Stéphane Van Gelder comments to the PDP-WT's proposed final report
<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Having read the Policy Development Process Work Team's Proposed Final Report, I would like to commend the WT on the quality of the work that has gone into preparing this report and offer the following questions/comments (also provided as an attached PDF).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span>Please note that these comments are made in my personal capacity. I do offer them in the hope that my experience over the past few years as first a GNSO Councillor, then Council Vice Chair and now Council Chair may be of use. But they should by no means be considered statements made either by the GNSO Council Chair or on behalf of the Council as a whole.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Stéphane Van Gelder</p><p class="MsoNormal">Rec 1.</p><p class="MsoNormal">What's the rationale behind leaving in place the possibility of an issues report being requested by the Board or an AC? How does the WT see the GNSO Council coping with such "outside influences"? Wouldn't this have been a good opportunity to remove this possibility from the rules and therefore bring them in line with the reality of the PDP process as we see it today (the report does state that a request from the Board or another AC has never been made in the past). </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 4.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Of what use does the WT see the proposed template being if it is not compulsory? Given the severe load that already exists on volunteers in the GNSO community, does the WT not feel that requesting that extra work be done before an issues report, but not making it compulsory ,will lead to people taking "short cuts" and not filling out the proposed template?</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 12.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">What is the WT's recommendation to Council on how to determine which issues require a workshop and which don't?</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Re 14.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">What is the WT's recommendation to Council on how these resources should be measured and how Council can determine the availability of resources, given that there is currently no mechanism in place to allow Council to do so?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 16.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">I know of no practice to allow a Councillor to defer a PDP for one meeting (which does not mean that such a practice does not exist). We do have an informal practice of allowing a GNSO SG or Constituency to request through one of its Council reps that a vote on a motion be deferred for one meeting if it is the first time that motion has come up. Is this what is meant here?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">This also applies to Rec 38.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 19.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">I recommend a change of wording to make this recommendation clearer. I recommend that the last work, "bylaws", be changed to "GNSO Bylaws" to make it clear that this is not the same document that is being referenced earlier in this paragraph (ICANN Bylaws).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 22.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Congratulations to the WT on this recommendation, which I think will serve to simplify our processes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 34.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">What are the WT's recommendations on the timing of the initial report, i.e. when does the WT think this should be published by the working group in question? It may be that the WG does not have a clear enough idea of what it will report on in the first few weeks of its work. And as Rec 36 talks about actions when there are significant differences between a WG's initial and final reports, I think the expectations that are placed on the WG for its initial report should be clarified and detailed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Also, I see this is not addressed in the WT's timing chart or recommendations listed in the "overarching issues" part of the report.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 39.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Why is the WT "concerned" with the GNSO Council accepting some recommendations and not others? Surely that is exactly what is expected of the Council, to provide final approval, or disapproval, of recommendations made as part of a PDP…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Small point: there's a typo in this rec's last sentence (see word crossed out and shown in red below). The PDP-WT would like to encourage the GNSO Council that <s style="text-line-through: double"><span style="color:red">there</span></s> were it does have concerns or would propose changes to recommendations, it passes these concerns and/or recommendations for changes back to the respective PDP Working Group for their input.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 42.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">As the WT indicates it is seeking further input from the community on this point, I would like to voice my preference for option 1, the "narrow sense" interpretation. In my view, the Board cannot choose to ignore a GNSO Council vote as it sees fit. That would constitute a negation of the bottom-up policy development process.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Preliminary conclusions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">The WT discusses the relationship between the current (considered by some) low voting thresholds required to request an issues report and the Council's ongoing prioritization effort. In my view, the WT should not link the two but make a determination on the voting thresholds directly. The Council is indeed experiencing severe strain on all its resources (staff and volunteers) and it is my view that the voting thresholds for an issues report, which is in effect the first step towards initiating a PDP, are too low. I would therefore encourage the WT to recommend something in this area, and not "throw this back" to the Council's prioritisation efforts which are currently an attempt more to deal with workload that is <u>already there</u> than to cope with possible new workload coming in.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span></p></body></html> Attachment:
SVG comments on PDP WT report.pdf <html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </body></html> |