[gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

Fri Jun 13 15:35:40 UTC 2014

On 13 Jun 2014, at 5:32 pm, WUKnoben <wolf-ulrich.knoben at t-online.de> wrote:

In every case of tight results one has to be the decision maker.

	Well, for NCPH board elections, two have to be the decision makers.

The rationale for the voting scheme can be discussed from a winner's point of view as well as from the other side or even more general. I don't see here a motivation to prevent the NCA being the tipping of the scales rather than a motivation to impose the need for compromises between the SGs re important house decisions. That's how I understand "compromising 60%" from the bylaws.

	I agree - the intention of bylaws is to encourage a compromise candidate that is acceptable to at least part of both houses.
	In practice, the NCPH does not seem to be terribly good at compromise, and imposing a by-law does not seem to have changed that much.

	Regards

		David
Best regards

Wolf-Ulrich

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- From: Avri Doria
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 9:33 AM
To: gnso-review-dt at icann.org
Subject: Re: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

Hi,

That is an artifact of the byLaws' 60% requirement.  In terms of this,
be careful what you wish for:

Had it been a majority requirement, as it seems it would be in a
democratic enterprise, I would be in my third year on the Board having
won the first round last time 7:6. Or I would have been elected this
time have gained 7:6 in the third round.

I am sure that is not a result you, or the rest of the BC, would have
been happy with. That is one reason for the supermajority, to make sure
that by capturing one vote, sometime the NCA vote though not
necessarily, one could be elcted. The ostensible reason is that even if
someone has the full support of the SG, they need to at least convince
someone on the other side that they might be acceptable as a representative.

This was, in my opinion another of the artifacts of the trend during the
last 'improvements' to prevent NCA from being the decision makers.

While it has worked against me twice now, I must say that given the
structure, I support the 60% threshold.

avri

On 12-Jun-14 22:44, Ron Andruff wrote:
Dear Chuck,

As a result of the bicameral structure, in the NCPH, the voting
structure for all House-related elections is cumbersome, i.e. the winner
must have 8 votes in any combination – e.g., BC-2; IPC-2; ISP-2; NPOC-1
(or NCUC-1); NCA-1

Kind regards,

RA

*Ron Andruff*

*dotSport LLC*

*www.lifedotsport.com <http://www.lifedotsport.com> *

*From:* Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes at verisign.com]
*Sent:* Thursday, June 12, 2014 15:06
*To:* Ron Andruff
*Cc:* 'Jen Wolfe'; gnso-review-dt at icann.org; 'BRG'
*Subject:* RE: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

No Ron.  The structure was designed for the two SGs to be balanced, not
the constituencies.  That was intentional.  How the SGs handle their
constituencies is up to them as long as their charters are approved by
the Board and as long as each SG has the same voting power.

Chuck

*From:*Ron Andruff [mailto:ra at dotsportllc.com]
*Sent:* Thursday, June 12, 2014 2:48 PM
*To:* Gomes, Chuck
*Cc:* 'Jen Wolfe'; gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:gnso-review-dt at icann.org>; 'BRG'
*Subject:* RE: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

Dear Chuck,

In answer to your question: /[Chuck Gomes] I have yet to hear a response
to my question about using the NCA in the voting for the Non-Contracted
Party House election of a Board seat.  /

We now have an NPOC, which means irrespective of the NCA, at least one
additional vote is needed from the other side.

Kind regards,

RA

Ron Andruff

dotSport LLC

www.lifedotsport.com <http://www.lifedotsport.com>

-----Original Message-----
From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes at verisign.com]
<mailto:[mailto:cgomes at verisign.com]>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 14:25
To: Ron Andruff
Cc: 'Jen Wolfe'; gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:gnso-review-dt at icann.org>; 'BRG'
Subject: RE: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

I was a part of it Ron.  There are always compromises when there are
different points of view and they usually happen toward the end.  But it
was not last minute because there was no deadline that I recall.  It was
a compromise that was reached by those on the group after considering
different options.

Please see my other responses below Ron.

Chuck

-----Original Message-----

From: owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org>
[mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org] On Behalf Of Ron Andruff

Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 1:20 PM

To: 'Jen Wolfe'; gnso-review-dt at icann.org <mailto:gnso-review-dt at icann.org>

Cc: 'BRG'

Subject: RE: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

Dear Chuck,

Dear colleagues,

I was not a member of the Working Group that made the bicameral
recommendation, but I was part of the community at that time and recall
the anguish that it caused then and continues to.  Despite your view
that there was no last minute compromise solution put forward, that is
not how others saw it.

Having discussed it with those who were part of the WG, there appear to
be two issues:

1. The 'House Compromise'

The belief that the interests of users and suppliers should be balanced
was not predicated on an external objective reason, rather on an
internal compromise. In 1999 the Names Council self-formed into a number
of groups.

[Chuck Gomes] Here are the objective reasons:  Under the original DNSO
structure, users outnumbered suppliers 5 to 2 so suppliers essentially
had no ability to influence policy decisions; at the same time suppliers
were required by contract to implement consensus policy.; the fact that
suppliers signed agreements committing themselves to implement consensus
policies without knowing what those policies were in advance was very
unique in the business world and it happened with the understanding that
community consensus including registries and registrars would be reached.

These groups became the Constituencies of the GNSO and in 2008 the
Constituencies were charged to agree on GNSO reform, but they disagreed.

[Chuck Gomes] The balance between users and suppliers was already in
place before the current procedures were in place.

The 'Houses' concept was a compromise proposed to overcome this
disagreement by severing the link between GNSO Council seats and votes.
This was/is the key issue as it overcame the problem for the Registries
and Registrars in that, together, they only had six seats in relation to
all of the rest of the

Council.   This compromise was adopted out of expediency; not because it had

some intrinsic rationale to it.

[Chuck Gomes]  Like I already said, the balance of voting was already in
place and had been for several years so that did not change. The number
of seats was the new issue, not the number of votes.  If we had balanced
the number of seats on the Council across SGs, the Councilor would have
become almost a third larger than it is now, and many of us thought that
that was not desirable.  At the same time it was thought that each of
the existing constituencies should have at least two seats; that is how
the number six was arrived at.  And it didn't  seem necessary from a
representative point of view for registries and registrars to have six
seats each.

Some history is probably helpful.  Before the current structure of the
Council, it looked like this:

- Each of six constituencies had three representatives on the Council:
BC, ISCPC, IPC, NCUC, RrC, RyC..

- There were also three NCAs.

- All councilors had one vote each except for the registries and
registrars who had 2 votes each, thereby creating the balance between
the users and the suppliers.

- This structure was implemented in the Stewart Lynn reform.

And it came at the 11th hour - not from the beginning of the Working Group.

[Chuck Gomes] Like most compromises do; but that shouldn't be used as an
argument to denigrate it.  It should be evaluated on its merits or lack
thereof.

2) Unnecessary complexity of Council /House /Stakeholder Group /Constituency

The House structure has made voting unnecessarily complex. Pre 2008, we
were just Constituencies within Council (a 2-tier structure). Post 2008,
for some groups, Council changed from a 2-tier to a 4-tier. Today, for
example, the BC is a Constituency in the CSG in the NCPH in Council
(4-tier).

[Chuck Gomes] As I explained in the history lesson above, registry and
registrar representative votes counted double.  That was a complication
over what it was originally but it was simple arithmetic.  In the
current structure it was complicated a little further; the thresholds
added more complexity but once those are understood it is a simple
matter of counting the votes in each house and comparing them to the
thresholds.  Glen seems to handle this easily each month.  Even if the
voting is more complex, that is not very sound reason to change it.

The result of this structure creates unnecessary complexity: meetings of
the CSG and of the House. And the voting system is complex.  As noted in
previous posts, the NCPH is struggling to elect a Board representative
that meets the needs and desires of both sides of the House as well as
all of the

5 Constituencies in the House (IPC, ISP, BC / NPOC, NCUC).

[Chuck Gomes] I have yet to hear a response to my question about using
the NCA in the voting for the Non-Contracted Party House election of a
Board seat.  As part of that "last minute compromise", as you like to
call it, one NCA was assigned to each house to provide a presumably
neutral party in cases where the two SGs were deadlocked.  This is an
illustration of the careful thought that was put into the effort, unlike
your characterization of it.  The group anticipated that there would be
times when the two SGs in a house would disagree and provided a way to
deal with that.

The House structure has created duplication: CSG agendas and NCPH
agendas often covering the same issues as BC agendas.

[Chuck Gomes] That's true of the CPH as well.  But that would be an
issue whenever collaboration of different groups occurs whether there
are houses or not.  And I think we want as much collaboration as possible.

I hope that we can agree to dismiss the notion that what we are
discussing are "mischaracterizations" and recognize that - for some
parts of the GNSO - the current model does not work as hoped and
therefore needs review.[Chuck Gomes]  As you might guess from what I
said above, I am not convinced.  I can accept the fact that many people
may not like it but no one has convinced me that there is a functional
problem that cannot be solved in the current structure.

Kind regards,

RA

Ron Andruff

dotSport LLC

www.lifedotsport.com <http://www.lifedotsport.com>

-----Original Message-----

From: owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org>
[mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org]

On Behalf Of Gomes, Chuck

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 19:26

To: Ron Andruff; 'Jen Wolfe'; gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:gnso-review-dt at icann.org>

Cc: 'BRG'

Subject: RE: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

I am really bothered by the ongoing mischaracterization of the bicameral
house structure as an 11th  hour compromise.  It's fine to argue for
adding questions on structure but please base your arguments on facts
not inaccurate characterizations.  I have repeatedly asked for specific
examples illustrating the failure of the house structure in policy
development and have only received broad generalizations.

Chuck

-----Original Message-----

From: owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org>
[mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org]

On Behalf Of Ron Andruff

Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 6:38 PM

To: 'Jen Wolfe'; gnso-review-dt at icann.org <mailto:gnso-review-dt at icann.org>

Cc: 'BRG'

Subject: RE: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

Dear colleagues,

Thanks for sending this mail along, Jen.  I support Philip's list of
review items.  Just want to weigh in on this with the request that we
consider adding these elements to the 360 review.

To quote Philip: " Without this breadth the review will be inadequate. "

Kind regards,

RA

Ron Andruff

dotSport LLC

www.lifedotsport.com <http://www.lifedotsport.com>

-----Original Message-----

From: owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org
<mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org>
[mailto:owner-gnso-review-dt at icann.org]

On Behalf Of Jen Wolfe

Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 10:38

To: gnso-review-dt at icann.org <mailto:gnso-review-dt at icann.org>

Cc: BRG

Subject: [gnso-review-dt] FW: GNSO review

Hi everyone,

I am forwarding an email from Philip Sheppard of the Brand Registry
Group, commenting on the transcript of our most recent meeting.  I have
copied him here so that you may include him in any replies to his
comments.  I do also have a request out to the SIC to clarify if their
intent is to cover structural issues separately or if we should include
it in our recommended scope.  This will be forwarded out as soon as
received.

I look forward to continuing our discussion on list and to meeting in
person in London.

With kindest regards,

Jennifer

JENNIFER C. WOLFE, ESQ., APR, SSBB

FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, WOLFE DOMAIN, A DIGITAL BRAND STRATEGY ADVISORY
FIRM MANAGING PARTNER, WOLFE, SADLER, BREEN, MORASCH & COLBY, AN
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW FIRM, NAMED TOP U.S. TRADEMARK LAW FIRM BY
CORP INTL 2013 IAM

300 - TOP 300 GLOBAL IP STRATEGISTS 2011,  2012 & 2013

513.746.2801

Follow Me:

Follow My Blog

Domain Names Rewired

-----Original Message-----

From: BRG [mailto:philip at brandregistrygroup.org]

Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 4:23 AM

To: Jen Wolfe

Subject: RE: GNSO review

Jen,

please forward this to the list for me.

I have also send a subscribe request but that has been forwarded to the
list owner.

Philip

---------------------------------------

I just read the transcript of the 5 June GNSO review group call.

I was especially interested in the comments  (from Ron Andruff and
others) on ensuring the survey asks broad questions such as challenging
the Houses structure.  Ron rightly pointed out there was no objective
rationale for

this - it was an eleventh hour negotiated compromise.

In general, speaking on behalf of new stakeholders to ICANN, we would
hope the GNSO review survey would allow opinion on the rationale for
(and representativeness of):

- constituencies

- stakeholder groups

- houses

- Council

- Non com appointees

- liaisons

as well as seeking to resolve:

- how best to involve the public interest , and

- how to embrace ICANN's new registry stakeholder groups such as brand,
geos, communities.

Without this breadth the review will be inadequate.

Philip

Philip Sheppard

Director General

Brand Registry Group

www.brandregistrygroup.org <http://www.brandregistrygroup.org>

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