[Internal-cg] Open operational community processes

[Milton L Mueller]

Very good questions, Alissa. More specific responses in line below:

> -----Original Message-----
> Question #1: How will the CWG process yield an outcome that has “broad
> support” if the consensus call only takes into account the appointed
> members from ALAC, gNSO, ccNSO, and SSAC? What if a bunch of other
> interested parties disagree with the conclusion of the members? (I’m happy
> to be told that ALAC, gNSO, ccNSO, and SSAC comprise the full universe of all
> possible interested parties and all I or some government rep or whoever else
> has to do is join one of those groups to have my view heard.

I was not able to play a significant role in the chartering of the CCWG by the GNSO/CCNSO, but made it clear to our NCSG reps that I did _not_ favor a member/observer distinction. The response I got was that in the more politically fraught world of DNS many of the stakeholder groups fear that the WG would be unbalanced with unrestricted participation. E.g., dozens of (pick your least favorite stakeholder group - trademark lawyers, civil society, registries, registrars, rastafarians, English octogenarians...) might "stack" the group and make it appear as if one option had predominant support, when in fact it was mainly supported by only one or two mobilized groups. 

The idea is that representation in the CCWG will be balanced for purposes of consensus determination, just as representation on our own ICG is, and any proposal that wins support among that representationally balanced group probably has broad enough support to be put up for public comment as a community proposal. While I personally still prefer the more open structure, I don't think this is an unreasonable view, especially given that the composition of the ICG itself is based on a similar logic. The putput of the CCWG, moreover, will have to pass some kind of open public comment test, afaik.

> Question #2: Observers are required to provide a Statement of Interest.
> Observers who are not part of a chartering organization are asked to use the
> gNSO procedures for doing so
> <https://community.icann.org/display/gnsosoi/New+SOIs>. That page
> appears to require a username and password in order to access the SOI form.
> But I can’t find any place on the site where I can obtain a username and
> password. Can someone send a pointer?

Ask ICANN GNSO staff for how to do this. Glen de Saint Géry <Glen at icann.org> Or maybe Wolf or Keith or someone more enmeshed in the tentacles of the GNSO council can tell you.
 
> Question #3: The existing Statement of Interest form for gNSO seems to
> require public disclosure of a lot of personal information. Why is that
> required to participate in the development of the transition proposal for
> names?

I do not support this requirement at all, but, again, it is motivated by concerns over stealth stakeholder imbalances and conflicts of interest, as it is not unusual for people in the DNS environment to pretend to be, say, nonprofit when they are really stalking horses for some kind of business interest. I would hope the CCWG could be motivated to alter that requirement, as it constitutes a barrier with few compensating advantages.

Milton L Mueller
Laura J and L. Douglas Meredith Professor 
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://faculty.ischool.syr.edu/mueller/