[council] SubPro Small Team - Board Rejections

[kurt kjpritz.com]

Hi Everyone: 

I have given more thought to our discussion regarding the SubPro Small Team approach to Sub Pro recommendations facing Board rejection. (I apologize for not being responsive at the time of the meeting.) 

As we all recognised, the approach to “rejected" policy recommendations must differ from those where “clarifications” addressed the issues. Clarifications change the recommendations little or not at all. Rejections might result in a substantial change to the policy recommendations, or at least a consideration of substantial change. 

As Seb described, some of our GNSO colleagues requested broader consultations in the case of changes to policy recommendations, i.e., the rejections category. During our Council meeting we discussed ways to address that concern by augmenting the Small Team somewhat but with requirements about participation levels and constituency distribution. 

I don’t think that sort of augmentation approach will work. There are many in the community that are very passionate about an individual issue but will not have the bandwidth or desire to participate fully in the small team. The result will be that those interested in certain issues will (perhaps rightfully) protest when not consulted — maybe to an extent to delay the process. It is not feasible to include all these people on the small team, or to rotate membership based on the interest of individuals. 

Rather than attempting to augment the team, we might develop an active public consultation or public comment process on each of these issues. This could take the form of a webinar or modified public comment forum. There might be one consultation or comment process when the small team is compiling its thoughts, and a second to receive feedback on the proposed final output. (Or maybe just one consultation when compiling thoughts.). These would not be bylaw mandated 42-day (or whatever) public comment periods. This would be an ad hoc process to ensure that the Small Team heard the viewpoints of others. 

Of course, if we undertake some prescribed process for amending the policy recommendations that includes community input, then the GNSO colleagues’ concerns should be addressed. 

In any event, I think providing transparency into the Small Team’s work and providing flexible avenues for feedback might address the concerns without an awkward and problematic expansion of the small team. 

I hope this is helpful.

Kurt