[discuss] Notes - Names Council Meeting, San Jose - 062599

[Ellen Rony <erony@marin.k12.ca.us>]

ROUGH NOTES FROM THE NAMES COUNCIL MEETING 062599 -
For accurate record, see:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/dnso

The good, the bad, the ugly.
The good:
An open meeting, democracy in action with all its warts.  The meeting
showed that it is possible to handle administrative matters without
audience interruptions.  E-mail comments on large screen in full public
view. Several comments were publicly addressed.

Summary: focus on bootstrapping. policies and procedures for setting up
working groups, mailing lists, identifying members of the General AssemblY;
Calendar considerations tabled.

The bad:
The warts. Deference to Roberts Rules of Order without understanding those
procedures. Who calls for the vote?  How to handle amendments?   Discussion
interrupted a vote underway.  Revoting,  Unclear restatement of topics
under consideration for voting.   Fits and starts in the discussion.  Lack
of clarity about the role and power of the Names Council. Difficulty of
remote participants to hear discussion.  Lack of review of who connected
remotely in the middle of the meeting, in the middle of a vote.

The ugly:
Making *any* decisions until the NC is fully formed.  Currently, the
non-commercial constituency public  has no representation in these
decisions.  The gTLD constituency representation is in dispute.  The
outcome of the meeting put cart before horse, and therefore, all
recommendations that follow from an ill-conceived (not fully formed)
process are suspect.

Suggestions:
The Names Council needs a parliamentarian.  Every vote should FIRST be
restated by a neutral party, and discussion should *precede* the vote, not
interfere with the actual voting. Chair needs to ascertain which remote
participants remain online and that they all heard the complete proposal
being voted on. [I wonder how ICANN'S board meetings are run.] Also, the
agenda should have built into it time to review and address the comments
sent in by e-mail. NC needs to address what to do if it receives a large
volume of email response during a meeting, revealing a part of the
discussion that hit a public nerve.
_______________________________________
IN ATTENDANCE:
cctld Constituency
      Europe () - Fay Howard
      Africa (.gh) - Nii Quaynor
      AsiaPac (.nu) - Bill Semich
business Constituency
      NorthA (.us) - Jon Englund
      Europe (.es) - Javier Sola
      NorthA (.us) - Theresa Swinehart Theresa.Swinehart@wcom.com
ispcp Constituency
      AsiaPac (.jp) - Hirofumi Hotta
      Europe (.de) - Michael Schneider
registrars Constituency
      Europe (.es) - Amadeu Abril i Abril - remote participation
      AsiaPac (.jp) - Richard Lindsay
      NorthA (.us) - Ken Stubbs - remote participation
intellectualproperty Constituency
      NorthA (.ca) - Jonathan Cohen
      NorthA (.us) - Susan Antony - remote participation later in meeting
      Europe (.be) - Ted Shapiro  - remote participation

No participation from gTLD constituency.
NCDHC not yet recognized as a constituency, so no representation included
in the meeting.
Randy Bush present as an observer

ADMINISTRATIVE MEETING - 2p.m.
Estimate of 30 or less people in attendance including Dyson, Sims, Roberts,
two ICANN staffers.

Howard: Before getting into working groups, since we are interim, first
discuss process, elect chairman,  communications correct,where to go to
find things, how to join working groups.

Amadeu: "our primary goal is making policy recommendations" [Note:  not
according to the Bylaws.]

Major discussion on whether to have Working Groups open to everyone.
Amadeu: rule enforcing limits on number of members from a single group is
advisable in some cases.

Semich: current working groups not bottom up process. This is a consensus
facilitating body, not a policy making body. We need to come up with a
constituency building mechanism. None of the constituencies has suggested a
Working Group to date,. We should start from Day 1 bottom up.  If we don't
do it now, we won't be able to get there in the future. Cart before horse.

Sola: We have proposed Working Groups A, B, and C.  Working Group E
proposed by Fay from cctld
D from proposed by several groups. A from the general assembly but not any
constituencies. All the constituencies have known that these are being
created.
Make certain that no specific point of view is excluded.  Anyone who has
anything to say has to be included in those working groups.  We have
received feedback except ggtld constituencies have given us names including
non commercial constituencies.  If we create Working Group C, al large part
will be from the General Assembly.

Cohen:  Date limitation a concern.   Also, people didn't know that WGs were
open.
Long general discussion about these two concerns.

Theresa: Main problem is communication issue.  We need to put greater sense
of urgency in D and E  so that outreac hand procedures and structure is
given much higher priority.  Maybe we need to do aggressive outreach.

Cohen:  It is urgent that we establish a General Assemb ly for everyone who
wants to participate and be in a WG, only subject to the realities of a
given situation.  You can't have 200 people in a WG and you cant have 30
people from one interest.  In the very limited time we were given, we made
it clear that anyone was welcome. There hasn't been enough time  I have
written to ICANN board that we need to postpone the provision of these
reports to provide enough time so that there is a prope Names Council
represented by allcostituencies, GA and outreach around the world.  Support
my application to the ICANN board to slow down reporting dates so that we
can do a proper job and dont get criticized.

Sola: Working Groups are where documents are prepared.  Everybody can
participate, even if they don't participate on the drafrting side.

Howard:  GA has to be in place.  How to we do that?

Amadeu: GA can only be a mailing list between meetings.  Cannot ask for
cards or passports.  Reality check: provide a list of those subscribed that
belong to constituency mailing lists.  People can subscribe to
dnso-announce and they can then participate on the discussions.  GA was
born in Berlin from the people who were there.

Cohen? To expect that after outreach there will be a GA of thousands of
people is dreaming in technicolor.  We probably need more time to get
working properly.  We aren't well enough organized.

Semich: We need to find people to participate in this process so they won't
ask what happened a year from now.

MS - We're not going to vote on anything, just establish consensus.  We
have people watching.  We have outreach first and won't do anything until
we do outreach first.

VOTING:
1.  We announce that we recognize the GA as being existent as defined in
the ICANN bylaws.
PASSED, not unanimous

2. We regard the GA at DNSO.ORG list as being as being the General Assembly
of the DNSO.
PASSED

3.  There will be a mailing list announce@dnso.org (low traffic one-way
participation) which will be used to broadcast announcements of all
significant Names Council events and documents.
(some discussion and confusioh) PASSED

ISSUES RAISED;
Are we assigning priority to physical meeting or priority to mailing list.
Should this follow the IETF model? Physical meeting should still be held
but people will have opportunity to participate other ways. Since NC has
not yet been fully constituted, how are those in NCDHC supposed to
participate?

WORKING GROUP OPERATIONAL CRITERIA
Semich, we need a better mechanism re. working groups.  Some have already
voted in chairs even though there has been no process.  [Thank you for
raising that issue.

WG D  changed to a Committee.  Semich, Cohen and Abril will draft working
group mechanism by July 15.

Schneider - We only need a procedure for people who are voting.

Howard: If 26 people from IBM want to make a proposal, they can do it, but
that's not consensus but that's one company.  WGs are supposed to make
proposals to us, we are not supposed to initiate them.

Sola: whatever working groups we create, everything will have to be done in
the open and anyone who wants to be involved can be.  We might subdivide
Working Group C.    Anyone who wants to give feedback can.

REPORT ON WORKIKNG GROUP
Cohen:  Not working.  Deadlines are too short.  Will be roundly criticized
from all quarters.  Has been some support in ICANN bvoard for postponing
report.  Greg Crew willing to postpone until NC and procedures are fully
established so they will not be a sham.

Amadeau - WG A is the same group has already been participating in the WIPO
process.  We have already expressed our views. WIPO report has been
extensively reported around the world.  We're not going to get more people
than have come forward in that process.  No way we
will get something better than the WIPO participation so I oppose asking
the ICANN board for any delay.

Bush:  I object to the part that the part that tell the ICANN board to do
whatever they want to, too open ended recommendation.

[Ken Stubbs joined in remotely]

[My comment: there may be a different set of people who are interested in
these issues through DNSO participation rather than through WIPO
consultations.  IMHO, it is unreasonable to cut off this opportunity for
broader participation and discussion of the WIPO recommendations.  They
should NOT be passed on to ICANN without careful examination.

Amadeu: We spend too much time arguing over procedural issues.  I think we
are over that.  I think its too early to ask for further delay.

Semich:  MOVED to accept report and forward it to ICANN.  No second, motion
dies.

Amadeu: Names Council should ask for an extension only after July 7th
deadline appears.

?-:  That Cohen submit a written report electronically.

CREATION OF WORKING GROUPS B and C

[A document was available regarding proposals for the membership,
structure, and operation of Working Group C.  When, how, by whom this was
prepared was not clear.]

Sola:  proposes the creation of Working Group C to develop a document
addressing the following questions:
1. Should there be new gtlds?  How many, which, at which speed deployed?
What should be the mechanism?  Should each new gtld have a specific charteR?
What should be the registration process? How should new gtlds be managed.
Is it mandatory to have a new registry?
Propose 3 deliverables:
	1. Response to the questions.
	2. If registry called for, should be description, a call for
tenders to recommended to be issued by ICANN.  We propose the rules under
which the should operate.
	3.  A set of procedures for registration and data maintenance for
the registry.

Proposes aggressive time schedule.  Proposal has been posted on Names
Council mailing list?
Ken:  Has anyone applied for the list who has been rejected.
Amadeu:  No.  The Names Council has never rejected anyone.   Modem
interruption. Someone signing off

Membership in WG C - everyone who has applied, but will divide
participation on the individual questions.

Semich: People need to come up with their own charter and their own focus.
For example, competitioh is more important than adding new gtlds. For
example, other countries want to know how to self manage, how will smaller
ccdtlds be able to compete.  Wait 3 weeks to come up with the proposal.
Sola:  I have proposed one WG.  You have other issues, You design a
different WG. The earlier we create working groups so that we can actually
create comments, helps. Don't block discussion.

Semich:  the working group needs to be self organizing, to come up with
their own charter.

Semich: Amendment:  Recommend postponing vote on WG C until we have created
the policies and procedures of participating in a working group.

Cohen: defer a formal vote until the next meeting of the Names Council
(July 27)

Stubbs:  Adding another delay.  ORSC was able to draft a document in three
days.  We ought to be able to come up with a policy for working groups in
less than three weeks. Don't want to get lost in "bureaucratic wrangling".

Bush: This particular work item will take considerable amount of time.  The
three weeks being asked is not unreasonable.  NC is not suggesting that
nobody can do anything or speak or draft documents. I suggest procedurally,
Javier should drop his original motion. which kills the amendment.  He can
start discussing stuff and then form a working group when there are
procedures and that doesn't stop informal progress in the meantime.

Sola: I'd like to maintain my proposal.   To start working group C in a
very open way ....
Amadeu:  This is chapter 4 from WIPO final report, and ICANN board wanted
DNSO to submit a report as soon as practical after Santiago. This means
starting work by September.  August for Europeans is holidays.  So you are
delaying everything until September.  This group is Rushing through to meet
an report by a set date, but this is worse

Semich: proposed an amendment to defer working group not be started until
there are formal procedures to do so.

VOTE: England amendment to defer a decision on the formal creation of
Working Group C until the next meeting of the Names Council.We have a
formal vote at the next Names council as to whether to create Working Group
C.
First vote:  6:5 in favor of amendment.   Stubbs abstained.
Revote, now new participants:  6:6 but chair doesn't vote.so 6:5
FOR:  Englund, Semich, Howard, Cohen, ?
AGAINST: Shapiro, Amadeu, Anthony (just joining in?), ?,?, ?
ABSTAIN: Stubbs
.
[Initial vote not heard by remote participants..  More discussion and
clarification.  Revote confusing.  I think final vote was 6:5 against but,
as an observer, this important vote seemed mishandled and unclear.]



VOTE:  Sola: Working group to procede with charter presented
8-3-3 FOR

subject to the rules that future groups will apply to working groups.
12 FOR

There was more discussion, but I stopped taking notes here. Given the
confusion over the wording of votes, over the role of the Names Council,
the difficulties the remote participants  had hearing the discussion and
the interruption of voting to discuss and clarify, as Civics 101, I'd give
this a C.  And didn't someone say early on that the NC wasn't going to vote?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
End of administrative meeting, beginning of public forum.  I stopped taking
notes. The agenda was established to discuss Working Groups A, B, C and
then take up matters discussed in the Administrative meeting.  Instead,
most comments focused on the process or the lack of same, of putting
discussion of specific working group items before understanding how the
recommendations get into the DNSO, without proper notification of the
topics to meet the time schedule, making decisions before having a fully
constituted Names Council which lacks representation from any
non-commercial representatives, unwilling to wait for three weeks until a
sound, solid process was in place. Time ran out before there was public
discussion on the individual Working Group agendas.

IMHO, here remains a belief among some NC members that the world at large
understands these complex issues and knows exactly where to go to track
them and exactly what to do to participate in these discussions.  I firmly
assert this is not true.  It is difficult enough for someone following this
on a daily basis to understand the deadlines, the charter, the scope of
various working groups, the ways that various policies and structures
intersect.  Those who call for clear procedures are NOT stalling the
process. I would lob such criticism back and say that those who are rushing
the process are preventing others from having time to acquire a necessary
understanding of the issues and process for participating.



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ellen Rony                                                         Co-author
The Domain Name Handbook           ____        http://www.domainhandbook.com
==========================     ^..^     )6     =============================
ISBN 0879305150                (oo) -^--                   +1 (415) 435-5010
erony@marin.k12.ca.us              W   W                         Tiburon, CA
               Dot com is the Pig Latin of the Information Age
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^