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[council] 2001. 1. 15 Report , Part II [Appendices]
- To: <nc-review@dnso.org>
- Subject: [council] 2001. 1. 15 Report , Part II [Appendices]
- From: "YJ Park (MINC)" <yjpark@minc.org>
- Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 16:24:08 +0800
- Cc: "S. H. Kyong" <shkyong@kgsm.kaist.ac.kr>, <andy@ccc.de>, <junsec@wide.ad.jp>, <quaynor@ghana.com>, <roberts@icann.org>, <helmut.schink@icn.siemens.de>, <linda@icann.org>, "vint cerf" <vcerf@MCI.NET>, <Amadeu@nominalia.com>, <ken.fockler@sympatico.ca>, <ivanmc@akwan.com>, <phil.davidson@bt.com>, <f.fitzsimmons@att.net>, <mkatoh@wdc.fujitsu.com>, <hans@icann.org>, "Jonathan Cohen" <jcohen@shapirocohen.com>, "Karl Auerbach" <karl@CAVEBEAR.COM>, "Alejandro Pisanty, CUAED + FQ, UNAM" <apisan@servidor.unam.mx>, <council@dnso.org>
- Sender: owner-council@dnso.org
[ Appendix 1] Various Poll Result.
Four topics have been polled by WG members under Greg Burton's volunteer.
(As of Jan. 13)
The poll for 14. Consensus is now published at
http://www.pollcat.com/tzk24p05h3_a
The results are at http://www.pollcat.com/report/tzk24p05h3_a
The poll for 7. Names Council is now up at
http://www.pollcat.com/tzk24l3plu_a
The results are at http://www.pollcat.com/report/tzk24l3plu_a
The poll for 3. Constituencies is still at
http://www.pollcat.com/ty0p1puu4w_a
with results at http://www.pollcat.com/report/ty0p1puu4w_a .
The poll for 4. GA is still at http://www.pollcat.com/ty0p41u8xq_a
with results at http://www.pollcat.com/report/ty0p41u8xq_a .
[Q] Review WG needs more time?
Total number of votes 20 unanimously "YES" with different options for
the working deadline, which was circulated in the Names Council list on
Jan 5.
Option A, Feb 20 : 8 members
Option B, March 4 : 10 members
Option C: member's own independent suggetion 2.
Source: Review-WG list: wg-review@dnso.org
[Q] Should our report to the NC focus on consensus or not?
Total number of voters: 33
-calling a vote result just that 25 votes 75.7576%
-try for reporting consensus 8 votes 24.2424%
Source provided by Polling Booth: www.democracy.org.nz/vote1/
[Q] *If* we agree to call a voting result consensus......
Total number of voters: 28
2/3 of the vote 18 votes 64.2857%
90% of the vote 4 votes 14.2857%
Majority 3 votes 10.7143%
Unanimity 3 votes 10.7143%
Source provided by Polling Booth: www.democracy.org.nz/vote1/
[Q] Do you favor the admission to the DNSO of an Individual DN holder's
constituency
Total number of voters: 32
Favour such a constituency 30 votes 93.75%
(distinction IDNO/IDNH ignored)
Against such a Constituency 2 votes 6.25 %
Source provided by Polling Booth: www.democracy.org.nz/vote1/
[Note] To get access to Polling Booth, please contact Joop Teernstra.
[Appendix 2] Comments on the DNSO Review Jonathan Weinberg
These are answers to selected questions posed in the DNSO
Review. I am a law professor at Wayne State University. I participated
(while I was a legal scholar in residence at the U.S. Federal
Communications Commission) in an interagency working group as part of the
U.S. government's DNS policymaking process during the period leading up to
the release of the Green Paper. More recently, I was the co-chair of a
working group established by the Names Council to formulate
recommendations regarding the deployment of new generic top-level
domains. The views expressed in these comments, though, are solely my
own; I represent no-one but myself. In particular, I do not and could not
speak for the U.S. government, the Names Council, or the working group.
*IV. DNSO Responsibilities*
*To what extent has the DNSO fulfilled the responsibilities in A,
B and C?*
The DNSO has not fulfilled its policy-development responsibilities
to any meaningful extent, and has played little role in domain name policy
development. On the one hand, Working Group A was able to develop a UDRP
proposal, and the Names Council did approve that proposal. But Working
Group A's plan was the target of considerable criticism on process and
substantive grounds; the Names Council's approval was without extensive
discussion and amounted to a rubber stamp. The ICANN Board reacted by
setting aside the proposal in favor of a different one drafted by a
registrars' group, with the caveat that the new plan would be modified
further by Louis Touton in consultation with persons chosen by ICANN
staff. The final plan owed little to the proposal that emerged from the
DNSO.
With respect to protections for the holders of "famous" trademarks
against the registration of second-level domains similar or identical to
those marks, the DNSO was unable to generate any coherent
recommendations. The Names Council issued a statement, but that
statement had little content. While the Names Council managed to
recommend that "there should be varying degrees of protection for
intellectual property during the startup phase of new top-level
domains," the statement stopped there; it did not speak at all to the
nature and strength of that protection or how it should be achieved.
Finally, when it came to the addition of new generic top-level
domains, the Names Council produced a statement of stunning
generality. ICANN staff were hardly constrained in crafting their own
proposal to the board; they responded by preparing a discussion document
that requested public comment on 74 policy and technical questions that
would have to be answered in connection with the rollout of new
TLDs. Those questions, in turn, were just a subset of those that staff
might have chosen to ask. Almost none of the key policy issues raised by
the deployment of new top-level domains were addressed by the Names
Council; they were left to be decided, either explicitly or sub silentio,
by the ICANN staff and board. Indeed, the key policy decisions relating to
adding new gTLDs, as well as a proposed country code top-level domain for
the European Union, are currently being handled by ICANN staff, under the
supervision of the board, with no DNSO participation.
*Have the policies recommended by the DNSO represented an adequate
consensus of the affected stakeholders? Have the viewpoints of all
stakeholders been considered?*
This question is difficult to answer, because I suspect that the
search for "consensus" in the context of domain-name policy making may be
misplaced. Two key factors have made "rough consensus" a workable
approach in the traditional Internet standards context. First, the
community of Internet engineers and system administrators has been a
relatively small and homogeneous one, bound together by shared values and
professional norms, including respect for technical expertise. Second,
the issues addressed in the consensus process have been technical ones,
and the question whether a proposed solution works has been capable of
resolution via a (relatively) neutral performance metric.
Those factors are not present in the domain name context. The
universe of stakeholders there is large and remarkably diverse. They do
not share common values or professional norms, and many of the interested
parties have strong economic interests in particular outcomes. Moreover,
the questions to be decided largely rest on competing values and competing
claims of right: If the name space is to be limited, how is this limited
resource to be allocated? Should the ability to register domain names be
governed by the first-come-first-served principle, by trademark rules, or
by some other means? Should registries be operated on nonprofit or
for-profit bases? How should we think about companies' sunk investments in
the status quo? These are political issues, not technical ones, and they
cannot be resolved from a pure engineering standpoint, asking which
solution works best. They require value choices. In short, there is no
reason to believe that any genuine consensus can be formed around
domain-name issues. ICANN is proceeding with the deployment of new
generic top-level domains notwithstanding that it has not sought to form
consensus on any implementation point, and likely could not do so if it
tried. Only the desirability of one or more new top-level domains is even
close to common ground.
The Names Council has responded to the need for consensus by
formulating policies on such a high level of generality that most areas of
conflict are avoided. This, however, is not a useful long-term strategy.
Assuming that it is useful for the DNSO to search for consensus,
finally, the Names Council is not well-suited to the task of recognizing
the degree of consensus surrounding any given issue. The problems here
stem from the DNSO's structural flaws, which I will discuss below.
*Have the recommendations been well-defined, useful in terms of
being timely and being structured with a degree of specificity /
flexibility appropriate to achieve practical implementation?*
The Names Council's recommendations on famous marks and new gTLDs
were sufficiently general as to amount to little more than the following
direction to the ICANN Board: "We approve of the careful introduction of
new TLDs, and of some form of startup-phase trademark protection. Go with
our blessing, and decide all of the associated policy questions." It may
be that the Names Council cannot engage in a useful policy-making process
with any greater specificity. But this is a mountain laboring and
bringing forth a mouse. If outputs are to be this abstract, and if almost
all policy decisions are to be made at the Board level in the first
instance, it is not clear that it is worth maintaining the DNSO structure,
and with it, the fiction that domain-name policy making is "bottom up."
*How can the DNSO minimize the amount of subjectivity and increase
the amount of objective consensus building, with it current
structure? With a different structure?*
The question of whether rough consensus is present seems
inherently subjective. The only objective way of gauging the level of
support for a proposal is counting votes; that in turn, though, only
pushes the subjectivity into the determination of who shall be allowed to
vote. One of the Names Council's major areas of subjectivity, as detailed
below, is the allocation of the right to vote within the Names Council.
*V. Structure*
*A. Names Council*
*Is the Names Council fulfilling its responsibility to steer and
manage the DNSO consensus process, or can this be improved?*
The Names Council has so far proved itself incapable of developing
policy. The Council has taken the approach that it should primarily rely
on policy work done by the Working Groups and should ratify the consensus,
where appropriate, that those groups bring forward. Yet where a working
group is unable to reach a conclusion (as with Working Group B), or where
the Names Council is unwilling to endorse a working-group recommendation
(as in the case of Working Group C), the council has been able to say
little. Its members wrangle for several hours at their meetings, adopt a
policy statement at a level of generality high enough to satisfy nearly
all of them, and leave the remaining issues to ICANN staff in the guise of
"implementation." ICANN staff then address the policy issues in the way
they think best.
*Should the NC take a more active role in managing the
consensus-development process, for example by giving working groups more
defined charters and more frequently reviewing the state of their work?*
I doubt that it would be help the process for the Names Council to
seek to micro-manage the working groups. If the Names Council cannot make
effective policy decisions itself, it is unlikely to provide useful
guidance to the working groups. To the extent that the Names Council's
perspective on an issue is sharply different from that of a working group,
it is at least as likely (see below) that the problem derives from the
Names Council being out of touch with the domain-name community as it is
that the working group is nonrepresentatve.
*B. Constituencies*
*Are the constituencies a correct division? Are all DNSO interests
adequately represented in the existing constituency groups? Do the current
divisions aggregate individuals or entities with closely aligned interests
and permit the development of focused positions?*
I agree with Harald Alvestrand that the constituency structure is
"a fundamental reason for the DNSO's problems," a "failure" that "should
be abandoned." As he points out, the constituency structure has generated
underrepresentation, because many interested parties cannot find a home in
any of the approved constituencies; overrepresentation, because other
parties can participate in multiple constituencies; and misrepresentation,
because the selection of constituency representatives obscures significant
differences of opinion within the constituencies.
Certainly, the list of constituencies ICANN selected seems
skewed. There is a considerable overlap, after all, between commercial
entities and trademark interests; on the other hand, individual domain
name holders and ordinary Internet end-users, whom one would think have an
interest in domain name policy development, are not represented on the
Names Council at all. The more basic problem, though, lies not in the
choice of particular constituencies, but in the incoherence of the
underlying structure. Even if nobody were excluded, there would be no
reason to think that we could reflect the views of the domain name
community by identifying a set of activities necessary to, or enabled by,
the domain name system or the Internet in general, collecting industry
actors performing each of the activities on the list, and then giving
equal votes to each group.
The Names Council structure may make more sense if we think of the
Names Council not as a representative body, but rather as consensus-based.
If the idea is that any industry actor represented on the Names Council
should have the power to object to a proposal and thus block consensus,
then relative voting strength becomes unimportant; the only question is
whether every important actor in fact has a Names Council representative
that can exercise its veto. Yet as I noted above, the search for
consensus in domain-name policymaking is probably fruitless. No policy
can gain the support of all affected actors; to demand that is a recipe
for paralysis. If the Names Council is to take any action at all,
therefore, it must be on the theory that its members represents the
domain-name community. Yet there is no reason to think that the NC's
current structure, which drastically under-represents ordinary user
interests, meaningfully reflects the relevant communities.
The list of constituencies included in the Names Council reflects
the political strength of the various actors at the time the institution
was established. That constituency formation process neatly illustrated
the lessons of Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action that is, it
advantaged groups for whom the costs and benefits of domain name policies
were concentrated at the expense of those for whom those costs and
benefits were widely distributed. Over the past eighteen months,
advocates of an individual domain name owners' constituency have sought to
press their case to the Names Council and to the ICANN board. They have
failed so far, notwithstanding that the General Assembly has twice
endorsed the formation of a working group to examine the
constituency. There are two reasons behind this failure. First, absent
enthusiasm for the proposal from major industry players, the Board and the
Names Council have felt no special urgency to move forward. Indeed, it
runs counter to the interests of current Names Council members to dilute
their influence by agreeing to the formation of additional
constituencies. Second, individual domain name holders, each of whom has
only diffuse interests in Internet governance, have little incentive to
join or organize a constituency-in-formation, and therefore group
proponents have not succeeded in organizing individual domain name holders
into any broad-based and representative group onto which the mantle of
"constituency" could fall. Absent effective representation for
individuals, though, together with other measures to reduce the current
Names Council skew in favor of organized commercial interests, it is hard
to argue that the DNSO policy making process represents the domain name
community in any meaningful way.
*Should there be a constituency for individuals, and if so, how
should its membership be constituted?*
*How do you ensure that individuals who choose to form an
individual constituency represent the vast interests of individuals?*
There should be a constituency for individuals. So far,
relatively few individuals have participated in the proposed IDNO. An
important reason why participation has been so low, however, is that so
far it has had no payoff. Individuals do not have constituency status,
and a detached observer might be forgiven for concluding that it is
unlikely that the Names Council and the Board will grant them that
status. Energy expended on participation at this juncture, therefore, is
likely to be in vain. By contrast, if such a constituency were in fact
created, with the ability to elect and instruct Names Council
representatives, I would expect participation to be much more extensive
and more broadly based.
At some level, to demand assurances that an individuals'
constituency will "represent that vast interests of individuals" may place
on this proposed constituency a burden not imposed on the others. It is
hardly clear, for example, that the Business and Commercial constituency
represents "the vast interests of businesses," as opposed to the interests
of the particular businesses who are most active in that constituency's
affairs.
*C. General Assembly (GA)*
*How can the level of participation by constituency members in the
GA be improved?*
*How can the level of participation by GA members in the GA be
improved?*
The General Assembly labors under the handicap of having no
function and no authority. The only function given by the bylaws to the
General Assembly *as a body* is to "nominate, pursuant to procedures
adopted by the NC and approved by the Board," the DNSO members of the
ICANN board. Under the Names Council's procedures, a candidate shall be
deemed nominated if he is endorsed by at least ten members of the General
Assembly. Experience has shown this to be an inconsequential hurdle
Because the GA is powerless, participation in the affairs of the
GA as a body has no payoff. Because participation has no payoff, few
people participate in the GA's discussions. That result is inevitable so
long as the GA, as a body, has no function.
*If changes are made in the constituency structures, and possibly
an individual constituency added, should the GA continue to exist?*
The GA barely exists now. To the extent that the GA is simply a
label for the set of interested persons who may volunteer from time to
time to serve on working groups, etc., then that label can surely continue
to be used. To the extent that the GA is intended to signify an
institution that has have functions and authority *as a body* in the
domain name policy making process, no such institution currently
exists. I think that it would be desirable if such an institution did
exist but we need not worry about abolishing something that doesn't exist
today.
*D. Working Groups*
*Are the working groups an appropriate mechanisms to foster
consensus in the DNSO?*
*Are there mechanisms other than working groups that the NC should
employ in managing the consensus-development process? For example,
assigned task forces?*
The appropriate treatment of working group results presents a
difficult issue. On the one hand, the DNSO working group process can
usefully narrow differences between opposed groups. It makes it possible
for a broad range of participants to participate, and make their expertise
available, in a direct and unfiltered way. On the other hand, because
working groups are self-selected, there is no guarantee that any
particular working group actually reflects the community as a whole.
The Names Council should ask, in each case, for adequate
assurances that a working group was diverse, and that it adequately sought
to collect comments from across the broad range of the community. If
those conditions are met, the Names Council must pay careful attention to
the working group's results. It should not simply dismiss those results
on the basis of its members' intuition that the community consensus lies
elsewhere; it may be the working group, rather than the Council, that is
more closely attuned to community feeling. This point is especially vital
given the Names Council's flaws as a representative body, discussed
above. Assigned task forces do not provide the answer, because they
replicate the failings of the existing constituency structure.
[Appendix 3] Kent Crispin's Comment on DNSO Review
The following is a response to the questionnaire produced by the DNSO
Review Task Force. The specific questions are answered as presented; a
set of summary recommendations is appended to the end.
III. DNSO Responsibilities:
The DNSO is responsible for advising the ICANN Board with respect to policy
issues relating to the domain name system. The DNSO's primary responsibility
is to develop and recommend substantive policies regarding to the domain
name system. Additionally, the Board can refer substantive policies
regarding the domain name system to the DNSO for initial consideration and
recommendation to the Board.
To date, the DNSO has been tasked with the following responsibilities:
A. Universal Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP): Working Group A, Names
Council's review of Working Group A report, followed by the Names Council
recommendation based on the Working Group A's report to the Board and the
final adoption by the ICANN Board.
B. new generic Top Level Domains (new gTLDs): Working Group B and C, Names
Council review of Working Group B and C's reports, followed by its
recommendations to the Board.
C. DNSO ICANN Board Elections: Two elections held: 1) October 1999, choosing
three ICANN Board members for 3, 2, 1 years respectively; 2) September 2000,
filling the three year seat for the 1 year expired seat.
- To what extent has the DNSO fulfilled the responsibilities in A, B and C?
These WGs tackled some of the most difficult problems that the DNSO
will ever have to face, they were tackled as a very first assignment
for a new organization, and there was determined opposition to any
progress. Given these difficulties, the DNSO has not done too
badly. But there is no question that much better outcomes could be
easily imagined, and there is also no doubt that the DNSO should
learn from this experience.
- Have the policies recommended by the DNSO represented an adequate
consensus of the affected stakeholders? Have the viewpoints of all
stakeholders been considered?
1) Adequate, yes. There is definite room for improvement.
2) The open WG process allows any concerned party to participate,
and consideration of viewpoints of active participants is intrinsic
to that process. The process by design allows full participation by
any individual, regardless of constituency membership, and in fact
some of the most persuasive and influential participants have been
members of no constituency. To the extent that the actual WGs have
followed this open model (and for the most part they have followed
it fairly well) it is fair to say that all concerned viewpoints have
been considered.
- Have the recommendations been well defined, useful in terms of being
timely and being structured with a degree of specificity/flexibility
appropriate to allow practical implementation?
When one is developing concrete policy, any information that reduces
the problem space is useful. In this sense, at least, all the
policy WGs have been useful. Moreover, there is more to a WG then
just the final report: the record of the debate in the mailing list
provides documentation of public involvement. Further, the staff
and board see at least some of that debate as it happens, and that
information also is useful to them.
However, there is vast room for improvement. As David Johnson once
said, something seems to be left out of the DNSO Work Groups, and
that something is "work". From a concrete point of view the primary
job of a WG is document preparation, and under current practice this
fact is largely overlooked -- WGs are debating clubs, and document
preparation is secondary, and largely left to the chair. Instead,
document preparation should be heavily emphasized, and WG chairs
should maintain that focus. Ultimately it falls upon the NC, as
"manager of the consensus process", to enforce this focus. This
means that WG chairs need to well-briefed, and possibly trained, and
WG charters should be explicit and clear about the specific
documents to be produced.
- To the extent the recommendations have been adopted as policies, have they
received the support of those being asked to implement them?
Generally.
- Has the DNSO failed to address problems that have been called to its
attention through the Names Council?
Yes -- the response to this questionnaire is a sterling example,
but there have been other cases where comment from the
constituencies and GA has been dismal.
- Does the DNSO performance require improvement, and if so, how?
Yes -- comments on how to improve are spread throughout this response;
there is a summary set of proposals at the bottom.
- Are the responsibilities of the components (NC, Constituencies, GA) and
the relationship among them well defined?
In the mathematical sense, the relationship is well-defined -- that
is, the legal language of the bylaws defines a single structure
unambiguously, with no redundancy or duplication of definition. The
legal/formal language of the bylaws is terse, and determines
relationships through deduction and implication rather than explicit
description.
However, the structure and relationships are not well *described*
anywhere -- there is no user-friendly narrative that describes how
the structure is intended to function. This is a major problem,
since people unfamiliar with legal language can easily get the wrong
impression. Moreover, most people don't even read the bylaws.
- How can the DNSO minimize the amount of subjectivity and increase the
amount of objective consensus building, with its current structure? With a
different structure?
1) Suggestions are mentioned throughout this response, and there is
a summary of the proposals at the bottom.
2) People lose sight of the fact that a great deal of thought and
debate went into the design of the DNSO, and significant changes to
the structure are quite problematic.
In many cases, the problems of the DNSO can be traced to not
actually following the model defined in the Bylaws. For example,
the bylaws say:
Constituencies or GA participants may propose that the NC consider
domain name policies or recommendations. If the NC undertakes
consideration of a domain name topic, or if a Constituency so
requests, the NC shall designate one or more research or drafting
committees, or working groups of the GA, as appropriate to
evaluate the topic, and shall set a time frame for the report of
such committee or working group.
The NC has yet to implement a mechanism by which Constituencies or
GA participants may propose policies for consideration; it isn't
clear whether the "intake committee" will serve that role, and in
any case, the "intake committee" has barely begun to function.
- Has the DNSO process brought expertise to the issues it has addressed? If
not, how can the degree of expertise be enhanced?
1) No, quite the reverse: There has been a tendency for expertise to
get turned off by the tone of the debate, and leave the field to
zealots with their own agendas who don't understand the issues very
well at all.
2) Obviously, enforcing a more civilized tone to the debate would
help a lot. Also, the IETF has an introductory document "The Tao of
the IETF" that newcomers can read. ICANN and the DNSO really needs
such a document, as well.
V. Structure:
The structure of the DNSO is as follows: The NC, Seven constituencies, and
the General Assembly.
A. Names Council:
Under the ICANN bylaws, the Names Council is responsible for the management
of the consensus-building process of the DNSO. The NC consists of
representatives selected by each of seven constituencies. The NC functions
via a list serve, regular teleconference calls, and physical meetings in
conjunction with ICANN quarterly meetings. There have been concerns that the
DNSO Names Council has evolved into a generalist body. Questions below aim
to address the role of the NC, and how to improve it.
- Is the Names Council fulfilling its responsibility to steer and manage the
DNSO consensus process, or can this be improved?
Improvement is definitely needed. The NC needs to actually manage
the process; instead, it has largely abdicated its responsibilities
to the "bottom up" mantra. For example, in the debacle of the GA
list, development of civil discourse rules was left to the list
itself, and consequently the list deteriorated to the point of
uselessness. It is hard to imagine a more basic part of the
consensus process than civil discourse; the NC utterly failed to
manage it.
- What are the proper expectations for the Names Council, and what is its
proper role in relation to the DNSO and the ICANN Board?
MANAGE the consensus process.
- Should the NC take a more active role in managing the
consensus-development process, for example by giving working groups more
defined charters and more frequently reviewing the state of their work?
Definitely the NC should take a more active role. However, that
doesn't mean that the NC should be defining the charters of the WGs.
Instead, the NC should be vetting charters for quality. See the
detailed suggestions attached.
- How can the NC enhance the level of technical or other expertise employed
in the consensus-development process?
By providing an appropriately conducive environment, as suggested
above.
- How much or little should the NC be involved in the detailed management of
ICANN?
It completely depends on the specific issue. Obviously the NC can't
negotiate contracts for ICANN -- that really must be done by the
staff and executive -- but the NC could certainly set more detailed
policy goals -- for example, it could approve particular TLD strings
through a public comment process it manages.
- Does the NC manage the policy-development process so that recommendations
are reached in a timely manner?
Not very well, so far.
- Does the existing structure work to generate consensus recommendations on
domain name matters?
Not very well. However, the sample is small.
- Does the Names Council give appropriate level of consideration to the
views of all affected stakeholders?
In general, the NC gives every indication of having open ears and
listening to all affected stakeholders. This is a function of the
members of the NC -- in general the NC members are very
conscientious and take their role of representing the community as a
whole very seriously. That is, the facts are in stark contrast to
the anti-NC rhetoric we sometimes hear. Moreover, as indicated
above, the open WG process itself ensures a very wide range of
inputs.
- The NC recommendations have been criticized as often being 'weak', or
merely reflecting the outcome of the respective working groups. How can the
NC interpret the outcome of the working groups, and formulate a better
defined and stronger recommendations consistent with the consensus process?
I have not seen such criticisms, but in any case, I don't agree
with them. As a general rule, the NC should not interpret the
outcome of WGs, and if it has to, the WG has not done its job.
- Do the NC representatives adequately communicate with their respective
constituencies? Do the constituencies communicate with their NC
representatives?
Can only speak of the NCDNHC. Both of these communication
channels are weak.
- Does the NC adequately communicate with the ICANN staff and Board?
By all indications the NC and the ICANN staff work closely
together.
- Does the NC adequately communicate with other SO Councils?
Unknown, but there is no evidence of any communication at all. Not
clear that there has been any reason for it, though.
- After consulting ICANN staff to address details which require legal and
technical expertise, does the NC review whether or not such input is
sufficient?
Unknown
- How can the NC improve the role of the DNSO under ICANN, and improve its
ability to provide advice and input to the ICANN Board on domain name
policy issues?
By taking a more active role as a manager of a process. To date
the management style of the NC is "hands off", at best.
B. Constituencies:
- Are the constituencies a correct division? Are all DNSO interests
adequately represented in the existing constituency groups? Do the current
divisions aggregate individuals or entities with closely aligned interests
and permit the development of focused positions?
1) There is no useful definition of a "correct division".
2) Perhaps. The precise definitions of the constituencies are not
so important, as long as a) there is a sufficient number of them, b)
they are truly distinct, and c) at least some are open enough so
that a motivated person can find a way to join. Only this last
criteria is questionable.
3) Given a properly managed process that allows minority reports,
the constituency structure should not impede the development of
focused positions. It is inevitable that constituencies will have
factions; this must be allowed for; the general mechanism for doing
this is the "minority report".
[It is a fundamental principle of the DNSO that the expression
of minority opinions must respected throughout the process --
the "minority" may be a "majority" in some other environment.]
- Should the constituencies be reformulated by combining user
constituencies? By combining provider constituencies? In some other
way?
With the possible exception of the creation of a constituency for
individuals, there is no particular reason to restructure the
constituencies. Moreover, there is good reason to leave them alone
-- a restructuring would be massively destabilizing.
- Is it up to each constituency to define its relationship with NC
representatives or should the DNSO/ICANN have some minimal mandatory
requirements for all?
There should definitely be standards in this area.
- What happens if an elected NC rep does not attend NC meetings, ignores
constituency members? Is this up to the constituency to address, or should
it be brought to the attention of the NC?
Depends on the circumstance, of course, but, in keeping with the
minimal standards mentioned above, if a NC rep does not meet those
standards (say for attendance), then the NC should raise the issue
-- it is in the interest of the NC and the DNSO as a whole that
each constituency have adequate representation.
- Are the constituencies fulfilling their role as open and transparent
channels of dialogue and discussion toward the development of community
consensus? Do they allow effective development of collective positions of
those with similar interests? Does this process promote the development of
overall community consensus?
Some of the constituencies very effectively foster the participation
of their respective communities. However, others are not very
successful in this regard.
A more serious problem is that there is a natural tendency for
isolationism to develop, and nothing is being done about that. One
of the intended functions of the GA was to provide a common meeting
place for members of different constituencies; the utter failure of
the NC to control the GA mailing list destroyed the usefulness of
the GA for this purpose, and instead the GA has become an
"anti-constituency" forum. The constituencies have followed
natural course of balkanization, to the concomitant detriment of
any search for consensus.
The bylaws contain a provision that no constituency can prevent an
entity from joining merely because of membership in another
constituency. This provision was intended to thwart the anticipated
and obvious natural tendency towards balkanization; it is widely
flouted. The excuse for this is the concern that some groups will
get double representation; this concern is in fact a symptom of the
balkanization.
- Does the current constituency division minimize the effectiveness of the
DNSO and NC?
No.
- Are the constituencies adequately representing the intended members? Or
are there important parts of the Internet Community that may need better
representation?
1) This varies widely from constituency to constituency.
2) Highly doubtful. In fact, domain name issues are unimportant to
the vast bulk of the Internet User Population; these users just want
the system to work, and the details are totally uninteresting.
Different voices in the ICANN orbit sometimes argue that there are
vast unrepresented blocks of Internet users whose rights are being
abused, but there is no actual evidence that this is the case, and
lots of evidence to the contrary. Prof Mueller's study of UDRP
cases, for example, makes a very strong point that the number of
conflicts is actually very very small, relative to the total number
of domain registrations; and the "really bad decisions" in those
cases are a fraction of that tiny percentage.
- Should there be a constituency for individuals, and if so, how should its
membership be constituted?
Quite possibly, but this is a very complicated issue, and a detailed
answer simply could not be given in the short space reasonable for
this response. The issues intersect the ICANN @large, the GA, the
individuals that participate in WGs, and the fact that there is no
clear distinction between "individuals" and "small businesses and
organizations".
The efforts so far to form an individuals constituency have failed
to gather more than a very small number of individuals -- at most a
couple hundred, spread across the various efforts -- and a
significant number of them are actually small businesses. The
actual agenda for an "individual" constituency seems to be more
oriented towards "consumer protection issues for entities with little
money" than anything particularly tied to individuals alone.
One thing does appear clear from our experience so far: all bottom
up attempts have failed. The reason for this seems fairly clear:
the "individual's constituency" has actually become a catch-all for
every other group that feels disenfranchised, because the membership
criteria for an individual's constituency must of necessity be
almost non-existent -- anyone can get a domain name for $10/year, so
the requirement of having a registered domain name is a barrier of
no consequence the vast majority of Internet Users, and there is
nothing at all that requires these individuals to have a common
purpose. Thus, the "individual's constituency" is really a
"catch-all constituency", whether we like it or not.
- How do you ensure that individuals who choose to form an individual
constituency represent the vast interests of individuals?
A very difficult problem. Either the constituency would be so large
as to be completely unwieldy, or it would be susceptible to capture.
(A large company could require its employees to join, for example,
and create an instant majority, if the membership were small.) One
possible approach (though also fraught with difficulties) would be
to require that the voting members of the constituency be
organizations. Another possible approach is to carefully structure
the constituency -- in other words, develop it in a very top-down
manner. Another approach would be to create more structure for the
GA, and give the GA a place on the NC. The problem of capture
could be dealt with by continuing the technique of having the GA
nominate candidates, and the NC elect them.
In any case, there are more questions than there are answers, and
the matter should be studied. One approach would be to charter a WG
to study the issues. Such a WG would surely be very contentious,
and could only be contemplated if there were strong controls in
place to keep the WG focused
- No constituencies have been added since the original seven constituencies
were recognized (provisionally) in May 1999. What should be the ongoing
process for assessing whether the constituencies serving the goal of
providing appropriate forums for affected stakeholder groups?
This is a task that should be undertaken by the board on a periodic
basis -- say every two years, the board should convene a forum to
hear public comment on the issue
C. General Assembly (GA):
- What should the future role of the GA be?
This is intimately tied to the future role of any "individuals"
constituency. We have seen that people have only so much attention
to devote to these matters; an individuals constituency would
likely reduce activity on the GA even closer to zero than it is
now. This is a general principle -- if there are too many fora
some of them will fall to disuse.
- Is the function of the GA properly defined?
The GA was intended to be a very general discussion forum where
members of the constituencies and the public could exchange views,
with a chair to keep order. It has not worked that way, for two
reasons: 1) the overwhelming presence of list vandals on the GA
list; 2) the chair was not given by the NC proper authority and
tools to control the list. Once again, this was part of the
responsibility of the NC as "manager of the consensus gathering
process", and the NC did not do a good job providing that
oversight.
- How can the level of participation by constituency members in the GA be
improved?
- How can the level of participation by GA members in the GA be improved?
1) Keep WGs and other fora tightly focused, to minimize general
discussion.
2) The GA should be actively managed by the NC to create an
atmosphere of professionalism. Such active management will
inevitably bring charges of impinging on free expression, but that
is simply not an appropriate criticism: the GA should be thought
of as a forum maintained by a corporation in the pursuit of it's
goals, and not a pseudo-government.
3) Use the GA physical meetings as a place where cross-constituency
events are held.
- If changes are made in the constituency structures, and possibly an
individual constituency added, should the GA continue to exist?
While in theory the two ideas are distinct, in practice there is a
great deal of overlap, and it would make a great deal of sense to
simply merge the two through a phased process. Currently the GA
chair participates in the NC discussions; it would be reasonable to
expand the GA chair to a voting role, while still having the GA
chair chosen with the current method (GA nominates, NC votes), and
over a span of 2 more years expand the GA representation to 3.
Clearly, any kind of individuals forum with open membership is very
susceptible to capture; having the GA nominate and the NC elect for
these offices gives some protection against this.
D. Working Groups:
- Are the working groups an appropriate mechanisms to foster consensus in
the DNSO?
Yes.
- If the NC can't find consensus in a working group report, what should be
the next step?
There are a wide variety of possibilities, and they really depend on
the WG. It is very important, however, that it not in any way be
considered a necessity that a WG succeed. Some WGs may fail to
reach a reasonable consensus, and they can simply be dropped, unless
the policy matter under consideration is pressing. The failure of a
WG to come to a reasonable consensus should be considered just part
of the process.
Of course, there may be cases when a policy statement from the DNSO
must be produced in a short time. It may be necessary to commission
special task forces or other mechanisms to achieve that goal.
- Are there mechanisms other than working groups that the NC should employ
in managing the consensus-development process? For example, assigned task
forces?
Certainly. Task forces, commissioned studies, WGs, direct polls of
the GA or the constituencies -- all these and more are legitimate
tools in the development of policy.
E. Secretariat:
?What is the relationship between the ICANN Secretariat, the DNSO
secretariat, and the Constituency secretariats?
Complex, but some cooperation, at least, is probably desirable.
Pointless duplication of effort is not useful to anyone.
VI. Other Review Questions:
- Have the DNSO recommendations furthered the ICANN work consistent with the
provision in Article VI, Section 2(e), of the ICANN Bylaws, that the ICANN
Board shall accept recommendations of the DNSO if the Board finds that the
recommended policy (1) furthers the purposes of, and is in the best interest
of, the Corporation; (2) is consistent with the Articles and Bylaws; (3) was
arrived at through fair and open processes (including participation by
representatives of other Supporting Organizations if requested); and (4)
isn't reasonably opposed by any other Supporting Organization.
Yes. But improvement is definitely needed.
===================================================
Summary Recommendations
1. The NC needs to take a much more active role in managing consensus.
Some rules do need to be promulgated top down -- that is a necessary
function of management.
2. WGs should be numerous, fine grained, and focused. The focus should be on
production of particular documents, decided in advance; the topics
should be constrained; mailing list rules should strongly limit
off-topic postings. It should, however, be easy for anyone to propose
a WG on any topic, as long as the goals are clearly defined. A
corollary of this principle is that it must possible for a WG to simply
fail.
Clear procedures for WGs should be developed, and refined over time. To
facilitate this refinement the NC should generally charter *small* WGs,
pro-actively -- WGs with constrained mandates, limited lifespans, and
strong leaders.
Note that in an environment with many small WGs it is quite likely that
some of them will not have involvement of a wide range of stakeholders,
and even if the WG internally reaches strong consensus, that consensus
may not be reflected in the world outside. This is not a problem. It
always rests on the NC to make a determination for *any* WG whether the
results of that WG represent a wider consensus. It may be necessary for
the NC to require a WG to seek wider consensus or a better balance, or
to merge the efforts of multiple WGs through a task force or other
tightly constrained WG. However, it is important to note that small
unrepresentative WGs can be very productive in isolation, and can
produce better, more persuasive documents if they are not hampered by
contentious argument within the WG.
3) The problem of balkanization within the DNSO is very serious, and
should be aggressively countered. The NC should strongly encourage
active cross-pollination between constituencies through a formal
"observer" system; there should be required common and standard
structures such as open email lists; some of the secretariat functions
should be shared; the GA physical meetings should be used as commons for
the constituencies.
4) The matter of individual representation is also very important. Probably
the easiest way to accomplish this is through a gradual transformation of
the GA: as a first step, the GA chair would be given a vote on the NC
-- this would require a small change to the bylaws. The NC would then take
a more active role in management of the GA list, and create a more
formal structure within the GA through creation of more offices, and
further bylaws modifications to give more seats on the NC.
Top down management of the GA would be required for some time, perhaps
indefinitely. In any open membership organization there is always the
possibility of capture, and the GA also has the special character of
being the meeting ground form individual members of the other
constituencies.
[Appendix 4] Karl Auerbach's Comment on Constituency
Elimination of formal/official constituencies and replacement of
that with a one-person-one-vote mechanism.
[Appendix 5] Joanna Lane's proposal of IDNH Membership
Proposal for Criteria for Membership of DNSO/IDNH
( Basic Model a - a direct GA of individual domain name holders )
1.1.IDNH constituency membership is open to any person who is
an individual domain name holder
1.1 An Individual Domain Name Holder is any person who can demonstrate
a level of control over a specified domain name that a reasonable person
would conclude grants the individual person the exclusive legal right to
exploit the specified domain name worldwide subject to applicable laws.
1.2 Examples of items that may be submitted in support of an application
include but are not limited to
(i) evidence of applicants name on domain contact information
(ii) evidence of applicant's funds used to pay registration fees, if any
(iii) evidence that the applicant may cause the domain name to be
relinquished
(iv) evidence that the applicant is the beneficial holder of any domain name
that is registered or operated by a third party
(v) Where the applicant does not hold direct control over the domain name,
written evidence must be provided that the controlling party is acting on
instructions of the beneficial holder and that such instructions may be
withdrawn at the applicants sole discretion.
ADDITIONAL RULES
1.3 An individual shall not be entitled to more than one membership of IDNH
1.4 Where there is more than one holder of a single domain, that domain
would not meet criteria for membership.
1.5 No single domain name may be used to support membership of more than
one individual.
1.6 The domain name used to meet criteria for membership shall not be a top
level domain name or a reserved second level Domain name in registries where
this level is not open for individual registration.
1.7. Membership is subject to approval by the Committee
(i) The Committee shall be elected by the membership of the IDNH
(ii) Such committee shall examine the totality of the facts.
(iii) Decisions of the committee are final.
(iv) The membership committee shall have three members.
1.9 A person who is a member of another DNSO constituency shall not be
eligible for full membership of IDNH, but may be invited to contribute to
from time to time as guest, advisor or consultant.
[Appendix 6] Milton Mueller's Concerns on DNSO Review
1. Communicates to the NC the confusion and disorganization that surrounds
the concept of "consensus" in the DNSO, and how the inaccurate use of this
term may actually be counterproductive by fostering manipulation and
providing no clear criteria for reaching decisions
2. Communicate to the NC the terrible imbalance built in to the constituency
structure, with business lobbying groups given 4 of the 7 constituencies,
and non-commercial, educational, civil rights and other interests stuffed
together into a single constituency.
3. Recommends allowing virtually any group of like-minded people to form a
working group that produces policy recommendations, but finding a way to
have the GA or some other appropriate forum filter the WG recommendations
before they are passed up to the NC.
[Appendix 7] Bret Fausset's proposal to Create New Constituecny Procedure
Under the current Bylaw structure, a recommendation from this WG that new
constituencies be created would not be sufficient to actually create them --
the recommendation would have to be accompanied by a petition from one or
more self-organized groups, complete with founding members and charters for
participation.
If there's a better way to create new constituencies, I would certainly
expect the Board to look favorably on consensus recommendations from the
DNSO about changes to Article VI-B of the ICANN Bylaws (the section devoted
to the DNSO). But the language in the ICANN Bylaws is the current method.
By the way, I think it would be worth everyone's time to take a quick read
of Article VI-B (linked above) to understand what's "hard-wired" into the
Bylaws and what's susceptible of change by the NC alone. These distinctions
will likely affect the specifics of this WG's report and recommendation. (In
other words, some recommendations will require implementation by the Board
and some will require implementation by the Names Council.)
As for what the procedure is, the Bylaws only state:
Any group of individuals or entities may petition the Board
for recognition as a new or separate Constituency. Any such
petition will be posted for public comment pursuant to Article
III, Section 3. The Board may create new Constituencies in
response to such a petition, or on its own motion, if it
determines that such action would serve the purposes of the
Corporation.
There is no single model for what a constituency petition might look like.
For examples, constituency proponents would want to view the original
constituency proposals (both the successful and the unsuccessful ones) that
were considered by the Board in Berlin and Santiago,
http://www.icann.org/dnso/constituency_groups.html
http://www.icann.org/dnso/noncommpage.htm
together with the Board's resolution approving the constituencies
http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-27may99.htm
http://www.icann.org/minutes/minutes-26aug99.htm
As to where a new constituency petition should be directed, I'm not aware of
any statement of preference from the Board and staff as to how to bring such
matters to ICANN's attention. If it were me, I'd send the petition to the
CEO and the Chief Policy Officer, with a copy to members of the Board's
Executive Committee (http://www.icann.org/committees/executive/).
Once submitted, the constituency petition should be posted for public
comment, at which time the NC and other DNSO constituencies will have the
opportunity to review and comment. That, at least under my reading, is how
the process would work under the existing Bylaws.
[Appendix 8] Outreach Report on NCC by Adam Peake
The Names Council Review Task Force questionnaire
<http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-review/Arc02/msg00553.html> asked about
constituency size and countries represented.
Non commercial constituency has 158 member organizations; 63 are large
organizations and 95 small organizations (large membership organizations
are those with more than 1000 members, or more than 200 employees.) In
addition 2 applications a currently (Jan 9. 2001) being processed, 1 large,
1 small.
Non Commercial constituency has members (see
<http://www.glocom.ac.jp/users/ajp/ncmem.html>) from the following
countries:
(note, the constituency doesn't normally list members by country, this list
has not been double checked.)
Albania, Australia, Austria.
Bangladesh, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso.
Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Czech Republic.
Denmark, Dominican Republic.
Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia.
France.
Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala.
Honduras, Hong Kong.
Ireland, Italy.
Japan, Jordan.
Luxembourg.
Macedonia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova.
Nepal, New Caledonia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Niue.
Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal.
Romania.
Singapore, Slovakia, S Korea, Switzerland.
Taiwan, Thailand.
Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, USA.
Venezuela.
Yugoslavia.
[Appendix 9] registrar.com Position on DNSO Quality
We at register.com commend the DNSO for striving to improve the quality of
the organization. A key issue for the DNSO's focus should be transparency
and accountability in the organization's processes. More transparency, which
includes thorough and effective dissemination of information, would advance
the goals of the DNSO by encouraging broader participation in DNSO
initiatives, creating a greater sense of legitimacy among the DNSO
membership for its actions, and offering well founded policies. Three areas
that would benefit most are projects, budget, and leadership activities.
1. Projects:
Projects undertaken by DNSO working groups and task forces have been most
effective when the goals and processes of the projects are clearly defined.
For instance, a project plan or charter, such as the one posted for Working
Group D (http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/19990723.NCwgd.html), establishes a
foundation on which individuals and organizations may plan their involvement
in projects. By informing interested parties of the objectives of the
project and the projected time schedule for key steps in the process, these
parties are able to easily follow the progress of the project, participate
as they feel necessary, and understand how their participation will affect
the process.
Project plans should be published on the website at the outset of a project
and progress summaries should be promptly updated on the website. This is
in addition to their mention on working group discussion lists. If
interested parties have to dig through email lists to get to key pieces of
information, many lose interest and/or trust in the project. Given that,
register.com would offer the following specific suggestions for future
projects:
A. All key documents regarding goals, decisions, and plans for the project
should be published on the website in an easily accessible manner.
B. A clear goals and proposed methods document should be published at the
outset of each project.
C. A detailed timeline of project steps should be published with the goal
document.
D. Realistic timeframes that allow sufficient time for comment and response
at each stage of the process (e.g. a) confirm project goals b) confirm
project method c) first round of proposals.).
2. Budget
Transparency in the budget process would lend additional credibility to the
DNSO, as well as make future voluntary contributions to the budget more
likely. Constituencies would be more enthusiastic about their involvement if
they had a clearer idea how dues were being allocated. Currently, budget
information is posted within the minutes of NC meetings and teleconferences,
as seen in the Scribe's Notes from the NC meeting on November 14, 2000 in
Los Angeles (http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20001114.NCmdr-minutes.html).
While the information presented in such reports is important, it does not
contain sufficient detail nor does it allow an outside reader to know what
is the final or formal budget of the DNSO. A separate, detailed report
would allow constituency members and other interested parties to gain a
better understanding of the DNSO's work. To achieve these objectives,
register.com would like to recommend that:
A. A standing format be developed for reporting DNSO budget information,
including sources of income, itemized expenses, and other relevant
information.
B. This information be presented in an accessible format on the DNSO
website.
3. Leadership Activities
The NC representatives are the public face of the DNSO and have worked hard
to achieve highest level of credibility for the organization. The DNSO
leadership would build upon this spirit of openness by disclosing their
current employment and consulting arrangements and experience as part of
their background materials. The website can be revised to provide such
biographical and professional information
[Appendix 10] Review WG's Chronology from Dec 23 to date.
Dec. 23 - 26 :
WG members had its brief and informal introduction.
Dec. 27 - Jan 4 :
Ten topics with questions from NC Review TF were circulated.
Five topics have been added by WG members.[Appendix 13]
Members discussed mainly "Constituency" in association with
DNSO structure in line with "Consensus".
Jan 2 :
Straw Poll Result has shown that Review WG needs more time
to come up with substantial report to NC.
Jan 5 - Jan 9 :
Call for Position Paper on each topic, 15 topics until Jan 9.
Members keep trying to manage issues under pressured timeframe.
Review WG Co-Chair Election starts under Joop Teernstra's
administration. YJ Park's email trouble started from Jan. 6th
on and off which made Review WG insecure until January 11.
Jan 10 - Jan 11:
Another Call for Proposal which ended up with registrar.com's
position paper. Comments from members on the them.
Jan 13 - Jan 14:
Status Report(Executive Summary: version 0.1. and 0.2)-was circulated
to the group by YJ Park and got some comments.
Jan 15.
Review WG Co-Chair, Greg Burton, elected by Review WG members.
Status Report(version 0.3) is circulated in the list and after comments
it is to be delivered to NC Review TF.
[Appendix 11] Review WG's Members
(Liaison) Chair: YJ Park, Desegnated by NC
Co-Chair: Greg Burton, Elected by WG members
Review WG has currently(as of Dec 15th) 151 members. On the other hand,
there have been 130 or so unsubscribers.
====================================
Africa (1 member from 1 country)
Country: Benin
====================================
Asia (9 members from 5 countries)
Countries: India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand
------------------------------------------------------
Australia and NewZealand (6 from 2 countries)
------------------------------------------------------
Middle East (1 member from 1 country)
Country: Iran
=====================================
Europe(14 members from 11 countries)
Countries: Germany, France, Italy, Norway, Spain, UK,
Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland. Turkey
=====================================
Latin America(3 members from 3 countries)
Countries: Mexico, Peru, Argentina
=====================================
North America(117 members from 2 countries)
Countries: Canada, US
=====================================
Note the fact that it is almost few response from Africa, Latin America,
Asia and Middle East.
FYI, there are 8 NC members: Peter de Blanc, Elisabeth Porteneuv(ccTLD),
Ken Stubbs, Erica Roberts(Registrar), Philip Sheppard, Theresa Swinehart
(Business), Axel aus der Muhlen(IP), YJ Park(Non-Commercial) - therefore,
five constituencies' representatives are on the Review WG list except ISP
and gTLD constituency - and 2 Board members: Karl Auerbach, Alejandro
Pisanty who have on and off responded to WG members to achive its
true-sense DNSO review.
[Appendix 12] Review WG's Co-Chair Election Details
Jan 1 - Jan 5 : Candidate Nomination
Jan 6 - Jan 10 : Campaign
Jan 11 - Jan 14 : Election
Jan 15 : Formal Announcement of Review WG Co-chair
Total number of voters who participated in the election : 41
David Farrar 12 votes 29.27 %
Greg Burton 20 votes 48.78 %
Jefsey Morfin 9 votes 21.95 %
Sotiris Sotiropoulos 15 votes 36.59 %
[Appendix 13] List of Issues Arise Review WG Discussion
I. Review WG's Charter Finalization
Before NC Press Release was issued, the concerns that Review WG needs more
substantial working days and there is no need to highlight the chasing
deadline, Jan 15th had been delivered, which was not reflected in the press
release. Therefore, Review WG has had some difficulties with pinning down
its own charter yet. Instead, Review WG started with the core issues such as
"Constituencies".
Compared to normal lifetime of Working Groups, NC's decision to let Review
WG have less than one month working days is awaiting NC's reconsideration
for its extension. NC should remind itself of how hard to garner responses
from constituencies and GA when NC appealed each group to submit its
position.
Right now Review WG has referred to Terms of Reference version 0.3 which was
also presented to NC before Dec NC teleconference. However, given the
assumption that NC is going to extend Review WG's working days, Review WG is
needed to finalize its own Charter as soon as possible.
II. Ten Topics by NCRTF and Five Issues by Review WG
As requested by NC, Review WG first started with NC Review TF's
questionaire, which was distributed to the list with 10 sub-titles on Dec 28
to facilitate discussion. However, out of ten the most hottest issue is
3. [Constituencies] namely DNSO structure itself. The ten topics are
1. [Charter] Note: Its outcome is expected to come out on Feb. 20
2. [Outreach]
3. [Constituencies]
4. [GA]
5. [Working Group]
6. [Secretariat]
7. [names Council]
8. [WGs and NC]
9. [DNSO Quality]
10.[The Board and DNSO].
In addition to 10, another four topics have been updated by WG members
11. [IDNH]
12. [STLD]
13. [DNSO/GA Chair Election]
14. [By Consensus]
15. [DNDEF] Domain Name Definition
III. Rod Dixon's Issue List Suggested.
Structural and/or Procedural Problem areas within the DNSO that impede its
mission of becoming a bottom-up policy coordination body:
1. Unrepresented constituents.
2. Unrepresentative constituencies.
3. Process does not encourage compromise among parties with competing
positions.
4. The process is not producing adequate documents for the board.
5. No agreed definition for "domain name"
6. No agreed definition for "end user" and "real end user"
7. Poor clarification of issues that ICANN has charter to address that
directly affect "end users".
8. Process does not encourage compromise among parties with competing
positions.
9. Arguable the weighting of constituencies (currently all are equal) on
Names Council is inappropriate? How can one decide what is appropriate
and who decides?
10. GA feel marginalized and powerless.
[Appendix 14] Statistics on Email list
Mailing List and Its Related information.
Membership approval has been made by wg-owner, myself, mannualy through
majordomo system without filtering since Dec 23. There have been some
delays, however usually it takes one day or two days to be approved to
subscribe to this list. Therefore, around 252 approval processes have been
needed.
[Note: Due to my email acess trouble caused by routing connection from
Jan 6 through 11 on and off, it turns out that many people have had
enourmous
difficulties and inconvenience to subscribe to the list which I feel sorry
and
responsible for.]
http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-review/Arc02/maillist.html
Mails in Archive: 1249 (As of 2001 Jan 13 15:34:34 Central European Time)
Therefore, the average number per day is 57 messages(22/1249) which proves
how keen Review WG members have been about DNSO review.
Review WG is composed of people from many from North America, Europe and a
few from Asia, Latin America and Africa. As we experineced in previous WG A,
B, C discussion, most active participants are from US, Europe, New Zealand
and Australia who have no problems with reading 57 "English" email messages
a day and possibly respond to some of them in "English".
Therefore, outreach is still left with big challenge in the DNSO/ICANN.
[Appendix 15] Dany Younger's Contribution on Procedure to Establish
Consensus
I share the view of some that ICANN made a critical mistake in allowing for
the representation of interest groups by way of the establishment of the
Domain Name Supporting Organization constituencies, and within this context
feel an obligation to articulate my dissenting point of view relative to
that which
now appears to be the Review Working Group’s polled consensus position
regarding the establishment of an Independent Domain Name Holders
Constituency; it is my position that these formal constituencies should be
decommissioned and folded into the General Assembly membership, thereby
allowing for the consequent bottoms-up formation of alliances that would,
of necessity, fluidly coalesce and shift with the emergence of new issues
that
call for consensus-based policy directives.
The arguments presented thus far in favor of the creation of a new
constituency have not, in my humble opinion, been sufficiently compelling to
warrant support (as they have failed to demonstrate a clear and overriding
need
for such an organization). ICANN, by way of its Public Forums, Working
Groups,
General Assembly, and ample mechanisms for public comment, provides venues
for dialogue that are nominally adequate to convey the positions of all
interested
parties; a new constituency is not needed merely to express a new set of
opinions.
In recent months the public has used these vehicles to express their outrage
on
issues such as:
§ domain name hoarding and domain name sales on the part of
Registrars
§ the lack of a Registrars uniform expired domain name policy
§ unauthorized automatic renewals of domain names by Registrars
§ the release of Bulk WHOIS data by Registrars to third-party
marketing groups
§ inadequacies of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Procedure
§ the failure of Registrars to prevent fraudulent domain name
registrations
§ pre-registration schemes by Registrars
§ lethargy on the part of Registrars with regard to disconnecting
spammers
As the above issues generally reflect a public perception that ICANN needs
to amend its contractual policies with Registrars and Registries rather than
allowing for decentralized and unregulated decision-making, this Review
Working Group was obligated to focus its efforts on defining the procedures
needed to establish that which constitutes actionable consensus… it was,
in fact, our mandate. Knowing that ICANN maintains contracts that require
registries and registrars to agree to both present and future consensus
policies and to implement those policies via Terms of Service Contracts with
registrants, it is undeniably of the utmost importance to draft a document
that
outlines a “Procedure to Establish Consensus”.
I refer the members of this group to the following document
http://www.domainnotes.com/news/article/0,,5281_473381_6,00.html
as well as to the position paper submitted by register.com, which documents
some of the flaws in our current approach.
The creation of such a document will serve the goals of transparency,
accountability and outreach. I ask all members to voice their opinions on
this topic.
[Appendix 16] Joop Teernstra's Comment on At-Large and Individual
Domain Name Owners constituency
The @large is
1. an unorganized jumble of all Internet users' diverse interests.
2. without Charter or Mission statement
3. without means of the members to contact each other
4. subject to a Study that may reduce its representation on the Board or do
away with it altogether
5. represented by Directors that may be representing interests directly
opposed to typical DN holders' interests.
6. top-down and controlled by ICANN staff.
7. Unable to provide policy formulations to the ICANN Board
An Individual Domain Name Owners constituency is:
1. formed naturally by people with a common interest-- bottom up and in
control of its own Charter and destiny
2. part of the DNSO where Domain Name Policy initiatives are developed
3. a place where any Domain Name Owner gets a chance to be part of the
policymaking process, (and get the results to the attention of the Board)
via its own elected officers
4. a counterweight in the DNSO, giving it an opportunity to be considerably
more legitimate than it is now.
[Appendix 17] DNSO Working Group Review - History in the Making
(Written By DNSO Secretariat)
DNSO Working Group Review - History in the Making
A. July 2000.
During the ICANN Meetings held in Yokohama, the Names Council was
requested by the ICANN Board to conduct the DNSO Review process. The
ICANN Board Director acting as liaison with the Names Council for the
DNSO Review is Pindar Wong, the report is expected for 13 October 2000,
four weeks prior to the ICANN Meetings in Marina del Rey. See the Names
Council Workplan published on 17 July 2000 in
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/2000Q2.NC-workplan.html
On 30-31 July the NC Review Task Force is being set up, Roberto
Gaetano, the DNSO General Assembly Chair is coopted, the
nc-review@dnso.org mailling list membership and archives are set up.
More information in
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc04/msg00096.html and
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc04/msg00099.html
B. August 2000.
The Names Council Review Task Force list and archives are in
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/maillist.html
On 7 August 2000, Theresa Swinehart the NC Review Task Force leader
start the work, receives comments from the NC TF members.
On 9 August 2000, the NC is being informed by ICANN Staff that Pindar
Wong, the ICANN Executive Committee member who is acting as the liaison
between the EC and the NC on the DNSO review project, will be leaving
the Board on 30 September. Alejandro Pisanty, also an EC member, will
begin serving as backup liaison, with the expectation that he will
assume the role of main liaison after Pindar's term is concluded. See
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc04/msg00118.html
On 11 August 2000, Theresa Swinehart drafts the initial structured
document, http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00013.html
which will evolve over time and include all gathered inputs, until the
version 2.0 published on 29 September 2000.
On 28 August 2000, YJ Park publishes [DRAFT Report] DNSO REVIEW version
1.0 and calls for NC TF comments
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00019.html. Roberto
Gaetano send out YJ Park document to the DNSO GA for comments
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc05/msg00395.html.
C. September 2000.
On 6 September 2000, YJ Park publishes Version 1.1 Draft DNSO Review
Report http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00020.html.
On 11 September 2000, Roberto Gaetano warns the NC TF that its mailling
list has been silent for 2 weeks, whereas a lot of activity has been
observed on the GA and NonCom lists in answer to YJ Park draft.
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00021.html.
Alejandro Pisanty requests that "at least one NC member from each
constituency could briefly tell us what discussion on the Review has
occuerred in the constituency and to what conclusions it points; or to
state actively that nothing of the kind has happened!"
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00023.html.
On 18 September 2000, Theresa Swinehart publishes the Draft 1.2 for the
NC-Review, a consolidated document in which she included comments and
discussion received on the GA list as well as summaries from Roberto
Gaetano, GA Chair.
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00042.html.
On 29 September 2000, Theresa Swinehart publishes the NC Review 2.0
incorporating all NC TF additional comments, and requests the NC
members to forward this document to all constituencies for comments
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00053.html.
D. October 2000.
17 October 2000, Roberto Gaetano requests for the Working Group on
Review http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00058.html.
E. November 2000.
14 November 2000, Marina del Rey meeting and the confusion about DNSO
Review http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20001114.NCmdr-minutes.html
F. December 2000.
4 December 2000, Theresa Swinehart, resends the NC Review 2.0 document
and asks for Circulation for Comment
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00071.html.
6 December 2000, Roberto Gaetano try to help the Names Council to move
forward and set up the Working Group for Review
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00075.html.
19 December 2000, The NC teleconference takes the decision to set up
the Working Group Review
http://www.dnso.org/dnso/notes/20001219.NCtelecon-minutes.html.
Decision D4:
- establish a Review Working Group, chaired by Y.J. Park
- make the "terms of reference" "responding to the RTF
questionnaire"
- make the lifetime of the WG January 15th
- ask the group to report by January 15th to the NC Review Task
Force.
- issue a press release immediately to encourage participation in
this WG.
The following members voted in favour: Chicoine, aus der Mühlen,
Roberts, Hotta, Harris, Cochetti, Sheppard, Swinehart (by proxy),
de Blanc (by proxy), Porteneuve, Kane, Stubbs (by proxy),
YJ Park (with the reserve that the given timeframe is too short
to accomplish this task properly).
Vandromme abstained.
Ph. Sheppard offered to draft the press release, to liase with
YJ Park and to ask Ken Stubbs as NC Chair (assuming availability)
to approve it on behalf of the NC.
The WG Review list and archives are open immediately
http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-review/Arc02/maillist.html
21 December 2000, Philip Sheppard, The Names Council publishes a Press
Release about Working Group Review
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga/Arc06/msg00060.html
29 December 2000, Theresa Swinehart comments on the Press Release and
adjusts the schedule
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00077.html.
G. January 2001.
06 January 2001, Theresa Swinehart sends a Reminder about schedule on
DNSO review
http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-review/Arc00/msg00078.html.
14 January 2001, YJ Park posts an Executive summary of WG-Review work
o Part I (v0.2)
http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-review/Arc02/msg01332.html
o Part II, Appendix (v0.2)
http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-review/Arc02/msg01333.html
14 January 2001, Greg Burton has been elected as Working Co-chair for
WG-Review
[Appendix 18] Procedure for Posting to the List(By Eric,
1. Deal with the current content, not the person who said it, or their past
history. Dealing in personalities destroys the foundation of consensus.
2. Ignore anyone who doesn't comply with 1. (very difficult to do, I know,
but utterly necessary)
3. Attempt to avoid assuming that person X is motivated by agenda Y. Ignore
any response that attempts to tell you what someone else is REALLY doing,
or what the REAL agenda is. Any such response is not interested in
consensus, but in persuading you to some political position or other. In
consensus, we shouldn't be concerned with who's agenda is what - we should
be concerned with community dialogue and generating agreement on relevant
content where possible. This is not to say that there aren't agendas
operating - just that if we focus on the presented content, what emerges
will be either accepted as consensus statements or not, and the agenda is
irrelevant.
4. When replying to a message that contains both personality content and
productive content, deal just with the productive content and delete the
personality content from your reply.
5. Use the thread headers originally proposed by YJ when making an original
post, with or without the grouping modification I proposed.
6. Ask ourselves before we post "Does this comment facilitate or impede the
consensus process?" and "Is this post relevant to the thread topic?"
[Appendix 19] Greg Burton's Comment on NC and Consensus.
I believe that the NC as constituted is an unnecessary structural impediment
to consensus. This does not depend on who is on the NC, or who gets a
piece of that pie - the very existence of the NC under the current structure
impedes consensus. I also believe that the NC is unfair - and especially
unfair to the individuals who become part of it.
Consensus is more than a word, it's a process and methodology. It currently
appears that there has been no training or education in consensus process
for members of the NC, for constituencies, or for WG chairs. In some
constituencies, this may not be required - in others it could be extremely
valuable. Expecting people to adequately facilitate a consensus process
without understanding how consensus works and what can be done as technique
is absurd.
It is very very difficult to both advocate a position and moderate a
consensus process. That becomes almost impossible if the person attempting
it is also perceived as having some form of coercive power outside of the
process. And that is EXACTLY the situation any NC member is placed in when
attempting to chair a WG. Combine that with lack of training in consensus
building, and the stress and demands of the rest of someone's life, and you
have a recipe for procedural disaster. Facilitation of consensus process is
as much a technical discipline as network administration, and prudent
organizations certainly don't appoint network admins just because they're
available and willing to take abuse.
All of the above leads me to the conclusion that the number 1 problem
within the DNSO is precisely this lack of education and training about
consensus processes. Accordingly, and at a minimum, I propose that
1.some form of task force be developed as a training ground in consensus;
2. that professional facilitation for the task force be contracted by either
the DNSO or ICANN; and 3. That all NC members and WG chairs
must participate in that group before heading a consensus-process WG
or task force.
[Appendix 20] Kent Crispin's Comments on Working Groups
It has been observed for some time that there have been serious problems
with WGs in the DNSO. WG-Review gives us a great opportunity to review
some of these familiar problems, and adds a new wrinkle:
First, by definition, the membership of an open WG is self-selected from
a very much larger pool of potential participants, and therefore
susceptible to capture. That means that the membership of the WG may be
composed primarily of those who have a vested interest, which in turn
implies that the membership of any WG must be considered as potentially
biased, which further implies that even if the WG reaches consensus (by
any measure), that consensus cannot, without further evaluation, be
considered as a global consensus.
Second, WGs may be incapable of even finding internal consensus, if the
topic is extremely polarized, or too broad. And of course, many topics
in the purview of the DNSO are both extremely polarized and broad.
Third, for many interested parties, an online WG is a foreign
environment. This is obvious in the case of people who don't spend a
lot of time online, but it is also true for some people who are very
familiar with email lists as informal discussion forums -- they have a
hard time dealing with the focus required in order to be productive
online.
Fourth, because it is difficult to keep up with high volume lists,
people will leave a list that is too demanding. This has a tendency to
bias memberships towards the most vocal factions.
Finally, WG-Review added a new wrinkle, where the NC rep in charge of
the WG actively advocated that the WG ignore the purpose approved by the
NC, and instead work on a much broader topic. This inconsistency
seriously damaged the integrity of the process, and contributed a great
deal of chaos.
However, I think that most knowledgeable observers had concluded that
there were serious problems with WGs long before WG-Review (and indeed
the NC did try to address some of these problems by giving the WG a very
narrow focus).
The bottom line is that WGs are an insufficient mechanism for finding
global consensus.
This does not mean, however, that WGs are useless -- quite the
contrary. They are a potentially very valuable tool when used within
their limitations, as a component of an overall process managed by the
NC.
Specifically:
0) The basic purpose of WGs should be thought of, as the name implies,
as places to do work. They should not be thought of as general
discussion groups, or open forums.
1) WGs should be fine grained and focused. The focus should be on
production of particular documents, decided in advance; the topics
should be constrained; the lifetime should be constrained; mailing list
rules should strongly limit off-topic postings. Clear procedures for
WGs should be developed and refined over time. To facilitate this
refinement the NC should generally charter *small* WGs, pro-actively --
WGs with constrained mandates, limited lifespans, and strong leaders.
It is important, though, that WGs have some procedural freedom -- the
criteria for success of the WG should be the documents produced, not how
slavishly the WG followed procedure. This procedural freedom is
necessary if the procedures are to evolve and develop over time. (*)
2) Topics should be structured towards consensus goals. For example,
instead of a WG topic "Should there be new gTLDs", the topic could be
"What are the various positions concerning new gTLDs". The first topic
forces the WG to come to an impossible consensus; the second, on the
other hand, just gathers information. Moreover, the focus in the second
is on production of a document, not a policy decision.
3) If a WG is deadlocked, the NC should simply split the WG into
separate WGs to deal with the subtopics. This allows each side of a
position to work in relative isolation to form their own best statement
of their position.
4) Following the above guidelines would obviously tend to significantly
increase the number of WGs. This is good in and of itself, as it
partitions the participants, and tends to keep WG size small.
5) It should be easy for anyone to propose a WG on any topic, as long as
the goals are clearly defined, and meet the general guidelines above.
Special interest groups should be *encouraged* to form WGs to produce
position papers supporting their point of view. In this way the open
nature of WGs can be exploited to get wide input to the DNSO.
6) It must be explicitly acknowledged that a WG can simply fail.
7) Note that this model treats the tendency towards bias that WGs
exhibit as a virtue -- a WG is a place where those with a particular
point of view can get together and produce the most persuasive position
possible. Small unrepresentative WGs can be very productive in
isolation, and can produce better, more persuasive documents if they are
not hampered by contentious argument within the WG.
8) It always rests on the NC to make a determination of whether the
results of a WG represent a wider consensus. It may be necessary for
the NC to require a WG to seek wider consensus or a better balance, or
to merge the efforts of multiple WGs through a task force or another
tightly constrained WG.
9) WG chairs should be trained in online consensus management. The
IETF regularly holds sessions for WG chairs; the DNSO should call on
that expertise.
10) The above model, it should be clear, requires a much more hands-on
approach from the NC, and must operate within a large consensus
discovery process. I will address that point in a separate document.
(*) Some have contended that strong internal procedures in WGs, with
"clear votes", will solve the problems with WGs. This is obviously
false -- a WG full of vested interests remains a WG full of vested
interests, whether they vote or declare consensus. Votes in WGs are
quite useful as an information gathering tool, but they also tend to
polarize opinion, and must be used with caution.
[Appendix 21] Kent Crispin's Comment on WG-Review
Comments for WG-Review
----------------------------
The following are my suggestions for how to make the DNSO more
effective. With very few exceptions, these suggestions do not require
any changes to to the ICANN bylaws, and can be implemented by Names
Council directly. Note that while I am a bit harsh on the Names Council
in this document, I most emphatically do not mean this as a personal
criticism of anyone -- I appreciate very well the difficulties the NC
members have faced in the past two years. Note also that this comment
comes in two parts -- there is a separate document concerning the
functions of Working Groups.
Role of the Names Council
The Bylaws define the role of the NC as "management of the consensus
process". I believe that this is a completely appropriate role,
however, I also believe that the NC is currently doing a terrible job of
fulfilling this role. The fundamental reason for this failure is that
while consensus indeed should come from the bottom up, management needs
to come from the top down. It seems to me that the NC has assumed that
the consensus process will manage itself, but experience clearly shows
that it won't, at least in the context of the DNSO. [This is not to say
that in other environments consensus processes couldn't manage
themselves, of course.]
So my first recommendation is that the NC must be *much* more "hands on"
in the management of the DNSO. This involves more work; some of that
work should be delegated to an expanded secretariat; I also think the NC
should consider the idea of creating an Executive Committee that would
meet more frequently. But individual NC members should take a more
active role, as well.
Much of the extra work for the NC would come from a different approach
towards Working Groups. The chaos of WG-Review is a painful reminder of
WGs past, but I continue to believe that open working groups are
essential for the DNSO, and indeed, as their name implies, need to be
the primary place where work is done. However, the past approach to WGs
has simply not worked very well, and a different approach, it seems to
me, is clearly needed.
In particular, as described in the companion document on Working Groups,
WGs must be seen as one of several tools in the over all processes of
the DNSO, along with committees, task forces, studies, and whatever
other methods the NC decides are necessary to fulfill the mission of the
DNSO.
Structural changes
There are two structural changes that I think should be considered.
First, to the extent that it is reasonable there should be greater
commonality in constituency structures and procedures. For example,
the DNSO web site should have a central page where one can go to find
out about joining a constituency. Constituencies should have a public
presence where queries can be made concerning membership standards and
so on. Internally, there should be common standards about what it
means for a statement to be a "position of a constituency" as opposed
to a statement made by some members of a constituency.
As part of this, I think that measures should be taken to reduce what I
called in another paper the "balkanization" of the constituencies. Any
progress towards achieving consensus is going to require that
constituencies understand each others point of view, and to that end
there should be structures in the DNSO that require cross-constituency
cooperation. I have suggested that there be a formal "observer" system,
where constituencies have "observers" from other constituencies; some of
the secretariat functions could be shared; the GA physical meetings
could be used as commons for the constituencies, and so on.
Second, it seems clear to me that there needs to be some formal
representation of what I will call a "consumer interest constituency"
(to avoid the baggage associated with various names that have come up,
and to avoid any prejudices about "owner" vs "holder" vs "user",
"individual" vs "organization", and so on). Over the years there have
been multiple calls for such a thing, in various guises (some of them
made by me), and the need has not gone away.
However, the inherent problems in such a structure have not gone away,
either, so I don't think that it can just be another constituency. The
problems and conflicts that have come up every time one tries to
organize bottom up suggest that the organization needs to come from the
top down, at least at the start. [It is interesting that one of the
claims that has been made by proponents of an individuals constituency
is that they have had to suffer an unfair burden in organizing bottom
up, because, they claim, the other constituencies were all really
defined top down anyway.]
I have proposed several mechanisms for creating such an organization --
in my comments submitted through the Non Commercial Constituency I
described a scheme by which the GA could be morphed into such a
structure, which has the advantage of gradual and controlled
development; quite some time ago I proposed another approach, which you
can see at http://at-large.org -- the basic idea is that the
constituency would at the start be managed by an *appointed excom*, with
elections following some time after the membership had reached a certain
size and representativeness.
However, there are too many open issues to make a realistic
recommendation on structure at this point. There are many issues that
would have to be considered, including the effects of the creation of
such an entity would have on:
1) the GA (there is clear overlap -- perhaps the GA should be
converted into a general "intake committee" function, expressly for
the purpose of getting proposals the DSNO that otherwise would not
have a home);
2) the BC (in particular w/ respect to very small, individual
businesses); and perhaps
3) the NCC (individuals and consumers are non-commercial in nature;
many of the members of the NCC are there because they believe they
represent consumer interests, not because they have any particular
problems with domain names themselves).
So, as far as a "consumer interest constituency" is concerned, I have
the following concrete recommendations:
1) the Board should mandate that one be created;
2) that the problems that have evidenced themselves require that it be
created as a special case, probably in a top-down and carefully
controlled fashion;
3) that it not be created until the issues of its interactions with
other structures in the DNSO (GA, BC, and NCC, at least) have been
explored at some length.
[Appendix 22] Greg Burton's Preliminary Report(I) on Consensus
This is a preliminary report, and has not been reviewed by the membership
before submission. While the poll material is public and reflects as much
objectivity as possible, the opinions and conclusions drawn are the views
of the author, and cannot be called "the results of the group" until the
group has discussed and ratified them and any changes that may be
incorporated.
Material comes from group discussions and two polls - one run through
pollcat.com, and one run in a voting booth designed for more secure
results.
Problem Scope:
Asked "is the DNSO in need of reform", 36 out of 37 respondents agreed. It
seems clear that among those responding, the overwhelming sense is that
serious work is needed on the entire DNSO structure. In wide-ranging
discussions certain themes emerged, and the question of "consensus" - what
it means, what it is, and how it works - was one of those themes.
Over the course of this working group, it has become clear to group members
that the entire issue of consensus is not only ambiguous, but is
emotionally charged as well. Through group discussion, it was observed that:
"The WG-Review has observed that reaching a consensus within the DNSO was
basically hampered by the lack of
definition and therefore of common understanding of what a DNSO consensus
is and how it is determined"
This statement has agreed to by 14 of 15 poll respondents. Consensus was
explicitly blocked on this question. As discussions further developed, it
became clear that the DNSO's process was not what is normally understood as
a "consensus process", but based, rather, in a process of the IETF. When
asked to agree or disagree with the statement "I understand what the IETF
"rough-consensus" model is and believe it is an appropriate model for the
DNSO" 12 out of 15 respondents disagreed.
It appears that one reason for use of the IETF model is a belief that true
consensus is impossible. Responding to the statement "I do not believe that
true consensus can be achieved within the DNSO process at this time" 13 of
the 15 respondents agreed. Interestingly, neither of the two who disagreed
wished to block consensus on the question. Accordingly, this could be
labeled a consensus result under formal consensus procedures. Irony is left
to the reader.
2/3 of respondents (10 of 15) believe that they have learned something
about consensus process through this Working Group. By a margin of 9 to 7,
they believe that "for most issues, a simple majority vote is sufficient"
None of the six who disagreed were will willing to block consensus on this,
though the rather slim margin would indicate that consensus has not been
achieved on this issue.
Action Directives:
Happily, the group achieved true consensus on one statement - " Clearly
defined and published methods for considering DNSO issues would improve the
process."
By a margin of 14 to 2, respondents believe "The use of "consensus" in the
bylaws is misleading. Either ICANN should develop a true consensus process
or it should change the bylaws to reflect the actual process desired." This
is a significant margin though it is not consensus. It strongly suggests
that on at least this issue some of the changes required to improve DNSO
functionality will require changes to the ICANN bylaws.
Seventy-five percent of respondents to a question about whether or not this
working group should call it's results "consensus" favored calling a vote a
vote. This supports the belief that most question can be handled through a
voting procedure mentioned above.
9-5, a majority of respondents believe "Some form of task force be
developed as a training ground in consensus for ICANN and the DNSO." By a
slightly greater margin (10-4) they believe that " NC members and WG chairs
should participate in consensus training before heading a consensus-process
group". And by an 8-5 margin, they agree that "A professional
consensus-development consultancy should be engaged to advise on the
consensus process."
Conclusion:
It appears that if the DNSO is going to support a consensus process,
several things will need to happen. The most pressing issue from a
consensus-development perspective is the significant belief that consensus
is not possible in the DNSO at this time. It is a truism of consensus
development that consensus cannot be imposed, and this material suggests
that for a consensus process to be effectively implemented, it is first
necessary acknowledge the need for GA and constituency member education,
as well as the suggestions above for the NC.
While working towards consensus is desirable, the current state of the DNSO
will require explicit votes on matters of substance until a far greater
level of trust in the process exists. A start at building that trust could
happen by adopting all of the above proposals.
[Appendix 23] Greg Burton's Preliminary Report(II)
3. Constituencies and 4. GA
This is a preliminary report, and has not been reviewed by the membership
before submission. While the poll material is public and reflects as much
objectivity as possible, the opinions and conclusions drawn are the views
of the author, and cannot be called "the results of the group" until the
group has discussed and ratified them and any changes that may be
incorporated.
Material comes from group discussions and several polls run through
pollcat.com, and through a voting booth designed for more secure results.
Unfortunately, this report has severely hampered by by network problems,
for which I apologize. A more complete version of this report will be
forwarded directly to the TF on the 16th.
Constituencies - Core Issue
The core problem for many members of this WG is the issue of constituencies
and representation. Substantial discussion has occurred on the topic of
appropriate models for both group cohesion and selection of Names Council
positions. Current results are unclear. On the "Domain Name Definition"
Poll, responses to the question at present appear to be
Abolished = 17
Retained = 3
Don't Know = 3
Other = 3
Whereas, when asked in the constituency poll "Is a constituency structure a
functional method for subgrouping in the DNSO?" the answers are
Yes = 14
No = 11
Don't Know = 7
Additionally, when asked "Does the current constituency structure impact
the effectiveness of the DNSO and NC?" 26 respondents felt it impacted the
effectiveness negatively, while only 2 believed it effected it positively.
To a question on "should the constituencies be reformulated" 5 disagreed,
while 22 believed they should be reformulated in some way.
This seems to indicate that the question needs a good bit more
consideration, but based on this result it would tentatively appear that no
consensus exists within this WG for the continuance of the current
constituency structure. Indeed, a substantial majority of the responding WG
members seem to favor some form of change. Currently questions are being
reframed for a formal vote in the more secure voting booth environment.
General Assembly - Core Issues
Of 13 respondents to the question "Is the function of the GA properly
defined" 12 said "no" and one didn't know. Clearly the definition of the GA
and it's tasks needs to be seriously addressed.
To the question "Should the GA be represented in the NC" 10 replied
affirmitively, and one disagreed. To the question " If changes are made in
the constituency structures, should the GA continue to exist?" there were
11 in agreement, and no opposition. Though this would appear to be a
consensus, the question was not cast in consensus form and is being
reported as an 11-0 majority.
Because of the closely-tied nature of these issues, the amended report will
continue to treat constituencies and the general assembly together.
===============================================
[End of Message]
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