Re: Proposal for a new ORSC/DNSO project

[Einar Stefferud <Stef@nma.com>]

Hello David Maher -- 

For starters, in general, when there is a will, there is a way.  
If there is no will, there is no way.  
And, we have this choice of will!  

The operative word is CHOICE!

I agree that if we cannot choose to find a way to agree on a fair
hearing panel, then we have to admit that we cannot solve our own
problems, and we should appeal to some external authority to decise
these things for us.

I refuse to give up and hand the keys to my future and the future of
the net and DNS over to some as yet unproven "higher" authority just
because I don't right now have an uncontestable answer to your
question.  Cearly anything I might propose is properly subject to
critical evaluation and modification.  But I will give it a try.

One reason I do not have an answer is that I do not presume to invent
something that everyone will agree to right off the top of my head,
and further, it is not my responsibility to do all the thinking for
everyone here, so I will instead appeal to the community to at least
find a way to select a fair hearing panel for the purpose of:

	"Determining the facts and proposing resolutons for
	 the outstanding conflicts in the DNS "communnity".

One way to do this is for each conflicting constituency to pick one
panel member, and let the selected members either pick one of the
panel's members to serve as Chair if the number of members is odd, or
pick an outside person if the number is even.  

Then, the Chair only votes when the others vote a tie.

I will note that this is no wild eyed new invention, as it is quite
standard for most Conflict Resolution Systems.  I think the legal
profession refers to this as an "ADR".  Often this is done with each
of two parties picking one member each and those two then picking a
third.  I believe this is an ancient and well polished procedure and
process.

Do we need to invent something else?  
Do we want to resolve the conflicts, or not.
If we do not want resolution, lets just get back to fighting.

Now, the only reason I can think of for our DNS community not having
done this sooner, is that too many conflicting parties have believed
that they could win all the marbles if they would just bear down and
knock off all their opponents.  And as long as any party really
believes that this is their best option, they will fight on and on and
on.  

Note they only need to believe.  They need not be right.

At this point, it is clear to me, and hopefully to you and others,
that no one is going to win the DNS zero-sum game.  Actually this has
always been true, but we have to believe it...  

So let's stop the fighting and find a way to resolve things with what
I am calling a DNS Fair Hearing Panel, which will take statements,
examine records, and fairly determine the facts, and propose a fair
resolution to the conflicts for adoption by the community.  The job of
the panel is to satisfy the community sense of fairness.

We might even ask ICANN for help in setting up our Fair Hearing Panel,
though ICANN has so far been hostile to the very idea of such panels.

On the other hand, you were there in Monterey when DNSO.ORG "hummed"
unanimous consensus for adopting Fair Hearing Panels for the very
purpose I am proposing here, and we have always had support for it
from ORSC.  That makes two contending camps.  Do we have a third?

If our mailing lists had such panels, perhaps our lists could somehow
come to some fair conclusions, but in fact, there is no mailing list
goal for this IFWP list (or any other of the DNS issue lists) to come
to a resolution so of course, they never do.  

Well, there is one excpetion that I know of, and that is the ORSC
<domain-policy@open-rsc.org> list, where our participants, with few
execptions, were mainly interested in coming to terms with each other,
and so we did.  Those who could not accept the consensus conclusions
generally gave up and went away.  Some stuck around and tried to kill
the discussions, but in general we managed to work around their
disruptive behavior to find our own consensus results.  In so doing,
ORSC only acted to restrict the participation of people who clearly
demonstrated that they were primarily trying to stop us from working
on our chosen projects and goals.

Now, ORSC does not claim to have all the answers for the whole DNS or
Internet community, but we do claim to have tried really hard to find
the broadest possible consensus for a non-zero-sum situation.  One of
the things we agreed upon a long time ago is that our DNS community
very badly needs some Fair Hearing Panels to take testimony, examine
records, and fairly find the facts, in order to reduce the conflicts
that prevent finding consensus agreements.

So, I propose that our DNSO Fair Hearing Panel do its work via EMail,
with an open subsctiption mailing list for the submission of all
statements and documents, with a WEB archive with open public access
to all submitted information, but restricted to submissions by parties
to the conflicts under panel review.  

In the DNS community, we all know how to work via EMail, so we should
not require expensive face-to-face meetings all around the world, as
long as everything is accessable to everyone, all the subjmitted
information will be openly available.  The Fiar Panel Will be
responsible for setting policies for control of submission
permissions.  The Panel should not be subjected to unreasonable floods
of harassing mail, but they must be required to explain in public
their policies for accepting testimony, and for obtaining acnwers to
questions raised by the panel.

I believe it is now worth a try to get us out of these "Balkan DNS
States of Cyberspace".  If you agree with me, lets form a committee of
two to find more people who want to participate.  

		This is called "Start Where You Stand!"

Just start doing something and work on building a solution.  So, lets
find some way to proceed to select one panel member for each side of
the conflict, and see where that will take us. People who are not
interested in participating are welcome to ignore us, and others are
welcome to offer constructive criticism and helpful suggestions, or to
passively observe.  

Perhaps our first step should be to set up a new list for this work.

None of the alternatives are acceptable, so what do we have to lose?
There is no reason why we should disrupt other lists that are actively
pursuing other topics.

Cheers...\Stef

PS: One more thing...  If we want this to be done in a properly
    professional way, I believe we should find ways to compensate our
    panel members for their time and fund their travel expenses.
    To this end, I think we should seek contributions.  One of the
    most sincere forms of support is to receive real supporting funds...\s



>From your message Thu, 03 Dec 1998 14:54:05 -0600:
}
}Stef:
}I applaud your attempt to cut thru the Balkan mess, but I am puzzled as to
}how the various principalities can agree on the composition of a Fair
}Hearing Panel. In a sense, all the efforts of the past two or three years
}has been to get people to agree on a system of trusted representatives who
}could decide what to do about the DNS. We know what a mess this has turned
}into. How do we now pick the FHP? 
} David
}
}At 12:49 AM 12/3/98 -0800, Einar Stefferud wrote:
}>Hello William -- Your line of argument is exactly why we need to hold
}>some "Fair Hearing Panels" to faaairly get the facts on the table for
}>a fair review and fair analysis!