RE: [ga] NC BS

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" <mcade@att.com>]

Joanna, no surprise [I hope] that I agree that questionnaires aren't the end all/be all in terms of data input. :-)

 Questionnaires gather "snapshots" which provide some useful data which can help to guide draft recommendations. Consultation is still needed... 

I would suggest, based on my experience in non profits, business, and ... finally the ICANN task force process.

 MC
-----Original Message-----
From: Joanna Lane [mailto:jo-uk@rcn.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 6:34 PM
To: Thomas Roessler; Cade,Marilyn S - LGA
Cc: Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law; DannyYounger@cs.com;
ga@dnso.org
Subject: RE: [ga] NC BS


Thomas,
>  - Recommendation 25 describes a public consultation period as "the
>    channel by which individuals and parties not fitting into the
>    stakeholders/constituency scheme participate in policy-making".  I
>    believe that this is an extremely poor suggestion for public
>    participation: During such public consultation periods there will
>    typically be no actual dialogue between the public and task force
>    members.... <snip>

The trend is for Task Forces to submit a questionnaire to those affected
stakeholders who have been excluded from the process, so I confine myself to
comments on that particular mechanism.

Questionnaires are a useful damage limitation tool for the Task Force:-

1) The Task Force can select only those questions for which it already has
answers.
2) Those affected have no mechanism to ask questions the Task Force doesn't
want to answer.
3) The questionnaire is open to the everybody, including those already
represented by the constituencies, in effect, skewing the questionnaire
results so as to dilute the views of those not represented elsewhere. It's a
"one-person, two or more votes" policy for the constituency members and
"one-person, no votes" policy for individuals excluded from constituency
membership.
3) All public comments can be ignored since the results are simply advisory,
rather than part of the mechanism to create policy.
4) Data from questionnaires takes so long to be extract, analyze and
publish, that it's usefulness is much diminished by the time the results are
released (example: WHOIS data).


Regards,
Joanna

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