[wg-d] A sort of summary

["Antony Van Couvering" <avc@interport.net>]

Theresa has asked for a summary.  I'm not the one to provide it, but I will
try to give a sense of what's happened so far, since I've just plowed
through all the messages one by one since I joined.

First, we seem to have a split between those who want to follow a modified
IETF process (led by Kent, who produced a long exegesis of the form), and
those who are interested in a modified Roberts Rules, led by Karl very
passionately.  My take: there is a big concern with abuse - from one side
concern that the powerful will abuse any lack of rigorous structure, and
from the other side, concern that the vast numbers of uninformed adherents
to various causes will skew votes away from rational decisions.
Fundamentally, then, trust is the problem.  Any system we use must address
this issue head on or it will fail.

Second, we don't seem to agree yet on the scope of the charter of this
group, and we don't even agree on what a working group is.  Some definitions
might be helpful to constrain and channel the debate.  Surely the co-chairs
should handle this.  (For instance, Javier thinks that a WG is a drafting
committee; Karl thinks that this group should decide where its
recommendations should go - GA instead of NC - and also wants to establish
procedures for how the GA should deal with WG reports after they are
delivered.

Third, that the real linchpin of any WG will be the Chair(s).  It will
therefore be crucial to include some criteria for choosing the chair in the
first place.  An ability to devote time ought to be avowed by the chair, and
some qualifications on the subject matter at hand wouldn't hurt either.

Fourth, there is some confusion (to my mind) about what the GA is.  It
really isn't constituted to be able to vote, because the membership isn't
qualified in any way (abuse problem again).  It also has not been defined at
all except in the most general sense by the ICANN Board.  Where does it
exist?  Is it on the GA list?  Is that the only place?  Constituencies are
part of the GA too.  How do the constituencies and the rest of the GA meet?

Finally there are some open questions that deserve answers/resolution:

1. What about subdivisions of WGs?  How to deal with divide and conquer
tactics; also time management - too many groups, too little time, favors the
rich, the idle, and the paid.

2. Bret Fausett - in part in response to these concerns - proposed that WG-D
be one group, not two.  I agree.

3. The diversity question is real, despite the fact that it is politely
ignored.  This subcommittee is overwhelmingly North American.  If we want to
have any claim to credibility, we must get some more people from outside the
US.   Unfortunately, this is a difficult task for those of who are in the
US.  Nonetheless we should attempt it.

4. There will be costs, even to this group, and that is one of the things
that this WG is charged at looking at.  No-one's shown much interest in it
so far though.

I hope this is of some use to WG members.

Antony

Here are some outstanding unanswered questions.


Questions in group formations:

1. How does the General Assembly form a group?  By what measure does the NC
recognize that a group is necessary (I would say it must have some objective
elements)

2. Vide Michael Froomkin, 8/3 - How do subgroups work, how do they
re-coalesce, how do we prevent divide and conquer problems, and how do we
resolve time management issues.

3.