Re: [gnso-arr-dt] Permanent Review Team Process

[William Drake <william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tim

On Apr 16, 2010, at 12:09 AM, Tim Ruiz wrote:

> This also allows more applicants to be considered by the Selectors.
> Otherwise, I am concerned that the only applicants we will get are those
> pre-ordained by the SGs - others won't see the point. This also seems
> more fair to those that do bother to go through the application process.

I understand your thinking now and appreciate the suggestion.  How would you 
respond to the counter-arguments, e.g. that such an approach would

1.  Vest all responsibility for deciding who represents the GNSO community in 
the selectors rather than the community itself, and thus leaves us all without 
a voice in the process.  How would this square with the aspiration to follow 
bottom up democratic consensus-based procedures?  Would we agree to follow this 
model for other kinds of decisions in ICANN, and if not, why would it then be 
right here?

2.  Relatedly, dump all the work on the selectors, rather than aiding them in 
sorting through potentially largish pools.   In order to know that they're 
picking people the community supports, wouldn't they have to do extra cycles of 
back channel consultation, which would make the process less transparent?  Or 
would we just trust them to pick optimally on their own, even though they may 
not know the candidates, their particular expertise, the issues of particular 
concern to GNSO that its reps would have to carry into the process, etc?

3.  Politicizes the whole process by promoting asymmetries in potential 
influence and representation.  Let's say that a particularly well resourced SG 
decides great, we'll put forward ten names in order to up our chances.  Other 
SGs might feel like this is rather unfair if they cannot muster a similar 
number of candidates.  To avoid that, they'd have to put in a bunch of effort 
beating the bushes and badgering their people that please, we need more bodies 
to offset SG x's undue advantage.  Could be a bit of a drain and distraction on 
volunteers who are already often hard pressed to keep up with all the work 
going on.

To me, giving each SG one guaranteed nominee creates a level playing field 
among SGs and eliminates an additional level of unnecessary political drama 
within ICANN, ensures broad based representation in the nominee pool consistent 
with the AoC, and puts the responsibility for deciding who should represent the 
community in the community's hands, rather than in the hands of just two people 
who may not be attuned to our internal conditions.  And the fifth slot allows 
people who aren't connected to or wouldn't be selected by the SGs to have a 
fair shot.

But that's just me.  If everyone else feels differently and we're able to get 
community consensus on an alternative model, then let's do that instead.

Cheers,

Bill