[atrt2] PDP - Discussion with ATRT2 05

[Alan Greenberg]

>From: "James M. Bladel" <jbladel at godaddy.com>
>To: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>
>CC: Mike O'Connor <mike at haven2.com>, Alice Jansen <alice.jansen at icann.org>,
>         Michele Neylon - Blacknight 
> <michele at blacknight.com>, "rickert at anwaelte.de"
>         <rickert at anwaelte.de>, Chuck Gomes <cgomes at verisign.com>, Paul Diaz
>         <pdiaz at pir.org>, 
> "roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com" <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com>,
>         "jeff.neuman at neustar.biz" <jeff.neuman at neustar.biz>, Avri Doria
>         <avri at ella.com>, Marika Konings 
> <marika.konings at icann.org>, "Larisa B.
>  Gurnick" <larisa.gurnick at icann.org>, Charla Shambley
>         <charla.shambley at icann.org>, Brian Cute <bcute at pir.org>
>Subject: Re: PDP - Discussion with ATRT2
>Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 13:37:15 +0000
>
>
>Sorry for the delay, just getting up to speed on 
>this thread.   A few thoughts/reactions:
>
>- I agree with Mikey's overall point that we 
>need to invest heavily in "onboarding" new 
>participants.  The veterans have to be 
>answerable to their overlords, and the folks 
>paying the bills want to see their 
>representatives "move up" in the ICANN food 
>chain, as it helps justify the continued costs 
>(including opportunity) associated with 
>participation in this beast.  One of the ideas 
>we kicked around in the RrSG is an informal 
>mentor/protege program, where new blood can be 
>assigned to assist a more experienced member for some introductory period....
>
>-  Also agree with Alan that the PDP works, when 
>it is used properly.  But when it comes to PDPs 
>that have "failed," I would point out that in 
>many case these involved ICANN over-reaching in 
>to areas that are well beyond the technical 
>coordination of the DNS.  Whenever ICANN looks 
>into the mirror and sees a new kind of 
>competition authority, or WIPO, or a content 
>regulator, or a consumer protection group, then 
>you can always count on the resulting PDP to be messy and unsatisfactory.
>
>- And, frankly, there is a bit of a culture 
>problem when it comes to the expected level of 
>effort for PDP work.  Some participants are, in 
>my opinion, only interested in chair warming. 
>They attend meetings and calls and speak up when 
>it suits them, but to keep PDPs on an aggressive 
>schedule folks will occasionally have to do some 
>homework (gather data, write a draft, review 
>slides/text, lead a subteam).  Even on those 
>rare occasions when we have sufficient 
>participants, it's tough to get everyone pulling on the rope.
>
>Just my initial thoughts.  I look forward to our call.....
>
>Thanks--
>
>J.
>
>Sent from my iPad
>
>On Aug 7, 2013, at 23:04, "Alan Greenberg" 
><<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
>>A couple of more thought Mikey (and again, they are mine).
>>
>>When you are thinking about how to get more 
>>people involved (and up the very steep learning 
>>curve of what some of these issues are about - 
>>even the "simple" ones tend to have a lot of 
>>complex wrinkles), consider those who do not 
>>have any sponsor to pay their way and give them 
>>a bunch of meetings to start to feel at home. 
>>Of the people we get appointed to the ALAC, 
>>only a minority really take to ICANN and the 
>>policy process. And getting people involved who 
>>have never seen an ICANN meeting, or see one 
>>every N years, has not proven very successful.
>>
>>The undefined "public interest" is not going to 
>>go away. How do we make sure it is being addressed in PDPs?
>>
>>In my mind, the new PDP process is a good 
>>improvement, but most of the changes were 
>>actually in place (or we were moving there) 
>>before the new process was adopted. So I think 
>>the change you are seeing is a gradual 
>>improvement of the process used, and not really 
>>due to the new Bylaw words and such (not to 
>>minimize the importance of some things such as 
>>the preliminary Issue Report, but I don't think 
>>that is why we are doing better. It is not the 
>>IRTP or Locking PDPs that are the challenge. We 
>>understand how to do those. It is the difficult 
>>ones that we need to do better. It remains to 
>>be seen what is going to come out of the 
>>IGO/INGO PDP, and when we get to the next 
>>Whois/Directory Services one, things may get 
>>challenging again. And ones with large $ 
>>involved, with both sides present at the table, are going to be real hard.
>>
>>So I don't think the PDP is "broken". But how 
>>it is executed needs to be modified to meet the more challenging of situations.
>>
>>Alan
>>
>>At 07/08/2013 11:42 PM, Mike O'Connor wrote:
>>>hi Alan,
>>>
>>>a couple ideas come to mind from your list of questions.
>>>
>>>first, another Mikey Picture.  this one 
>>>highlights an idea that is emerging for me, 
>>>but not quite fully-baked.  i think one key 
>>>piece that's missing from the current policy 
>>>process is an orderly way to bring in New 
>>>Blood.  so our current crop of PDP 
>>>participants is "graduating" to other tasks 
>>>(constituency-leadership, 
>>>new-jobs-with-applicants, expert 
>>>working-groups, whatever) but we aren't 
>>>filling in the gaps they leave with new people 
>>>who are well-prepared to take up the 
>>>slack.  with that in mind, here's my Revision 
>>>Zero picture of the on-ramp for new 
>>>participants and the off-ramp for those of us 
>>>who want to wind down a little bit.  there are 
>>>some things i don't like, but this is close enough for jazz.
>>>
>>><2e11bd8.jpg>
>>>
>>>
>>>it seems to me that we could see a lot of 
>>>benefit from building a deeper pool of people 
>>>in the "contribute" and "lead" layers of all 
>>>AC/SOs if we paid more attention to the onramp 
>>>for new folks (enter -> discover -> learn -> 
>>>practice), and take better advantage of the 
>>>old-timers by having offering corresponding 
>>>tasks that they could help with as they wind 
>>>down (recruit new people, guide them into the 
>>>parts of ICANN that might interest them, help 
>>>them learn the ropes, help them polish their 
>>>early efforts, assist them as they contribute, 
>>>and mentor the leadership layer).
>>>
>>>it also seems to me that there's a completely 
>>>blurry continuum between the "outreach" effort 
>>>and the "policy" effort that's being missed 
>>>right now.  my sense is that currently the 
>>>outreach folks don't really know much about 
>>>the policy side and thus aren't meeting with 
>>>much success in bringing people on board in a 
>>>way that they're ready to jump into 
>>>policy-making.  meanwhile, i think the policy 
>>>side is being starved for resources (and not 
>>>taking best advantage of the resources that 
>>>are already here).  some kind of blending of 
>>>these two functions might be a way to beef up 
>>>that pool of contributors and leaders.  i 
>>>think this could be cheap, and rewarding for everybody.
>>>
>>>note that this picture isn't just aimed at the 
>>>GNSO.  and to that point i think it would be 
>>>helpful if we got better that 
>>>cross-organizational stuff.  again, i think 
>>>we're under-utilizing our old-timers.  getting 
>>>better at the cross-organizational stuff could also be cheap/fun.
>>>
>>>second reaction, since i've been on all the 
>>>WGs you mention Alan (and had a chair role in 
>>>a couple).  i think the WG process has gotten 
>>>a LOT better as the GNSO has settled into the 
>>>new PDP that came out of the last Review.  the 
>>>trouble is that these changes take time to 
>>>take hold, and we're only now starting to see 
>>>our first complete PDPs out of that new 
>>>process.  IRTP, Locking, Thick Whois are good 
>>>examples of pretty-rapid, pretty-good 
>>>efforts.  i like those ones where the Council and Board votes are unanimous.
>>>
>>>big point: don't be too quick to "fix" the PDP 
>>>just yet -- that's like overwatering a garden 
>>>or over-pruning a bonsai tree.  let the core 
>>>process mature a little bit more.  pay more 
>>>attention to that which surrounds that core 
>>>policy-making activity for now.  plenty of room for improvement there.
>>>
>>>Vertical Integration was tough.  a lot of you 
>>>were on it.  Roberto and i co-chaired it.  i 
>>>think that PDP is an exception that proves a 
>>>few of the rules.  here are the rules it proved for me:
>>>
>>>- charter PDPs carefully.  ambiguities in the 
>>>VI charter meant that we had a bit of a hill 
>>>to climb before we could really even get under 
>>>way.  a lot of our energy was spent trying to 
>>>out-guess the Board, and the Council's 
>>>reaction to the Board's decisions.  it felt to 
>>>me like a double-blind poker game 
>>>sometimes.  i had a tough time chairing Fast 
>>>Flux too -- again, the charter wasn't very 
>>>good.  i wrote a pretty detailed discussion 
>>>about the FFlux charter which you can read 
>>>here -- 
>>><http://haven2.com/FF-observations.pdf>http://haven2.com/FF-observations.pdf 
>>>(note: this was written in 2008, so while 
>>>there are good ideas in there, some things 
>>>have changed since then -- but there's lots of 
>>>role/responsibility discussion that still applies today).
>>>
>>>- protect the schedule. i'm still convinced we 
>>>could have arrived at consensus (or rough 
>>>consensus) in VI, had we not been jerked 
>>>around on our schedule the way we were.  this 
>>>is a lesson that generalizes nicely to the 
>>>whole new-gTLD program (by the way, that PDP 
>>>left a lot to be desired in terms of 
>>>implementation detail, no?).  i think we (all 
>>>of us) have got a lot of lessons to learn 
>>>about how the schedule of the new gTLD program 
>>>was managed.  expectations are all over the 
>>>map.  it remains, to this very day, a source 
>>>of conflict.  my view is that PDPs are 
>>>especially vulnerable to schedule-pressure 
>>>because it cuts off an important 
>>>"let's-take-time-to-figure-this-out" premise 
>>>that underlies consensus decision-making.  a 
>>>similar impact to the house-limit on the state of play in a casino.
>>>
>>>- keep the "layers" clear.  i share the view 
>>>that the bottom of the the bottom-up process 
>>>ought to be where the rigorous discussions, 
>>>leading to precise language, ought to take 
>>>place.  non-consensus ("representational") 
>>>layers above (e.g. GNSO Council and Board) 
>>>should either say "yes, good job" or "no, try 
>>>again" but i don't think they are as well 
>>>equipped to actually dive in and chew on the 
>>>details.  i think we tend to get into trouble 
>>>when we deviate from that approach.  final VI 
>>>point -- the Board really surprised me when it 
>>>gave us that really-short (2-week) deadline at 
>>>the end of VI and then took the decision upon 
>>>itself when we said we couldn't get done that 
>>>fast.  while i support the Board's decision, i'm not sure it's a real good one.
>>>
>>>see?  all that stuff off my chest and now 
>>>there's more oxygen available for our 
>>>conference call.  thanks for your points 
>>>Alan.  maybe some of the others want to a) add 
>>>on to this thread or b) ask more questions?
>>>
>>>mikey
>>>
>>>On Aug 7, 2013, at 10:39 AM, Alan Greenberg 
>>><<mailto:alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca>alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca > wrote:
>>>
>>>>We'll follow up with something that is more 
>>>>than just my opinion, but here goes with some of my thoughts.
>>>>
>>>>1. There is little question that the current 
>>>>PDP can work well (ie all sides represented 
>>>>in the process and sound balanced policy as 
>>>>an outcome) in some instances. I think the 
>>>>current IRTP PDPs and Lock are fine 
>>>>illustrations. All parties working in good faith to find a common ground.
>>>>
>>>>2. Vertical Integration is one of the PDPs 
>>>>that attracts the most attention. Some people 
>>>>think that a deadlock is a reasonable 
>>>>outcome, given that it highlights the issues 
>>>>and punts to the Board to make the decision. 
>>>>Other feel the Board should never need to 
>>>>make such a decision, and at best (and I am 
>>>>paraphrasing one Board member during the 
>>>>Durban ATRT-Board interaction) the Board 
>>>>should take an interim do-no-harm decision and then push back to the GNSO.
>>>>
>>>>3. You know I will raise PEDNR as another 
>>>>example. It took far too long to produce 
>>>>relatively little. I personally think that it 
>>>>was a very poor use of time and did not meet 
>>>>the original goals and is a good example of 
>>>>the inability to attract sufficient 
>>>>non-contracted parties to a PDP unless it is very emotionally charged.
>>>>
>>>>4. If we were to (heaven forbid) re-do the 
>>>>new gTLD policy using the current rules, 
>>>>would be any better at getting something that 
>>>>is not mired in the controversy of the current process.
>>>>
>>>>The bottom line is that ICANN has a number of 
>>>>responsibilities but setting policy for the 
>>>>gTLD space is the one that it spends the most 
>>>>time on and is essentially a make-or-break 
>>>>function for the organization. Can we rely on 
>>>>the GNSO PDP to make sound policy 
>>>>representing the balanced needs of all 
>>>>stakeholders, both present and not present, and in the public interest?
>>>>
>>>>Alan
>>>>
>>>>At 07/08/2013 09:45 AM, Mike O'Connor wrote:
>>>>>hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>>could somebody unpack this a little 
>>>>>bit?  "whether the current GNSO PDP process 
>>>>>satisfies the needs of the multi stakeholder 
>>>>>model and Internet users" is a pretty broad 
>>>>>topic (to put it mildly).  presuming that 
>>>>>this is going to be a 1-hour call, 90 
>>>>>minutes at most, i would find it helpful if 
>>>>>the ATRT2 could come up with 3-4 questions 
>>>>>you would like us to think about and build an agenda from there.
>>>>>
>>>>>thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>>mikey
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>On Aug 7, 2013, at 8:03 AM, Alice Jansen 
>>>>><<mailto:alice.jansen at icann.org>alice.jansen at icann.org > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Dear All,
>>>>>>It is my understanding that my colleague 
>>>>>>Charla has been touched with you to 
>>>>>>schedule a call with the Second 
>>>>>>Accountability & Transparency Review Team (ATRT2).
>>>>>>  The ATRT2's activities are focused on 
>>>>>> paragraph 9.1 of the AoC where ICANN 
>>>>>> commits to maintain and improve robust 
>>>>>> mechanisms for public input, 
>>>>>> accountability, and transparency so as to 
>>>>>> ensure that the outcomes of its 
>>>>>> decision-making will reflect the public 
>>>>>> interest and be accountable to all 
>>>>>> stakeholders. As part of its mandate, the 
>>>>>> ATRT has decided to review the 
>>>>>> effectiveness of ICANN Generic Names 
>>>>>> Supporting Organization (GNSO) Policy 
>>>>>> Development Process (PDP) and so determine 
>>>>>> whether the current GNSO PDP process 
>>>>>> satisfies the needs of the multi 
>>>>>> stakeholder model and Internet users. 
>>>>>> Given your experience and expertise, the 
>>>>>> ATRT2 is interested in hearing your 
>>>>>> thoughts and wishes you to share your unique perspective with them.
>>>>>>The ATRT2 has a face-to-face meeting 
>>>>>>scheduled for next week (14–15–16 August) 
>>>>>>in Los Angeles. Would you be available - 
>>>>>>tentatively on Wednesday, 14 August - to 
>>>>>>join their session remotely? Please confirm 
>>>>>>your availability via 
>>>>>><http://www.doodle.com/x9nk6czhz2exvsyh>http://www.doodle.com/x9nk6czhz2exvsyh 
>>>>>>by Thursday, 8 August – COB.
>>>>>>The Review Team has received your request 
>>>>>>for preparatory materials. Rest assured 
>>>>>>that we will provide you with more information as soon as available.
>>>>>>I look forward to reading your doodle poll 
>>>>>>entries and thank you for your help. Please 
>>>>>>let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
>>>>>>Thanks
>>>>>>Very best regards
>>>>>>Alice
>>>>>>----
>>>>>>Alice Jansen
>>>>>>Strategic Initiatives Manager
>>>>>>ICANN
>>>>>>Rond Point Schuman 6, Bt.1
>>>>>>B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
>>>>>>Office: +32 289 474 03
>>>>>>Mobile: +32 4 73 31 76 56
>>>>>>Skype: alice_jansen_icann
>>>>>>Email: <mailto:alice.jansen at icann.org>alice.jansen at icann.org
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: 
>>>>><http://www.haven2.com/>www.haven2.com, 
>>>>>HANDLE: OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
>>>
>>>
>>>PHONE: 651-647-6109, FAX: 866-280-2356, WEB: 
>>><http://www.haven2.com>www.haven2.com, HANDLE: 
>>>OConnorStP (ID for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
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