[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Final Timeline - End Game

[Jeff Neuman]

All,

After a discussion of the GNSO Council today, we now have a modified final Work Plan timeline that presents a little bit more time for the Consensus Call and for the delivery of any Minority Reports.  Here is the new FINAL schedule.  As was made clear during the Council meeting, we must meet these new dates.


  *   17 December 2020         Freeze on all Content for the Final Report
  *   22 December 2020         Consensus Call Begins
  *   8 January 2021               Consensus Call Ends 23:59 UTC
  *   11 January 2021             Consensus Call Designations are released
  *   12 January 2021             WG Call to discuss designations (Calendar Invites will be sent shortly)
  *   13 January 2021             Challenges due to Consensus Call Designations (if any)
  *   18 January 2021             Minority Reports are due by 23:59 UTC; Delivery of Final Report package to the GNSO Council

Although the Consensus Call technically begins on the 22nd of December, there will be very few if any substantive changes, between the Content Freeze (today) and the beginning of the formal consensus call.

Between the 18th and 22nd, ICANN staff and leadership will be doing clean up on the Report.  This means correcting typos, fixing numbering issues, etc.  So, with the exception of anything that get changed today (and discussed during the call later), you already have the final content.  So, in essence, you have between later today (the 17th) and the 8th of January to get your thoughts together for the Consensus Call.

Other Key Points

  1.  To emphasize again, unless you explicitly state otherwise, you are supporting (or not supporting) recommendations/implementation guidance as an individual member of the Working Group and NOT on behalf of your employer or your constituency, stakeholder group, Advisory Committee, etc.



  1.  As such, we strongly recommend that when you support (or not) the content in a given topic, you take into consideration all of the hours of working group discussions, the 5+ comment periods, and all of the compromises that have been made.





  1.  We do not recommend going back to your individual groups to get their recommendations on the material because they have not been part of the thousands of hours we have spent together, they have not considered all of the comments from all other stakeholders, weighed the pros and cons of each alternative, participated in the give and take of the deliberative process, or involved in finding compromises that we could all live with.  We cant stop you of course from doing so, but remember the consensus call if support or non-support from working group members themselves, not of particular groups.



  1.  Finally, remember that our goal was never to create the perfect or ideal process, but rather a process that we could all live with that also achieved the goals of the original new gTLD Program - to increase competition, consumer choice and trust in the domain name system while at the same time preserving the security, stability and resiliency of the Internet.


Thank you for all of your hard work in this group.  Only a few steps (albeit important one) remain.

I look forward to the call in a few hours.  Please let us know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Jeff and Cheryl
SubPro PDP Co-Chairs
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