[council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Tue Apr 20 16:21:55 UTC 2010

Tim and all,

The FY11 budget parameters -- $59 million -- remains the same regardless.  

Thanks, Liz

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-council at gnso.icann.org [mailto:owner-council at gnso.icann.org] On Behalf Of Tim Ruiz
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2010 6:36 AM
To: GNSO Council 
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11

Adrian makes some very valid points. One question for Staff on the
effect of the motion, if passed and incorporated in the budget. Will it
result in an increase in the FY11 budgeted expenses, or will funds be
moved around to account for it to keep the expense total as currently
projected?

Tim

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [council] Motion for WHOIS Studies Funding for FY11
From: Adrian Kinderis <adrian at ausregistry.com.au>
Date: Tue, April 20, 2010 6:59 am
To: "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes at verisign.com>, "KnobenW at telekom.de"
<KnobenW at telekom.de>, "council at gnso.icann.org"
<council at gnso.icann.org>

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-report-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.