Re: [gnso-arr-dt] RT Permanent Endorsement Process

[William Drake <william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hola

On May 17, 2010, at 3:15 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:

> Wolf made one motion for the Council meeting on 20 May: That there be 4 GNSO 
> slots on the two review teams.  It would be good if the Council is able to 
> act on that so that we can communicate it to Janis.  That would possibly help 
> the selectors finalize the size and composition of the teams and it seems 
> consistent with Chris Disspain’s input which I forwarded a little while ago 
> and with the fact that early indicators show that the size of the current RT 
> seems to be working okay.

Can't imagine the counter-arguments from a council standpoint
>  
> I personally still like the idea of endorsing up to five instead of four 
> candidates but am not hard line about that.  Maybe it would be helpful if 
> Bill asked for some discussion of that in the Council meeting on Thursday and 
> encourage Councilors to provide any thoughts in that regard in the week 
> following the meeting.  If we endorse five slots, I think the fifth slot 
> should be totally open.  If we endorse four slots, I think it should be made 
> clear like Tim said, that that the SGs may endorse anyone, not just 
> candidates affiliated with their SG.

I guess it'd be useful to get broader council input on the prospect of an 
additional slot.  Here FWIW is my view.

*My position at the outset was we needed to accommodate unaffiliated GNSO 
community members and not look like a self-preservation cartel.  And indeed, we 
had a couple people apply for slot 5 who assumed (correctly it turns out) they 
wouldn't have gotten any SG's top endorsement, so that seemed like vindication 
of the idea.  But upon reflection, I wonder if it's not an empty gesture, since 
the Selectors will normally want to pick people who have strong SG support, 
inter alia to avoid upsetting the political balance, and they're not going to 
give us more than 4 slots on a RT.  Would they really tell SG xyz that sorry, 
while the other three SGs get their representative, you don't, we're taking 
instead this person who feels no connection to anyone.  Unless a SG goes nuts 
and endorses someone really unsuitable, I don't see it happening.  And bear in 
mind, the other SO/ACs are approaching this from the standpoint of "our 
representatives," and the Selectors et al seem to share that understanding.

Moreover, and to Wolf-Ulrich's point, this doesn't necessarily mean that that 
an unaffiliated person, including a NCA, could never serve on a RT.  If they're 
good candidates it's entirely possible some SG will endorse them, especially as 
the RT process goes on and on and burns through the pool of in-house SG talent 
willing to put in the time and effort.  I'm sure NCSG could support a good 
independent, especially after a few cycles.

In which case, why go through all the hassle of defining ornate election 
procedures and having an Evaluation Team to review and rank and then organizing 
votes and all that other stuff?  Why not just simplify life for everyone and 
just have a straightforward and completely depoliticized process under which 
for each RT cycle each SG provides a name and we're done with it?  It's not 
like Council doesn't have enough and more important stuff to do anyway...

So I'm inclined toward Tim's streamlined proposal of 4 (with the possibility of 
electing a fifth if there's inadequate diversity).  But if the DT or Council 
really wants a fixed elected slot for unaffiliateds, I'd roll with it, and we 
can then go about defining once again all the possible procedural requirements 
to be spelled out.

I would however very much oppose making the fifth slot open to anyone.  Cave, 
hic dragones——anyone who was in Nairobi will know that the prospect of a 
competitive slot that could result in a given SG having two endorsees 
contributed to some people getting really worked up over all this, far beyond 
what the real world significance of the selection merited IMHO.  The many tense 
consultations and procedural explanations this occasioned make me very allergic 
to needlessly creating busy work and scarce positional goods for SGs to 
struggle over, internally and externally.  

>  
> If we do not use the 25 minutes allotted in the Council meeting, that will be 
> very helpful because the agenda is way too full.  It appears that our time 
> crunch has improved some.  Janis seems to be comfortable with a little more 
> time.  But it would be good if we could have final Council action on a long 
> term process by the 10 June Council meeting if possible.

Yes, routinely going over two hours is an issue, part of why I suggested 
downsizing this.  Let's play it by ear but shoot for ten minutes...

Cheers

Bill
>  
> Chuck
>  
> From: William Drake [mailto:william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 7:44 AM
> To: Gomes, Chuck
> Cc: gnso-arr-dt@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [gnso-arr-dt] RT Permanent Endorsement Process
>  
> Hi
>  
> On May 16, 2010, at 1:46 PM, Gomes, Chuck wrote:
> 
> 
> It appears we put the permanent process aside for the moment to focus
> on
> the SSR and WHOIS per Janis.  So presumably we are shooting for the 10
> June Council meeting, and need a motion by the 3rd, three weeks from
> today.
> [Gomes, Chuck] We can't put the permanent process aside because it is needed 
> so that applicants for the SSR and Whois RTs know how to apply and what the 
> qualifications are.  You are correct though that we first need to agree on 
> the number of GNSO reps.  I think Wolf's motion takes care of that, assuming 
> we all agree with it.
>  
> I wasn't suggesting we should do that going forward, but rather was taking 
> stock of the list discussion during the period I was offline.  So after 
> giving Janis the number, the next step is to finalize a process for the 10 
> June meeting.
>  
> Endorsement Process
>  
> 1.  Can a SG decide not to endorse any candidate?  Can more than one SG
> endorse the same person, e.g. someone not from one's own SG?
>  
> Everyone seems inclined to allow these flexibilities, although again if ever 
> they're acted upon we could fall short of the number of slots requested per 
> RT.  Presumably manageable.
>  
> (BTW it would be logical for the process doc to state how many slots GNSO is 
> seeking to fill, I suppose four per, but we can't say that until the 
> Selectors agree to it.  Would be helpful if they'd decide and announce the 
> standard team sizes.)
> 
> 
> 2.  Are people now inclined to abandon the concept of having an
> Council-wide elected slot for people who consider themselves to be in
> the GNSO community but not affiliated with/seeking the endorsement of
> any particular SG? 
>  
> I don't see consensus on this point.  We have two models on the table, 4 vs 5 
> slots, need to decide.
> 
>  
> 3.  Re: diversity, in this model we'd only consider adding people to
> move toward the objectives , rather than e.g. going back to SGs and
> asking them to reconsider their first choice.
>  
> People thus far seem inclined to possibly vote on adding another person if 
> needed, or to encourage SGs to consider alternative endorsements, in either 
> event at the Council level.
> 
> 
> a.  Would we still state the diversity objectives?
>  
> Seems to be consensus for stating but softening, e.g. "should."
> 
>  
> b.  I presume Council would only be able to pick from the pool of
> people
> who applied to ICANN?  How many?  
>  
> Seems to be consensus.  Can leave the number open TBD as needed.
>  
> c.  In this model, would we abandon the Evaluation Team?  
>  
> Only one person addressed directly but IF we stick with 4 SG slots rather 
> than 4 + 1 voted unaffiliated then this would make sense, so have to decide 
> the latter.
> 
> 
> Additional GNSO Requirements.
>  
> 1.  In the first round we included in the in-house Action Plan (below)
> the statement that "volunteers are encouraged to self- identify with
> any
> GSNO SG / Constituency with which they feel most closely affiliated."
> I
> suggest we move this encourgement to the Requirements, where it should
> have been.
> 
> Seems consensus, easy point
> 
>  
> 2.  In light of the ICANN CFP wording should we delete the "attestation
> that the applicant is able and willing to commit at least ten hours per
> week during the review period"?
>  
> One yes and one no so far on this
> 
> 
> 3.  It has been suggested that for the SSR RT some indicator of
> security/tech expertise would be useful.  
>  
> Consensus thus far for a line added about specialized expertise relevant to 
> the RT
> 
> 
> Action Plan
>  
> Our initial effort included a set of in-house procedures.  Depending on
> what we decide about the process, will we still need to have such a
> document?  
>  
> I've not seen anyone argue we need this, although if we have a slot 5 then 
> the details previously covered in the AP should be incorporated into the EP.
> 
>  
> It would be really helpful to hear from all members of the DT on these
> and any related points.  I see that the 20 May Council agenda has 25
> minutes allocated to this topic and that I'm supposed to convey the
> DT's
> recs, so any movement toward closure by then would be great.
>  
> We've heard from Chuck, Tim, Wolf-Ulrich and Caroline, which if memory serves 
> is like half the DT.  If the rest is ok, can we please decide on 4 vs 5, i.e. 
> separate space for unaffiliated or let them seek SG support?  With this main 
> point unsettled we're not ready to write a doc.  Anyway, I'll be buried in 
> the UN the next day and half, which doesn't lend itself to quick word 
> smithing.
>  
> Chuck, given that we don't have a finalized process to propose or a motion, 
> what do you want to do about the Thursday agenda?  If we really want to spend 
> 25 minutes anyway I suppose we could discuss and decide the # of slots issue 
> in Council rather than the DT.  If instead we want to get consensus here 
> first then maybe this should be just a five minute update thing and we can 
> have the real discussion in June.
>  
> Bill
>  

***********************************************************
William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
 Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
william.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
***********************************************************