[CPWG] [registration-issues-wg] Mission creep (was Re: Geographical Names and ISO 4217 alpha3 currency codes [...])

[Roberto Gaetano]

I wonder whether the ATLAS III in Montreal could be the opportunity to discuss and maybe refocus our strategic objectives.
I agree with Evan that if we engage in discussions on topics where the user interest is not clear we take the risk of losing time and energy for things that, although important for others, are not in our priorities.
But there is also another issue. If we do not have a clear focus on “what’s in for the users” we might have very diverging opinions on the topic, based on our very diverse personal opinions. This will automatically end up in a final statement that does not satisfy anybody, might sound contradictory, and at the end of the day does not even contribute substantially to the discussion that is taking place in ICANN.
In summary, some risks, very little - if any - benefit.
Moreover, running in circles without the chance to converge to a practical result makes Jonathan Zuck nervous 😀.
Cheers,
Roberto

On 24.06.2019, at 19:01, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org<mailto:evan at telly.org>> wrote:

On Mon, 24 Jun 2019 at 09:04, <h.raiche at internode.on.net<mailto:h.raiche at internode.on.net>> wrote:
I also concur

Thanks to all for the support of this position.

As I get older, most of my thought processes these days start with "life's too short to dwell over the irrelevant". I didn't intentionally mean to pick on Christopher's issue to make this stand.

In the past, ALAC has indulged in this kind of mission-creep far too often and I confess to having been a part of that. We got way too deep into issues such as vertical integration, dot-brands and similar battles that have near-zero impact on end-users. In hindsight, I even think that the massive amount of work that ALAC did in promoting (new-gTLD) Applicant support -- an effort that I co-chaired -- was for the benefit of would-be registries and indirectly registrars, with little fallout beyond them.

It wasn't an Alt-Large issue.

I can bemoan the execution of the Applicant Support program but must now realize in hindsight that its failure really did not impact end-users one bit. Even had it succeeded, registrants would have benefited but the end-user impact would be negligible. Given the massive amount of person-hours spent on the program by myself, Avri, Tijani, Alice (from the GAC) and many others, this realization is disheartening. Others should learn from our errors and be encouraged to avoid similar paths of futile irrelevance.

As my penance I will do what I can going forward to repeat the end-user-relevance litmus test applied on currency-code TLDs to other ALAC issues and requests for comments, as they come forward. I invite others to be similarly vigilant.

At one time I recall that At-Large staff measured the success and effectiveness of ALAC by how many statements and comments it produced. That approach of measuring quantity rather than quality, in retrospect, was an awful mistake, and must be repudiated should it still exist(*). Let's be super selective in the topics of interest -- issues of trust, abuse, IDNs, access and safety, for example -- but do justice to them once identified.

Cheers,
Evan

(*) Yet one more instance of the many ways in which At-Large-related metrics are awful and an impediment to our real effectiveness. The only metric that really matters is "how is ICANN better because we are here?"
_______________________________________________
CPWG mailing list
CPWG at icann.org<mailto:CPWG at icann.org>
https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/cpwg

_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on._______________________________________________
registration-issues-wg mailing list
registration-issues-wg at atlarge-lists.icann.org
https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/registration-issues-wg

_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/cpwg/attachments/20190628/7f8868ee/attachment.html>