[atrt2] Travel arrangements for ATRT members

[David Conrad]

Avri,

On Mar 18, 2013, at 10:01 AM, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> wrote:
> The respect for AOC activities is another matter.  If I am right about the symbolic importance of this issue, and I may not be*, and about my impression that from start to finish ICANN Staff does not show adequate regard and respect for the AOC process or output, it may be significant with regard to Accountability.

I find your impression quite surprising and certainly not in line with my experience. Do you have any evidence other than ICANN not paying for you to travel business class that would indicate "that from start to finish ICANN Staff does not show adequate regard and respect for the AOC process or output"? Does anyone else feel similarly?

As for disrespect impacting accountability, I would think this would only be true if the lack of respect results in demonstrable actions (or inactions) that violate accountability.  Can you point to anything along these lines?

> * Obviously David's experience as an employee and my experience as a volunteer worker with ICANN over the last many years have bred different perspective in us.  

For clarity, I was speaking of my ICANN-related travel experiences after I left ICANN, either as a volunteer (as a member of SSAC) or in support of an ICANN-related contract (as a sub-contractor). In both cases, if funding was provided it was for "non-refundable economy class".

Also, for the record: while I was on staff (around 2007, I believe), the travel policy for ICANN meetings changed for (all) staff from business class for international flights to non-refundable economy class regardless of flight length (this was in addition to reducing the number of staff who attended ICANN meetings).  Perhaps this policy changed (as I understand many did) after I resigned from ICANN in 2010.

> As for the general rule you mentioned, it only applies to those who do not have the exception of being Board Members, SO/AC chairs or others who get a separate dispensation.  As I have pointed out elsewhere, while the travel documents from ICANN indicate that most do receive the worse possible economy fares, they indicate that some get better arrangements.

Sorry, I must have missed it -- can you provide URLs to the documents you're referring to? With respect to Beijing, I was under the impression that ICANN would reimburse self-arranged airfare expenses up to a region-determined maximum (IIRC, $1550 for travel from North America).

In any event, trying to up-level this away from the specific case of ICANN's travel policy, I would imagine the general topic of operational (as opposed to resource-oriented) policy development/conformance would fall under the financial aspect of "legitimacy" (if we generalize that to be more than just the new gTLD program).  I suspect metrics for this will be reasonably easy to define and monitor over time.

Regards,
-drc