[council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and Amendments

Mon Jun 14 16:08:40 UTC 2010

That shouldn't be a problem, but I'll confirm.

K

________________________________

	From: Gomes, Chuck [mailto:cgomes at verisign.com] 
	Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 12:07 PM
	To: William Drake; Rosette, Kristina
	Cc: GNSO Council List; Knobenw
	Subject: RE: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and
Amendments

	It would be good if you can include my suggestion Kristina.
That would avoid a separate amendment.  But it is your call.

	Chuck

	From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
	Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 12:05 PM
	To: Rosette, Kristina
	Cc: Gomes, Chuck; GNSO Council List; Knobenw
	Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and
Amendments

	Hi Kristina,

	Ok great, we just misread bits of each others' wordings (how
could that ever happen in a list discussion..?).  So your proposal is
not four only and not that Council can never discuss people in the pool
who weren't listed by SGs, but rather that it cannot discuss them unless
the ones who were listed do not enhance diversity.  Capito.  I'd still
prefer the more open approach and suspect this will unnecessarily
routinize strategizing etc, but whatever.  So if you send an amendment
tomorrow we're good to go.  Two questions on that:

	*Will you be taking on board as well Chuck's suggestion,

		On Jun 13, 2010, at 4:48 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

		 I would add one new wrinkle to this: SG's should only
propose alternates that are of a different geographical location or
gender than their primary candidate.  In fact this would probably be a
useful amendment to the original motion.

	*And/or merging yours with Wolf-Ulrich's

	On Jun 10, 2010, at 10:48 PM, <KnobenW at telekom.de>
<KnobenW at telekom.de> wrote:

		The 2nd "Resolved" should read: Resolved further, that
the GNSO Council should implement the Endorsement Process for all future
AOC review team selections, including the "WHOIS Policy" and the
"Security, Stability, and Resiliency of the DNS" Review Teams;

	Cheers,

	Bill

	On Jun 14, 2010, at 3:39 PM, Rosette, Kristina wrote:

	see my comments interspersed below.  I'll be offline (for ICANN
matters) until tomorrow.

________________________________

	From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
	Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 4:17 AM
	To: Gomes, Chuck
	Cc: Rosette, Kristina; GNSO Council List; Knobenw
	Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process, Motion, and
Amendments

		Hello, 

		It seems there are two levels to this discussion.  The
broader one concerns the nature and role of the Council.  Kristina
argues that the Council " has been greatly restricted in the
restructuring and the initially proposed mechanism goes beyond that
role," and that "having a slightly more complicated process at the SG
level is far preferable to having the Council take on an SG role and
make nominations independent of the community."  I wasn't around when
the veterans among us were having the constitutional discussions leading
to Council reform, so I guess I'm not sufficiently clueful on how
everyone sees this.  While I understand that Council is now supposed to
be more a coordinator/facilitator of community processes than the doer
of all things, I did not take this to mean that it cannot legitimately
make decisions via votes on matters like adding a person or two to
enhance the diversity of the GNSO's RT nominations because that would be
acting independently of the community.  I thought we were elected to
represent our respective slices of the community and after consulting
with them could act in their names, and if they don't like what we've
done we get unelected in the next cycle.  So then what decisions can we
take that do not constitute acting independently of the community,
where's the boundary line?  If I'm the only one who is perplexed I hope
someone will straighten me out in Brussels...

		Anyway, on the issue at hand, Chuck your understanding
of the drafting team's proposal is not different from everyone else's.
The text clearly says "The Council will consider the resulting list of
up to four nominees at its next teleconference.  If the list does not
meet the above mentioned diversity objectives, the Council as a whole
may choose to endorse up to two additional candidates..."  Two
additional is additive, not substitutive.   

		KR:  The distinction between additional and substitutive
was not clear to me and to many others.  (I suspect it was the multiple
uses of the word additional.)  I'm pleased to know it's truly
additional; that's helpful.  

		To my knowledge, the notion that after considering
diversity options the Council would endorse only four (Kristina's Step
2, below) is new, it wasn't included in the amendment language she sent
to the list (quoted at the bottom) and I don't recall anyone suggesting
it on the call.   

		KR:  See note above.  I've included below a revised
step-by-step.  

		Scenario 1 (diversity goals met with SG nominees):
Council receives 4 nominated (or whatever we're calling them) candidates
(1 from each SG), diversity goals are satisfied, so Council endorses all
four candidates.  

		Scenario 2 (diversity goals not met):

		Step1:  Council receives 4 nominated SG candidates (1
from each SG)  and endorses all four.  However, diversity goals are not
met.

		Step 2:  Council then considers the  alternate
candidates named by the SGs.  If  selecting one or two of these
alternate candidates will result in a slate that overall meets diversity
goals, Council may endorse up to two of them in addition to the
candidates endorsed in Step 1. If not, see Step 3.

		Step 3:  Council then considers all remaining persons in
the applicant pool (e.g., all persons who submitted applications but
weren't nomiated by SGs or identified as "additional candidates).  The
last sentence in my number 4 was directed to this step.

		From my standpoint, this is even more problematic than
what we were talking about previously.  It would either a)
astronomically politicize the process by raising the prospect that
Council could overturn SG's one-per endorsements, leading to inter-SG
squabbling over whose gets dumped and associated bad feelings...and talk
about undercutting SG sovereignty!; or b) create really strong
disincentives to do anything to enhance diversity in order to avoid that
scenario.   

		KR:  No need to worry.  This was a misunderstanding.  

		The whole point of the drafting team proposal was to
make the process simple and apolitical, driven in large part by the fact
that the ATRT model with the two competitive seats appeared to generate
a lot of confusion and agitation within one SG in Nairobi.  This
proposal would plunge us far in the opposite direction. 

		KR:  see above.   

		Circling back to what we were talking about yesterday,
the text below that Kristina sent Thursday during the call says, "the
Council as a whole may choose to endorse up to two additional
candidates, from among those identified by the stakeholder groups under
item 2."  That plainly means only those identified by the stakeholder
groups under item 2, there's no misunderstanding here.   

		KR:  No, Bill. The language I suggested was:

		Change the now-third sentence of point 4 to read: If,
however, the list does not meet the above mentioned diversity
objectives, the Council as a whole may choose to endorse up to two
additional candidates, from among those identified by the stakeholder
groups under item 2, who would help to give the list of GNSO nominees
the desired balance.  If consideration of these additional stakeholder
group-identified candidates does not meet the diversity objectives, the
Council may refer to the GNSO applicant pool to identify these
additional candidates.

		As my language proposed, the Council would first look to
the additional (perhaps calling them alternate as I've done above would
be helpful) candidates, if any, identified by the SGs.  (The bolded
language above)  If considering the alternate candidates does not meet
the diversity goals (the italicized language), the Council then looks to
the entire pool.  Chuck's interpretation of my proposal is correct. 

		 In yesterday's message she instead proposes what Chuck
suggested on the call, that the rest of the pool could in fact be
considered, but only after Council has discussed SGs' back-up
endorsements.  This is better from the standpoint of those of us who
think Council should be able to consider the whole pool, but as I said
yesterday it's not obvious why we would need to legislate what we would
undoubtedly do anyway based on common sense and courtesy.   

		KR:  See above as to what I proposed. As for common
sense and courtesy, it would be great if we could rely on that.
However, in the absence of a procedure to the contrary, there's no
guarantee.  That's not something we're willing to leave to chance.  

		 But if it makes folks happier....While we're at it,
maybe we should also codify the precise sequence of the discussion, i.e.
the order in which SG back-ups get considered and the time allotted to
each?   

		KR:  There's no need for snarkiness, Bill.  

		Best,

		Bill

		On Jun 14, 2010, at 6:24 AM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

		All this makes me think that my understanding may be
different than everyone else.   I understood that endorsements by the
SGs would remain regardless of what the Council might do to improve
diversity.  If the Council was successful at gaining support for one or
two candidates that improved the diversity of the pool, then the pool of
endorsed candidates would increase to 5 or 6 depending on whether one or
two additional candidates were selected.  The difference as I understood
it between what Kristina proposed and the original procedure, which is
apparently wrong, was that the step in the original procedures the
Council would look at the full slate of candidates seeking GNSO
endorsement while what I thought Kristina suggested was that the Council
would first look at SG named alternates first and only if that was
unsuccessful would they look at the full slate of candidates seeking
GNSO endorsement.

		Chuck

		From: Rosette, Kristina [mailto:krosette at cov.com] 
		Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 10:17 PM
		To: William Drake; Gomes, Chuck
		Cc: GNSO Council List; Knobenw
		Subject: RE: [council] AoC RT Endorsement Process,
Motion, and Amendments

		I hope I'm responding to the most recent message. If
not, would someone please forward it?  (All of my email rules have
disappeared and I now have thousands of messages in my in box.)

		The concern driving the proposed amendment is that the
Council's role has been greatly restricted in the restructuring and the
initially proposed mechanism goes beyond that role.  The greater
specificity in the process, the greater the certainty.  There was
concern that the Council would move directly to the broader applicant
pool without considering the SG additional candidates.

		To avoid any confusion about my proposed amendments (and
it appears there may be some), here's the step-by-step for the two
scenarios

		Scenario 1 (diversity goals met with SG nominees):
Council receives 4 nominated (or whatever we're calling them) candidates
(1 from each SG), diversity goals are satisfied, so Council endorses all
four candidates. 

		Scenario 2 (diversity goals not met):

		Step1:  Council receives 4 nominated SG candidates (1
from each SG), but diversity goals are not met.

		Step 2:  Council then considers the 6 additional
candidates (2 SGs named 1, 2 SGs named 2) named by the SGs.  If
consideration of these additonal candidates results in a slate that
meets diverseity goals, Council endorses 4 candidates.  If not, see Step
3.

		Step 3:  Council then considers all remaining persons in
the applicant pool (e.g., all persons who submitted applications but
weren't nomiated by SGs or identified as "additional candidates).  The
last sentence in my number 4 was directed to this step.

		If my proposed amendments did not make that clear,
please let me at what step they weren't clear enough.

________________________________

			From: William Drake
[mailto:william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch] 
			Sent: Sunday, June 13, 2010 11:30 AM
			To: Gomes, Chuck
			Cc: GNSO Council List; Rosette, Kristina;
Knobenw
			Subject: Re: [council] AoC RT Endorsement
Process, Motion, and Amendments

			Hi Chuck

			On Jun 13, 2010, at 4:48 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

				I personally support the motion as
proposed because I think the required threshold of 60% of each house for
any additional candidates provides more than enough protection to ensure
SG support.  That would require 5 affirmative votes for the CPH and 8
affirmative votes of the NCPH, so no SG could control the vote, not even
with the NCA vote.  With that protection, it seems problematic to add
more complexity to the process.

				At the same time, if there are those who
cannot support the original motion as is, I think I could support a
modification that would do the following:

				1.       If the Council decides to try
to improve the diversity of the pool of GNSO endorsed candidates, they
would first consider those alternate candidates proposed by the SGs, if
any. 

			Wouldn't we do this anyone as a matter of
courtesy and common sense without codifying it?  If there's a pool of 8
candidates and SGs have come to internal agreement that they could
support persons x y and z, presumably their reps would indicate that
when the conversation begins and we'd commence talking about x y and z
before moving on to the five nobody had yet preferred.  Would anyone
really say well, your SG may like Ms. x but I refuse to talk about her
and insist we start with someone nobody's said they favor?

			(One flaw with this as Bill noted in our meeting
last week is that an SG could submit all remaining candidates as
alternates.)

			After I said that, somewhat in jest, Kristina
specified in the amendment, "notify Council of one or two additional
candidates whom it could support, if available." 

			2.       If the Council is unable to approve any
additional candidates to improve diversity of the pool using only  SG
proposed alternates, then they could consider the entire set of
candidates requesting GNSO endorsement.

			3.       I would add one new wrinkle to this:
SG's should only propose alternates that are of a different geographical
location or gender than their primary candidate.  In fact this would
probably be a useful amendment to the original motion.

			I'd favor that, but not if it's tied to
prohibiting the Council from even considering people who were not so
designated.

			What the IPC is proposing is that only
applicants that SGs have previously designated as acceptable back-ups
could even be considered by the Council for this purpose.

			[Gomes, Chuck]  I didn't understand it as this
restrictive.  I thought Kristina said that the SG alternatives would be
considered first; then if that didn't result in a successful resolution,
other candidates could be considered. 

			That's what you suggested as an alternative.
Kristina's text says

				3.  Change third bullet of #2 to read:
Each stakeholder group is encouraged to (a) identify in its internal
deliberations and (b) notify Council of one or two additional candidates
whom it could support, if available, in the event that the diversity
procedure outlined in item 4 below is utilized.  

				4.  Change the now-third sentence of
point 4 to read: If, however, the list does not meet the above mentioned
diversity objectives, the Council as a whole may choose to endorse up to
two additional candidates, from among those identified by the
stakeholder groups under item 2, who would help to give the list of GNSO
nominees the desired balance.  If consideration of these additional
stakeholder group-identified candidates does not meet the diversity
objectives, the Council may refer to the GNSO applicant pool to identify
these additional candidates.

			So anyone in the applicant pool who has not been
specifically endorsed for possible consideration could not be
considered.  

			Best,

			Bill

	www.linkedin.com/in/williamjdrake
	***********************************************************

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