[NCAP-Discuss] [Ext] Re: Draft final Study 1 report

[Matt Larson]

Danny, everyone,

> On Apr 24, 2020, at 2:26 PM, Danny McPherson <danny at tcb.net> wrote:
> 
> On 2020-04-24 11:03, Matt Larson wrote:
>> Dear colleagues,
>> Attached is Karen's draft of the final version of Study 1. Changes
>> since the last version are highlighted, but the significant updates
>> are in Section 5 (Datasets) and the addition of an executive summary
>> and a conclusion.
>> OCTO has told Karen all along that she should feel free to reach
>> whatever conclusion she felt warranted by the research she's done. We
>> have not attempted to undermine her professional integrity by leading
>> her in any particular direction.
> 
> So Matt, this is Karen's work product and conclusion set and not those of NCAP or the SSAC, I presume?

In March, 2019, the Board passed this resolution:

> Resolved, (2019.03.14.21), the Board directs ICANN's President and CEO, or his designee(s), to proceed with the Study 1 on the Understanding the Current State of Name Collisions as refined by ICANN org.

OCTO has responsibility within the org to perform Study 1 and report back to the Board with the results. We have contracted a significant amount of that work to Karen, but the ultimate responsibility for this work is OCTO's on behalf of the org. The final Study 1 work product as reported back to the Board will therefore consist of a document by OCTO along with Karen's report.

> 
>> We'd be grateful for your review and comment. We'll be following the
>> same process as we did with the draft version of the report: this
>> group has a chance to comment first and then the report will go out
>> for a formal Public Comment.
> 
> Are we commenting on what we believe are Karen's conclusions and what she feels warranted by the "research" she's done?

You may comment on any aspect of the report that you choose, if you do so in a respectful way. There's no need to write "research": it's a cheap shot and I think you owe Karen an apology. Did she publish an academic-style peer-reviewed paper? No. Did she spend hundreds of hours reading many pages to come up to speed on a very technical topic? Yes. If that's not research, I don't know what is.

> 
>> In order to stay on schedule to deliver the final report to the Board
>> by 30 June as we've promised, we need any feedback from this group by
>> next Friday, 1 May.
> 
> 
> Some specific comments, for Karen, I suppose:

I'll let Karen address these questions, but I will make one more comment:

> I find some statements in section 6 inaccurate and the conclusions unsupported, if this is based on what Karen thinks and feels warranted v. some poll and discussion of the WG then that should be clear, but I don't think that's what most of us signed up to.  
[...]
> This whole process seems wonky to me....
> 
> Patrik & Jim, what is SSAC's role in this WP?

Please recall that SSAC designed three studies in response to the Board's initial request, but then told the Board that a group of volunteers was not well suited do them. The Board's response was to ask the org to do Study 1. That makes the org accountable to the Board. As I've said all along, however, it would have been foolish for the org to do the work in isolation. That's why we've engaged with this group at every step of the process, including extraordinary access to our contractor, who has been very responsive and open to this group's feedback. That process is continuing, and I'm looking forward to this group's feedback on the report.

Matt