[gnso-arr-dt] Re: Two documents attached

[William Drake <william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

On Feb 9, 2010, at 6:01 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

> Bill - The edits weren't accepted in the version I received so I
> accepted them to create clean versions.  

Weird, what's on my desk and in my sent folder are.  A Word mystery perhaps.
> 
> Chuck: I would like to proceed as Chair today with all four actions of
> Action Plan item 2.  If no one objects by 12 pm PST (3 pm EST, 8 pm
> UTC), I will go ahead and proceed.

Good
> 
>> 
>> One question on the Action Plan revision: under 4c2, not 
>> later than 25 February, the SGs are requested to provide 
>> direction for their Councilors regarding what candidates they 
>> should endorse for two open endorsements.  Under 6b, the 18th 
>> Council call is to form an Evaluation Team to rate the 
>> responses and report to the Council list not later than 25 
>> Feb.  In this case, the SGs potentially are having a 
>> discussion and then announcing on the 25th who if anyone 
>> they'd like to nominate for the open seats without knowing 
>> how the ET has ranked the options.  So for example, an SG 
>> decides ok we have two names we want to advance and we rank 
>> them 1, 2, and then the ET comes back and says the SG's 1 is 
>> ranked low but 2 higher, or whatever.  What is the practical 
>> effect of the ET's ranking then?
> 
> Chuck:  We probably need to address this in the plan.  What about
> something like this: 1) The ET & SGs evaluate candidates requesting GNSO
> endorsement independently from one another; 2) the ET ranks all
> candidates and the SGs rank only candidates they are willing to endorse;
> 3) any candidates ultimately endorsed by the SGs and approved by the
> Council are eliminated from the ET rankings; 4) the two open slots are
> filled by the Council based on the remaining candidates in the ET
> rankings.  (I don't have to much time at the moment to think about this
> so not sure if it works but I think it would.)

What I've become less clear on is why rank at all?  What's the added value of 
the added bureaucracy?  Isn't it possible we're over thinking and over 
formalizing?  We're talking about two slot out of six (assuming there are at 
least 6 candidates, unclear) that will merely be included in a pool from which 
Janis and Peter will pick maybe two, which a priori implies any given 
candidate's chances isn't statistically huge.  Why wouldn't the two houses' 
majority votes be sufficient vetting of such people?
> 
> 
>> The SG has decided how its 
>> Councilors will vote in the 26th teleconference irrespective 
>> of the pan-SG ET's work.  If the ET process is to serve any 
>> purpose, presumably it is to give SGs a senses of how other 
>> SGs view the candidacies and the likely prospects of their 
>> approval, which could lead to some recalibration.  It seems 
>> to me that either the ET should report back to the SGs 
>> earlier, before they announce preferences, or that we could 
>> dispense with the ET process entirely (upon reflection, it's 
>> not entirely obvious what the value is...we're adding an 
>> extra set of steps for what?).
> 
> Chuck: It seems unlikely that there would be enough time for the SGs to
> make their decisions and report to the ET with enough time left for the
> ET to do its ranking, so I don't that option works.  The value of the ET
> rankings is to make it easier for the Council to make decisions on the
> 26th; if the Council has to review all applications on the 26th, that
> would take a lot of time; ideally everyone should do that before the
> meeting, but I doubt that would happen.  Does my proposed solution above
> help?

I don't want to belabor the point, but unless the candidate pool is really big 
and the qualified/not split is quite obscure, it's not obvious to me that the 
council would need this extra guidance in voting.  Or, for that matter, that it 
would take such guidance; I suspect any given SG (or constituency) would draw 
its own conclusions and have its own preferences irrespective of what 3 ET 
members from other SGs have to say.   

The more I think about this, the more it just looks like extra cycles eating 
time we don't have.
>> 
>> *Re: 5 and diversity, Chuck asks "How will the Evaluation 
>> Team know whether the diversity goals are met.  I think this 
>> assumes that the Evaluation Team will know the results of the 
>> SG selections and that may not be possible."  My thought was 
>> that the ET would take this up after the teleconference vote 
>> of the 26th if needed, by which point all initial selections 
>> are known.  If the result was inadequate diversity, then we'd 
>> have a vehicle for expediting and coordinating horse trading 
>> etc (if possible...depends on the pool).  Of course, if we do 
>> an ET ranking exercise earlier, diversity might enter into 
>> the advice then on the open seats.
> 
> Chuck:  Here's a new idea for 5.  Ask SGs to attempt to endorse at least
> three candidates from different geographic regions and not all the same
> gender and to identify their primary choice.  The Council could then use
> this information on the 26th to make any required adjustments.

I quite like that, provided the SGs all do so.  If for example SG 1 does but SG 
2, 3, or 4 throws up its hands and says our only willing Guinea pigs are two 
white guys from the US, or worse, all three others come up short, then when it 
comes time to massage things into overall balance, the burden falls on SG1 to 
maybe take it's third preference rather than the person it really wanted.

Of course, if we were prepared to not just ask SGs to attempt, but rather to 
require that that SGs not nominate two candidates from the same demographic, 
we'd be sure to have a more diverse pool.  I think NCSG would be fine with 
that.  Anyone else?

In this scenario Chuck, when you say Council would use the info, are you taking 
the ET out of it?  If so then I'd say let's just toss the ET overboard and the 
evaluation, voting, and any post hoc adjusting at the council level.
> 
>> 
>> *If I understand correctly, Chuck asks if there isn't 
>> duplication between these two elements of j:
> 
> Chuck: I think I made a mistake on this.  I am okay with both statements
> so my deletion should be rejected.

Ok...

BD