[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Notes and Action Items - New gTLD Subsequent Procedures PDP WG - 24 September at 20:00 UTC

[Julie Hedlund]

Dear Working Group members,

Please see below the notes from the meeting on 24 September at 20:00 UTC. These high-level notes are designed to help WG members navigate through the content of the call and are not a substitute for the recording, transcript, or the chat, which will be posted at: https://community.icann.org/display/NGSPP/2020-09-24+New+gTLD+Subsequent+Procedures+PDP.

Kind regards,
Julie

Notes and Action Items:

Actions:

CPE Guidelines and WG Recommendations/Implementation Guidance:
ACTION ITEM: Add Implementation Guidance in the AGB that “Identify” means that the applied for string closely describes either “the community” or “the community members”. Incorporate the guidance on “Nexus” provided by the At-Large proposal.

Re: Criterion 2-A Guidelines
ACTION ITEM: Insert a note in the clean/WG version that if we put in the guidelines provided above by At-Large then that would eliminate the need for this row.

Re: 2-B Uniqueness
ACTION ITEM:  Add a comment to make it clear that it’s not a subject determination that there are better names for the community or is that a name that most people associate with that community as opposed to many other things.

Criterion #4: Community Endorsement -- Re: Scoring: and “Consider whether the community institution or member organization is the clearly recognized representative of the community.”
ACTION ITEM: Change to “a clearly recognized representative of the community”.


Notes:

1. Updates to Statements of Interest:

Phil Buckingham:
-- Statement of Interest Update :
Phil has been elected to serve as a Non-Executive Director on the Nominet .UK Board.

2. Activity/interaction with the ICANN Board/Org about planning for new gTLDs (question from Jim Prendergast)

-- Periodic calls between Council leadership, Liaisons from the Board to SubPro, and SubPro PDP WG Co-Chairs to discuss any issues that we thought could be important to raise to their level, to try to void surprises.  Not to advance policy or push implementation.
-- Most recent meeting was on 08 September after we restarted the calls.
-- The call was to get coordinated again and to work on a schedule for future coordination calls.  To get things back up and running.
-- No issues of substance were discussed.  Told them that the topics featured in the Webinar were the ones that generated a lot of discussions and comments recently.
-- Emphasized the importance of getting comments from the Board, particularly on the questions we posed specifically about the Closed Generics issue.  What it really bmean and what they believe it means now.  Clarification on what they would like to see going forward.
-- Also they discussed the timeline.  (Note that this was not a discussion of the timeline for a launch of the subsequent gTLDs.)

ICANN69: Two sessions where we’ll talk about public comments for prioritized topics (like those highlighted in the Webinar).

3. Administrative Items – WG Guidelines/Scope for the Remainder of the WG’s Work

Section 3.3 of the WG Guidelines: “WG members should be mindful that, once input/comment periods have been closed, discussions or decisions should not be resurrected unless there is group consensus that the issue should be revisited in light of new information that has been introduced.”  See: https://gnso.icann.org/sites/default/files/file/field-file-attach/annex-1-gnso-wg-guidelines-24oct19-en.pdf.
-- Need to keep this in mind and to not reopen issues unless there is new information from the public comments.
-- Seems like there weren’t final discussions on CPE guidelines or some other issues.
-- Things like the CPE scoring, definition of communities (or lack thereof) have been under discussion for a few years.
-- What about things that there wasn’t opposition to but they were rejected anyway?
-- Need to keep in perspective on CPE is that a large portion of this WG did not participate and so may not have opinions on it.  Most don’t understand how the community applications process works.
-- Purpose of raising this section is to give context to the WG’s discussions.

4. CPE Guidelines and WG Recommendations / Implementation Guidance with WG redlines/comments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ih_1NARViJXNNewDg-q87sQzQoC1dCtC/view?usp=sharing, start at page 7, and also note the redline submitted by Justine Chew reflecting the changes from the Proposal by At-Large dated 11 Jun 2020: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RS13a70f3BGx0b1gOyjvvRCoAKvxtlfO/edit

CPE Guidelines with WG Redlines/Comments: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ih_1NARViJXNNewDg-q87sQzQoC1dCtC/view?usp=sharing

Criterion #2: Nexus between Proposed String and Community
Re: “Identify” means that the applied for string closely describes the community or the community members, without over-reaching substantially beyond the community.
-- It appears that from the AGB that “identify” could describe “the community” -or- “the community members”.
-- EIU required that the applied for string describes -both- “the community” -and- “the community members”.
-- Have an added guideline that emphasizes that it could be either or.
-- Don’t want the evaluators going off to the EIU to ask them what they meant by the text.
-- Made the point in our recommendations that evaluation criteria should not have been added after the AGB was out.  But the EIU had to evaluate things that were pretty vague.
-- At-Large proposal: 2= String identifies the Community without over-reaching substantially beyond the Community.  Question: Should we be providing more detailed guidance on what scores which number. Specifically the text in the right column in the description of “Nexus”.
-- At-Large is trying to make sure that we understand very clearly what is meant, so to describe in detail.
-- Seems like there is no objection from the WG to provide further guidelines on the categories of scoring (as in what At-Large has provided).
-- What out for a bias towards economic communities versus other types of communities.
-- WG agrees that there is no need to change the EIU definitions of “Match”, “identify”, and “Over-reaching substantially” or the following questions.

ACTION ITEM: Add Implementation Guidance in the AGB that “Identify” means that the applied for string closely describes either “the community” or “the community members”.  Incorporate the guidance on “Nexus” provided by the At-Large proposal.

Re: Criterion 2-A Guidelines
-- Deleted in the At-Large proposal.
-- Put a note in the clean version that if we put in the guidelines provided above by At-Large then that would eliminate the need for this row.

ACTION ITEM: Insert a note in the clean/WG version that if we put in the guidelines provided above by At-Large then that would eliminate the need for this row.

Re: 2-B Uniqueness
-- At-Large proposal: Question is who do we rely on determine who is unique?  EIU took a certain position that .gay wasn’t unique enough.  Important to see what the global community thinks is unique.
-- We should make clear that there should be independence between evaluation / scoring of each Criterion and sub-criterion.
-- The nexus scoring should address the issue that the evaluators might not think it’s the best name for the community.   Make sure that there’s guidance that prevents that from happening.
-- Make sure it isn’t the evaluator that decides whether that is the best name for a community.  But what if there is a name that’s used to describe lots of things that aren’t the community.
-- In the At-Large proposal they have provided guidance in the right-hand box wherever there is scoring.

ACTION ITEM:  Add a comment to make it clear that it’s not a subject determination that there are better names for the community or is that a name that most people associate with that community as opposed to many other things.

Criterion #3: Registration Policies
-- At-Large proposal: Changed the flow to make it more easily comprehensible.  Scoring hasn’t been changed.
-- The CPE evaluators need to have the power to ask all pretenders to find an agreement among them using the stick not to assign it at all.
-- We should talk it through since, until now, the only way out is an auction or private resolution.


Criterion #4: Community Endorsement
-- We have addressed aspects of this in several of our recommendations.

Re: Scoring: and “Consider whether the community institution or member organization is the clearly recognized representative of the community.”
-- Communities may not have one institution that is “the clearly recognized representative of the community” but may have multiple recognized representatives.
-- Change to “a clearly recognized representative”.
-- Doesn’t seem to be a fair way to evaluate support/opposition.
-- Guidelines in the AGB were very clear, but the way they were implemented by the EIU went against a lot of communities that had large-scale support.

ACTION ITEM: Change to “a clearly recognized representative of the community”.

Re: Definitions
-- At-Large proposal: Retained the reference to “the clearly recognized representative”.  From the proposal:
[a] Is the applicant the recognized community representative?
[b] If applicant is not the recognized community representative, is the applicant a recognized institution or member organization of the community?
[c] If the applicant is neither the recognized community representative nor a recognized institution or member organization of the community, then has the applicant provided full documentation that it has authority to represent the community with its application?
[d] If the applicant does not meet any of the above limbs, then does the applicant have Documented Support from at least one group with relevance?

-- If we are making it clear that we are not looking for “the clearly recognized representative” do we need all of the above text?
-- At-Large is trying to be as descriptive as possible, but not asking the WG to adopt all of the text.
-- Question: Did the EIU consider comments that came in during the public comment period to be documented support? Or only formal letters?  Answer: There wasn’t much detail provided in the score cards.  EIU didn’t describe which opposing organization was the one that took the point away.
-- Could be additional bullets that illustrates some of the approaches – a series of example that highlight what an organization could be that is considered to represent a community.
-- At-Large is proposing substantive change to the way that community support and opposition are evaluated.  Look at the top of Criterion 4.
-- Also go back to Criterion 1 – trying to find a flexible way of defining “community” so that there is no bias towards structured communities relating to trade and business.  To avoid a bias against unstructured communities.  And to introduce a community expertise element where it could be internationally or regionally recognized.

-- Next Meeting: Start with 4-B Opposition and also the overall bias against unstructured communities.
-- Also go back into the issues around public comment periods for changes to CPE applications.
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