Re: [council] Working Group D Report

["Erica Roberts" <erica.roberts@bigpond.com>]

Hi Bret,
I'm having trouble acce4ssing the url but would like to read your report.
I'd be grateful if you could you send me a copy as an attachment.

Regards.
erica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bret Fausett" <baf@fausett.com>
To: "Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@aim.be>; <council@dnso.org>
Cc: <wg-d@dnso.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 7:14 AM
Subject: [council] Working Group D Report


> Dear Members of the Names Council:
>
> On tomorrow's call, you will be considering the report of Working Group D,
> which I was privileged to Chair, on the procedures and operations of DNSO
> Working Groups. A copy is linked from here:
>
>    http://www.dnso.org/wgroups/wg-d/Arc02/msg00001.html
>
> As background for that report, I wanted to provide you with a brief
> introduction about why, in my personal opinion, working groups are
> important, and in some instances, even may be necessary.
>
> First, let me state the obvious: Working Groups are not the most efficient
> way to reach decisions. They can be noisy, cumbersome and slow. The rules
> you will see set out in the document linked above, however, are designed
to
> minimize the problems associated with Working Groups, making them
productive
> places to develop policy initiatives.
>
> Whatever problems may still exist after the adoption of these rules,
> however, Working Groups are *extremely effective* at identifying the
> universe of issues that need to be considered on a given problem and
> developing tentative recommendations about how to address those issues. As
> such, Working Groups are an excellent first step in the policy development
> process.
>
> Second, in some instances, a Working Group process may be preferable to a
> task force or some other small group. One of the primary goals of the
ICANN
> consensus policy-making process is to bind a recalcitrant participant to a
> consensus policy on which it does not agree. For example, the
> ICANN-accredited registries and registrars are only bound to consensus
> policies that are supported by:
>
>    a written report and supporting materials (which
>    must include all substantive submissions to the
>    Supporting Organization relating to the proposal)
>    that (i) documents the extent of agreement and
>    disagreement among impacted groups, (ii) documents
>    the outreach process used to seek to achieve
>    adequate representation of the views of groups
>    that are likely to be impacted, and (iii)
>    documents the nature and intensity of reasoned
>    support and opposition to the proposed policy.
>
> While open Working Groups are not the only means for the "outreach
process"
> described in the contracts, they are the most open, broad-based mechanism
> available for bottom-up decision-making. The risk of implementing a policy
> process that involves fewer participants or that lacks a meaningful
> opportunity for participation is that it will not stand up to a legal
> challenge by a party who wishes to contest the legitimacy of an ICANN
> consensus policy. The Working Group process potentially provides one of
the
> best mechanisms for meeting the consensus requirements in many of the
ICANN
> contracts, and the reports specified in the Working Group D report are
> designed to meet the rigors of the definition above.
>
> The Working Group D recommendation should be revised from time to time as
we
> gain more experience about how these groups perform, but I hope that the
NC
> will not abandon the open Working Group format. Indeed, using the rules
set
> forth in the Working Group D proposal, it is my personal hope that the NC
> will soon create working groups for the UDRP review, multilingual issues,
> and a review of the new TLD process and testbed results, among other
topics.
>
> Thank you for your consideration, and if you have any questions about the
> report, please feel free to post to the Working Group D mailing list at
> wg-d@dnso.org.
>
>      -- Bret Fausett
>
>
>