differences of opinions.  Having said that, it would be a volunteer with a brave heart and foolish courage who has little background in either the GNSO or the subject that would attempt to take on a large, long term, contentious workload which will present many challenges that does require legacy knowledge.

I would be happy to volunteer to buddy up with anyone who would like some help to navigate the subject matter and processes that structure our work.  I am sure others would be happy to do that too.  The staff did a super job of providing an excellent tutorial this week but I think we need more than that…we need people to link with people to create constructive dialog.

And then for the leadership team, the big challenge will be to demonstrate objectivity and clarity, whatever affiliation they have, to steer the work.  I hope that we turn to that work soon…that is the most critical thing we have in front of us.

Best wishes.

Liz

PS  And I would suggest that we leave it to the leadership group to decide who “leads” it…all of us are capable of leading but I think we need to take into account such a large group with such diverse interests over multiple timezones and cultures.  I suspect that the best option may be to rotate that leadership task around to prevent expected burn out, to ensure that we are developing leadership capability, that we play to people’s strengths and interests, without getting bogged down in who comes from where before we put our shoulders to the policy wheel.

…

Dr Liz Williams
Senior Advisor
Towerhouse LLP
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United Kingdom
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On 4 Feb 2016, at 07:25, James Gannon <james at cyberinvasion.net<mailto:james at cyberinvasion.net>> wrote:

Hi Holly,
Yes apologies for the typo and yes as I said later in the post I do object to GNSO PDPs being led by non-GNSO members. This is my own personal opinion but given the current discussions I thought I should be clear in my position.

-jg

Sent from my iPad

On 4 Feb 2016, at 06:59, Holly Raiche <h.raiche at internode.on.net<mailto:h.raiche at internode.on.net>> wrote:

Hi James

Just a question about your first sentence - probably caused by what I think is a misspelling of ‘linking’.  Are you seriously objecting to leadership roles for people who are not members of the GNSO?

Just checking

Holly
On 4 Feb 2016, at 5:15 pm, James Gannon <james at cyberinvasion.net<mailto:james at cyberinvasion.net>> wrote:

I agree with your point in principle Sana, but in reality I think a couple of us are concerned that the poll is being used for some strange questions that are more political in nature such as the question on leadership inkling people from outside of the GNSO. The results of this first poll will be used to determine eligibility for leadership positions based on a set of criteria that will be formed from the poll.

Given the extremely complex political aspects of WHOIS and its interrelations with so many areas of the community it may be extremely difficult for a newcomer to the entire PDP process and in particular to WHOIS/RDS to make a fully educated decision on some of the questions posed. So its not so much that experience and understanding of the landscape is necessary to be polled, but that to make a fully informed decision will take longer than the 2 weeks that the PDP has been running so far.

Take for example the issues that some of us have noticed with peoples SOI’s, there are people wit incorrect information and affiliations, people claiming to be part of constituencies that they are not and people listing themselves as independent when they are known to have affiliations and sometimes business relationships with parties with commercial and legal interests at stake in the RDS discussions, until we get the basics such as these things correct its hard to take an informed decision on the need or want to take an independent member of the working group into a leadership role that is not GNSO affiliated.

Also there is a principle involved here, I firmly and strongly believe that the GNSO operates its membership in an open and inclusive manner, where almost everyone can find a home for themselves if they wish to participate in the policy development process. And even if one feels the need to be independent we offer open membership to non-affiliated persons and they are considered fully during all dissuasions and decision making efforts. However at the core of the PDP is the fact that it is the GNSOs mission to create gTLD policy through its PDP, and that that role sits firmly with the GNSO not with the other ACs and Sos.

I am likely going to open myself up to some backlash here but I am of the opinion that we cannot allow GNSO policy development to be led by other parts of the ICANN ecosphere, the role of the GNSO is diluted when we do so and results in a GNSO that is not performing the self-control that it needs to do in order to fulfil its own mission. In particular when it comes to AC’s participating in leadership roles on a PDP like this I feel that it in some way violates the system of checks and balances that ICANN is formed on, AC’s such as ALAC an the GAC have the opportunity to provide advice to the board when the results of GNSO PDPs come for consideration by the ICANN board, to wish to lead those same PDPs I feel takes two bites from the apple, and given that ALAC and At-Large members are free to participate in the policy development process as decisional members I think that adding leadership roles to that dynamic complicates things massively.

Bit of a wall of text but
TL;DR: Its the GNSOs role in ICANN to produce policy for gTLDs therefore this needs to be a GNSO led process with open and collaborative membership.

-jg

From: <gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org<mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg-bounces at icann.org>> on behalf of Sana Ali <sana.ali2030 at gmail.com<mailto:sana.ali2030 at gmail.com>>
Date: Thursday 4 February 2016 at 1:33 a.m.
To: Jennifer Gore Standiford <JStandiford at web.com<mailto:JStandiford at web.com>>
Cc: "gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org<mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org>" <gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org<mailto:gnso-rds-pdp-wg at icann.org>>
Subject: Re: [gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Please participate - poll on RDS PDP WG leadership team characteristics

Dear Stephanie,

I’ll respectfully disagree with you here.

Experience should certainly be a matter of importance when determining who should be in leadership roles, but to suggest it should also be required for something as simple as voting on who should be in those roles, based on pretty straightforward and comprehensible principles, I find a bit dangerous. It inhibits participation based on…prior participation, which can become a slippery slope.

And from following the discussion, as a newcomer, I have at least picked up on the fact that even more experienced members of this group seem in no way unanimous on what should be the key characteristics of the team.

My two cents (with full disclosure that these are indeed rather newly-minted pennies)
Sana Ali

sana.ali2030 at gmail.com<mailto:sana.ali2030 at gmail.com>
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sanaali2030

On Feb 3, 2016, at 8:00 PM, Jennifer Gore Standiford <JStandiford at web.com<mailto:JStandiford at web.com>> wrote:

Agreed. +1

On Feb 3, 2016, at 7:50 PM, Stephanie Perrin <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca<mailto:stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca>> wrote:

There is a fundamental problem here, in my view.  There are a great many members of the group who are not accustomed to ICANN and its SGs.  We are therefore asking them to vote on something with which they have no/little experience.  Not sure it is going to prove to be a useful survey.
Stephanie Perrin

On 2016-02-02 15:42, Marika Konings wrote:
Dear All,

As discussed, staff has created a poll to solicit the WG’s input on the key characteristics of the RDS PDP WG Leadership Team which we hope will help inform the the WG’s deliberations on this topic during next week’s meeting. This poll will be followed by a second poll later this week which will allow WG members to indicate which candidates they would like to endorse for the leadership team. To participate in the poll, please go to https://s.zoomerang.com/r/RDSPDPWGleadership. If you have difficulties accessing this page and/or completing the poll, please contact me off-list.

Please note that this poll is for WG members only. If you are an observer and want to become a member of the WG, please contact the GNSO secretariat at gnso-secs at icann.org<mailto:gnso-secs at icann.org>.

Best regards,

Marika

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