Re: [ga] The NC & ICANN Reform

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Danny and all assembly members,

DannyYounger@cs.com wrote:

> Pretty much as expected, the Names Council is marching to the beat of
> Stuart's drum.

  Yes.  But this is to be pretty much expected as Stuart is the president/CEO
of ICANN.  The real concern or question is should he be?  Another
is, is his leadership good leadership?  To both questions, our members
say no.

>
>
> The Lynn plan called for the establishment of a Generic TLD Names Policy
> Council, as well as a Geographic TLD Names Policy Council.  The Names Council
> is now recommending creating a new advisory body for gTLDs, and creating a
> new advisory body for the ccTLDs.
>
> To support the activities of these groups, the Names Council has recommended
> that ICANN's policy advisory bodies should be made more effective by the
> provision of full-time staff to support all aspects of policy.  This matches
> the language in the Lynn plan that states:  <<In order for them to be most
> effective, each of these Councils should be supported by the appropriate
> staff.>>  As ICANN already provides plenty of staff support to the
> registrars, gTLDs, ccTLDs, and plans on hiring even more staff support for
> these folks, this NC recommendation adds little to the equation (other than
> an endorsement of Stuart's plan and expansive budget which, of course, makes
> no provision for salaried staff support to the At-Large).
>
> By stating that ICANN policy advisory bodies should formulate policy
> recommendations based on a clear, bottom-up, consensus process of all
> stakeholders that should be managed by the ICANN Board, the NC is effectively
> declaring the NC and the DNSO defunct (as the NC was formerly responsible for
> the management of the consensus building process) and this function has now
> been elevated upward to the Board level.
>
> The NC Chair is recommending that these advisory bodies should elect or
> select a selection of Board members, and this is in keeping with Stuart's
> plan that the Chairs or designees of these Policy Councils select some of the
> five Ex Officio Trustees.
>
> By proposing that the Board should be set at a size that balances two goals -
> large enough to be representative, small enough to be functional, the NC
> Chair is making yet another typically vague recommendation that will allow
> Stuart's plan for a 15-member Board of Trustees to go unchallenged.
>
> Stuart Lynn has argued that "with a properly funded and independent Ombudsman
> in place, there is neither a need or justification for some independent
> review mechanism process that creates a "super-Board" for some purposes."
> The NC Chair is putting forward the following recommendation which comes
> straight from Marilyn Cade's BC position paper: <<Create a committee for
> independent review to over see the work of a professional ombudsman. The
> committee could comprise a designee of the GAC, a designee of the IAB, past
> board members, and an ombudsman.>>  Why anyone would have a committee that
> includes an ombudsman to oversee the work of an ombudsman is beyond me, but
> it points to the fact that the NC Chair will advocate for creating an
> Ombudsman position.  Once such a position is created, Stuart, of course will
> continue to see no justification for some independent review mechanism
> process, and all checks and balances will go right out the window (which is
> perfectly in keeping with Stuart's plan).
>
> Judging from the discussion in yesterday's NC teleconference with Joe Sims,
> Stuart Lynn, and Alejandro Pisanty, the ICANN Staff and the Board Committee
> on Evolution and Reform remain intent on pursuing Stuart's plan (no big
> surprise there) as indicated by the discussion on the "forums" that Stuart
> proposed:
>
> apisanty: looking at advantages of forum approach; the forum approach
> definitely seems to be a very good.
> slynn: forums should be much more flexible.
> jsims: notion is that today we have a finite and fixed number of
> constituencies. under forum approach no fixed number of fora.
> apisanty: advantages: you get to hear different voices. if you don't read the
> constituency list, you don't see all the valuable points. e.g. a north
> american business forum, e.g. a geographically diverse small business forum.
> still mechanics to work out.
> jsims: forums would provide input to policy councils in stuart lynn proposal.
>
> Members of the NC quickly moved into lock-step mode with their support of
> this portion of Stuart's plan as well:
>
> mcade: forums feeding into policy-development process is fine, but structure
> must be defined.
> tholmes: agree that structure must be defined.
> btonkin: support general dynamic concept
> hfeld: need for formal structure.
>
> All that really remains is for the majority of the Council to come on board
> with regard to the Nominating Committee proposed by Stuart... and as expected
> Stuart had some additional comments on that topic:
>
> slynn: nominating committee intended to focus on problem that we want to make
> sure that icann is seen as effective and credible organization. nominating
> committee is one way of dealing with this; many have pointed to the problem
> of
> accountability of the nominating committee, can be improved.
>
> No one argued this point (even though the ISPCP has gone on record against
> this concept:  <<The ISPCP is opposed to the introduction of a Nominating
> Committee and questions whether such a scheme could ever fulfil the
> requirements of openness and transparency required to gain the support and
> trust of the ICANN community.>>).
>
> These leaves us at a point where no one from any constituency has offered up
> any alternative to the Lynn plan.  By heeding the admonition of the Board's
> Evolution Committee to focus on the Lynn plan as a point of departure for
> their comments, they have been insiduously co-opted into supporting Stuart's
> plan instead of presenting any more reasonable structural alternatives.
>
> Even the recent preliminary proposal submitted by Karl Auerbach and cited at
> http://www.cavebear.com/rw/apfi.htm adopts the fundamental constructs (termed
> modules) proposed by Stuart.
>
> When no alternative considerations are put on the table, the Board has no
> option other than to endorse the Lynn Plan as modified by the Evolution
> Committee.  Within the Lynn Plan there is no place accorded for the GA, there
> are no more At-Large directors, and even more power and influence is granted
> to the registries and registrars at the expense of everyone else.
>
> Is this what you all want?  If not, what are you prepared to do about it?
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
> Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 121k members/stakeholdes strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-244-3801 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


--
This message was passed to you via the ga-full@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga-full" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html