[council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Tue Apr 20 13:30:25 UTC 2010

Excellent points Adrian.  Your suggestions would make good input to the
operating plan and budget process.  I also think it would be good for
you to pursue your ideas further with David Olive.  And finally, what
you are talking about would be a good start to what needs to happen once
we do the prioritization exercise; the prioritization DT developed a
methodology for prioritizing projects but that is not the end because we
then need to figure out how we apply the priorities in our everyday
policy work.  It seems to me that what you are saying is an integral
part of developing a way for the Council to manage the process.

David - What are your thoughts?

Chuck

________________________________

	From: Adrian Kinderis [mailto:adrian at ausregistry.com.au] 
	Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 7:59 AM
	To: Gomes, Chuck; KnobenW at telekom.de; council at gnso.icann.org
	Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

	I think what the GNSO needs is a very simple resource model that
maps current staffing, travel, external study funds against tasks.   You
don't actually need to be managing a staff budget, it is really managing
a resource profile.

	So I would expect something along the lines of:

	policy staff:  4.5 FTE

	Travel funds in addition to ICANN meetings:  $x

	Funds for external studies: $y

	Then you would expect some estimates related to the PDP steps:

	-          issues report: x FTE

	-           Initial report: y FTE

	-           final report: z FTE

	You should then be able to work out that there is capacity for
say 3 PDPs in parallel.

	Then what should those 3 be for the year becomes the
question....

	Right now you have GNSO council kicking off work left and right
- with low thresholds to start something.   The staff don't have the
ability to say "no, can't fit that in this year". 

	The ultimate result is staff are spread too thin.

	Of course the same applies to the volunteer resources.  Each
stakeholder group probably has up to about 4 FTE of people really
available to spend hours on this sort of work.  I am talking about heavy
lifters here - able to guide and draft text.  

	So the point becomes how prioritisation needs to understand how
many activities the GNSO can do well.  Part of the reason the GNSO
doesn't make much progress on some things - is it is working on 10-20
projects at once.

	I look forward to the Prioritisation Working Group presenting on
their model.

	Chuck - further comments below.

	Adrian Kinderis

	From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes at verisign.com] 
	Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 10:35 AM
	To: Adrian Kinderis; KnobenW at telekom.de; council at gnso.icann.org
	Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

	Adrian,

	Please see my responses below.

	Chuck

________________________________

		From: Adrian Kinderis [mailto:adrian at ausregistry.com.au]

		Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 7:42 PM
		To: KnobenW at telekom.de; Gomes, Chuck;
council at gnso.icann.org
		Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding
for FY11

		Wolf et al,

		What concerns me over the entire function of the Council
is the fact that there is no budget associated with the policy
development*.
		[Gomes, Chuck] There is a budget associated with policy
development although it is not separated as a policy development budget
per se.  It would be helpful if it was. 

		[AK] Agreed

		The Work Prioritisation Team is about to present a
prioritisation methodology and process that is unable to take into
account the amount of staff time that is budgeted to support prioritised
work.
		[Gomes, Chuck] Estimates could probably be made in this
regard but I don't think they are needed to do the initial
prioritization.  They would become quite important if we do not have
enough resources to do all of our work. 

		[AK] That is exactly my point! If we don't have the
resources perhaps we should re-evaluate our prioritisation!

		This seems upside down or back-to-front or something.

		How can we comment on funding for WHOIS studies when we
have no visibility on how much it may impact our ability to have staff
support other important areas of work?
		[Gomes, Chuck] My understanding is that the overwhelming
majority of the Studies work would be outsourced.  Obviously Staff has
to arrange for that and manage it; is that what you are talking about
Adrian?  I assume the Whois Studies project, if we approve some studies
would be a part of our prioritization exercise, but that would only be
the case if there are funds to do some studies. 

		[AK] That is indeed what i mean. Do we have any idea how
big the bucket is and how much each task/ project will impact it?

		*On a GNSO call a few months back I asked Denise
explicitly if there was a budget for staff support of Policy
Development. I was told directly and clearly that there is not.
		[Gomes, Chuck] I think there is a misunderstanding here.
There are lots of funds in the budget to support policy development
work; we benefit from those funds everyday.  But, as noted above, to
date they have not been reported as a separate and inclusive budget
category. 

		Adrian Kinderis

		From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org
[mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of KnobenW at telekom.de
		Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 6:40 AM
		To: cgomes at verisign.com; council at gnso.icann.org
		Subject: AW: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding
for FY11

		Chuck

		is this meant as a placeholder to be sure having funds
available in FY11? Which is the deadline where it has to become more
precise in terms of the number and kind of studies to be funded?

		I suppose everybody has own priorities. Speaking on
behalf of the ISP constituency we would like to see on top those studies
dealing with data accuracy improvement and secondly those digging into
the privacy complex.

		Regards 
		Wolf-Ulrich 

________________________________

			Von: owner-council at gnso.icann.org
[mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] Im Auftrag von Gomes, Chuck
			Gesendet: Freitag, 16. April 2010 22:37
			An: GNSO Council
			Betreff: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies
Funding for FY11
			Wichtigkeit: Hoch

			<<Motion for Whois Studies Funding for
FY11.doc>> 

			In our Council meeting on 1 April I encouraged
Councilors and their respective SGs and Constituencies to develop and
propose specfic recommendations for funding of Whois Studies in the FY11
budget but no such recommendations were submitted.  Recognizing that the
Draft ICANN Budget has to be posted not later than 17 May and our next
Council meeting after the one on 21 April is not until 20 May, three
days later, I decided that we should try to make a recommendation in our
meeting on 21 April.  To facilitate that possibility I asked Liz to
draft the attached motion (also pasted below).

			Because of the lateness of the motion we would
need to first approve an exception to the 8-day GNSO Operating
Procedures Requirement for motions before we could act on this motion.
Also note that the motion has a placeholder for the amount to be
budgeted for Whois Studies.  My personal opinion is that it would be
good to fund at least two studies in FY11 and even better if we could
fund three if they are ready to go, thereby avoiding very lengthy delays
for at least two and maybe three studies.  Based on the estimates
provided for two of the studies, a minimum of $300,000 would be needed
and it might be wise to add a 10% buffer on to that, making it $330,000.
If we decided to budget for three studies, one of which we do not have
any cost estimates for, we could bump the amount up to $500,000.

			In a year of limited financial resources, we
cannot guarantee how much will ultimately be put into the budget but we
can should in my opinion at least make a recommendation for
consideration by the community and ultimately the ICANN Board.

			. 

			Please discuss this motion with your SGs and
Constituencies before our meeting on Wednesday so that we can act on it
using whatever amount we decide at that time if possible.

			Discussion on the list is encouraged and, if
anyone is willing to second it without the amount inserted, that is
welcome as well.  If anyone would rather see an amount inserted, we can
insert one that can later be amended.

			Chuck 

			Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11 

			Whereas: 

			In October 2007, the GNSO Council concluded that
a comprehensive, objective and quantifiable understanding of key factual
issues regarding the gTLD WHOIS system would benefit future GNSO policy
development efforts (http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/)

			Before defining the details of studies, the
Council solicited suggestions from the community for specific topics of
study on WHOIS. Suggestions were submitted
(http://forum.icann.org/lists/WHOIS-comments-2008/ ) and ICANN staff
prepared a 'Report on Public Suggestions on Further Studies of WHOIS',
dated 25-Feb-2008
(http://gnso.icann.org/issues/WHOIS-privacy/WHOIS-study-suggestion-repor
t-25feb08.pdf ).

			On 5 November 2008 the GNSO Council formed a
drafting team to solicit further constituency views assessing both the
priority level and the feasibility of the various proposed WHOIS
studies, with the goal of deciding which studies, if any, should be
assessed for cost and feasibility. 

			The Drafting Team determined that the six
studies with the highest average priority scores should be the subject
of further research to determine feasibility and obtain cost estimates. 

			On 4 March 2009 the GNSO Council requested that
Staff conduct research on feasibility and cost estimates for those six
WHOIS studies and following that assessment the Council would decide
which studies should be conducted
(http://gnso.icann.org/resolutions/#200903) 

			On 23 March 2010, staff provided its analysis to
the GNSO Council of costs and feasibility for the first two study areas,
and will continue to work on the remaining areas

			Resolved, that the GNSO Council recommends that
at least (insert US dollar amount) be included in the ICANN Budget for
FY 2011.

			Resolved further, that the GNSO secretariat
communicate this resolution to the ICANN Chief Financial Officer and the
Board Finance Committee.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/council/attachments/20100420/edacfa92/attachment.html>