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Re: [gnso-policyimpl-dt] The agenda

  • To: Jordyn Buchanan <jordyn@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: Re: [gnso-policyimpl-dt] The agenda
  • From: "Mike O'Connor" <mike@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:31:31 -0500

ah.  duly noted.  agree.

m

On Jun 17, 2013, at 2:39 PM, Jordyn Buchanan <jordyn@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hey Mikey:
> 
> I think the goal is almost the opposite:  we need to have both a car
> and a boat that work and then it won't matter that much which choice
> the family makes on any given day, and they'll generally choose the
> obvious thing but it will actually be a lot less important than if the
> boat has a big hole in its hull or the car has four flat tires.
> 
> Today, the "implementation process" that you refer to is almost
> entirely ad hoc so when you go down to your boat house, you never know
> if you're going to find a yacht or a canoe or a zodiac or a old desk
> that you hope floats you to where you want to be.
> 
> Jordyn
> 
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Mike O'Connor <mike@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> my understanding is that we're trying to tee up a WG that will lay out the 
>> way to decide whether to use policy processes or implementation processes to 
>> carry out an action.
>> 
>> at the risk of sounding foolish, i'm thinking that this is similar to a 
>> family laying out the rules they'll use to decide whether to use a car or a 
>> boat to get to their destination.  they don't really need to know what a car 
>> or a boat is, and they certainly don't need to document how cars and boats 
>> work, or whether they work well or not.  they just need criteria as to how 
>> to decide.  eg.  if the destination is separated from you by a road, use a 
>> car.  if it's separated from you by water, use a boat.
>> 
>> i've been thinking that what we're chartering is a WG to tune up the "decide 
>> between policy or implementation process" criteria (and processes, and 
>> review mechanisms) that Margie and Marika have laid out in the discussion 
>> paper.
>> 
>> i think if we're heading for quicksand, i want to use a boat, not a car.  :-)
>> 
>> mikey
>> 
>> 
>> On Jun 17, 2013, at 12:46 PM, "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> I would like to avoid quicksand as much as anyone and the WG should strive 
>>> to achieve that objective as much as possible but we will still run into 
>>> some quicksand and we need to have some guidelines when we do.
>>> 
>>> Chuck
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx 
>>> [mailto:owner-gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Shatan, Gregory S.
>>> Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 11:35 AM
>>> To: 'Jordyn Buchanan'
>>> Cc: h.raiche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx; 
>>> marika.konings@xxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: RE: [gnso-policyimpl-dt] RE: The agenda
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I don't think the PDP process can set "arbitrary" levels of granularity.  
>>> There can be varying levels of granularity, I think, but they should not be 
>>> arbitrary.  However, I think that what you end up suggesting -- that the 
>>> council should know (or at least have some guidance on) the level of 
>>> specificity before handing off for implementation -- makes sense.  However, 
>>> I don't think that it is a foregone conclusion that everything in a 
>>> recommendation is policy and should be dealt with as such, or whether the 
>>> more "nuts and bolts" aspects of a PDP recommendation should be considered 
>>> implementation and be dealt with as such (i.e., differently).  In other 
>>> words, I don't agree that you can stuff a PDP recommendation full of 
>>> implementation and make it become "policy."  I don't think these are things 
>>> that should be decided by this Drafting Team; rather  it is one of the 
>>> questions to be posited to the WG.
>>> 
>>> I do agree that that the retrospective GNSO Council declarations of 
>>> "policy" are one of the areas where practical problems have arisen lately 
>>> and provided the impetus for this PDP.  A resolution for this problem has 
>>> to be within the assignment for the WG.  I don't think that creating 
>>> agreed-upon definitions of policy and implementation are merely "moving the 
>>> dividing line."  They may not be the only solutions -- I agree that other 
>>> trusted processes may be very helpful as well as more clarity on levels of 
>>> specificity.  Nonetheless, without a better sense of what policy is (and 
>>> isn't), everything else is just dancing on quicksand.
>>> 
>>> Greg
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Jordyn Buchanan [mailto:jordyn@xxxxxxxxxx]
>>> Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 1:31 AM
>>> To: Shatan, Gregory S.
>>> Cc: h.raiche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx; 
>>> marika.konings@xxxxxxxxx
>>> Subject: Re: [gnso-policyimpl-dt] RE: The agenda
>>> 
>>> I'm not sure how we're disagreeing if you accept the notion that what is 
>>> implementation is essentially the universe that is "not policy" and that 
>>> the policy development process can set arbitrary levels of granularity in 
>>> its specification.  The only sensible conclusion is that the policy makers 
>>> are setting the scope of what's policy and what's implementation simply by 
>>> what they choose to include in the policy itself.  I think you're trying to 
>>> say that the GNSO Council can't retrospectively declare something to be 
>>> reserved to the policy process after failing to grapple with it when 
>>> initially setting the policy.  I think I agree with this, although I'll 
>>> note that it doesn't follow that just because something is implementation 
>>> that the need for real multistakeholder input comes to an end.
>>> 
>>> I think it's painfully obvious that the reason that people have been 
>>> fighting about "policy versus implementation" lately is that various 
>>> interpretations favor the specific outcomes that different people prefer.  
>>> This is largely because on one side of that line we presently have a 
>>> situation in which not much of significance happens and on the other side 
>>> staff and the board do whatever various interest groups are capable of 
>>> lobbying them to do.  Frankly, that's a terrible situation and no amount of 
>>> moving the dividing line around is going to make it better.  We'd be way 
>>> better off if we had processes that we trusted on both sides of the 
>>> dividing line and then future working groups and the council would know 
>>> what level of specificity to provide before handing off to the next phase.
>>> 
>>> Jordyn
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:12 AM, Shatan, Gregory S.
>>> <GShatan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> I'm not too concerned with the bounds of GNSO power generally.  I am 
>>>> concerned with the idea that the GNSO Council should have the unilateral 
>>>> power to determine whether an action is policy or implementation -- and 
>>>> more particularly whether an action is a change to an existing policy or 
>>>> merely implementation of that policy.  I do agree that the more detailed 
>>>> the outcome of a PDP is, the less latitude there is in the choices to be 
>>>> made when implementing that policy.  No WG can anticipate all the 
>>>> decisions that will come in implementation, but a WG that provides only 
>>>> high level policy advice and a GNSO that adopts only high level policy 
>>>> advice is leaving more of the "blocking and tackling" to those 
>>>> implementing the policy.  A WG (and then the Council) can always decide to 
>>>> be more granular and leave less latitude to the implementers -- but 
>>>> greater levels of detail can be difficult to achieve in the WG context.
>>>> 
>>>> The recent "policy vs. implementation" issues that have arisen did not 
>>>> come when the Council was specifying policy recommendations.  Rather, they 
>>>> came later on, when actions that some would say were changes or extensions 
>>>> to the implementation of a policy and others would say were changes to the 
>>>> policy itself were controversial.  I think that one of the tasks of the WG 
>>>> has to be providing guidance on how to distinguish "policy vs. 
>>>> implementation" in that context.  Far from being a rat-hole, I thinking is 
>>>> the crux of what the WG needs to deal with.
>>>> 
>>>> Greg
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Jordyn Buchanan [mailto:jordyn@xxxxxxxxxx]
>>>> Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2013 2:20 PM
>>>> To: Shatan, Gregory S.
>>>> Cc: h.raiche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx;
>>>> marika.konings@xxxxxxxxx
>>>> Subject: Re: [gnso-policyimpl-dt] RE: The agenda
>>>> 
>>>> Ugh, fixing a typo in the To: line (respond to this message instead of the 
>>>> last one to avoid e-mailing a non-existent address).
>>>> 
>>>> Jordyn
>>>> 
>>>> On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Jordyn Buchanan <jordyn@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> Hi Greg:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm a little concerned we're about to go down the rathole that I just
>>>>> suggested I'd like to avoid, but let me be a bit clearer.  There's
>>>>> obviously bounds on the powers of the GNSO--one obvious example is
>>>>> that the "picket fence" limits the applicability of consensus
>>>>> policies to existing registry and registrar contracts.  Similarly,
>>>>> the GNSO can't create policies about ccTLDs or addresses.  But the
>>>>> bounds on the power of the GNSO are almost entirely uninteresting to
>>>>> the policy v. implementation debate, because implementation is simply
>>>>> the application of the adopted policy.  Something that isn't within
>>>>> the powers of GNSO to adopt as policy doesn't become acceptable once
>>>>> we move on to actually implementing the thing.  So my point is that,
>>>>> when correctly acting within the proper scope of its policy remit,
>>>>> the Council itself draws much of the line between policy and
>>>>> implementation by choosing how they specify a policy.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Back to topics that are actually within our remit as a drafting team:
>>>>> although I personally agree with you that a lighter weight process
>>>>> for non-Consensus-Policy would be a useful I don't think we want to
>>>>> force the WG to come up with something like that--the objective that
>>>>> Chuck and I suggested was just to identify what the process for
>>>>> non-Consensus-Policy should look like rather than expecting that it
>>>>> ought to be different than the PDP.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Jordyn
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 12:46 PM, Shatan, Gregory S.
>>>>> <GShatan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>> I believe that "policy" absolutely cannot be whatever the GNSO says it 
>>>>>> is.  No entity should be allowed to decide the limits of its own powers. 
>>>>>>  The natural tendency would then be to stretch the definition of policy 
>>>>>> to its outer limits (and then some).  There needs to be an objective, 
>>>>>> transparent, balanced definition of policy.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think the WG's work needs to be as rational and informed as possible.  
>>>>>> One thing I think the WG needs to do is a survey of 
>>>>>> policy/implementation definitions/debates in ICANN and beyond (we may 
>>>>>> have much to learn from other organizations that have grappled with this 
>>>>>> issue).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I do agree that the GNSO needs something more lightweight and nimble 
>>>>>> than the PDP (or the oxymoronic PDP).  I alsothink it needs to be more 
>>>>>> structured than GNSO Council letter-writing.   Wee should task the WG 
>>>>>> (if within the DT's powers to do so) to make recommendations on such 
>>>>>> processes.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Greg
>>>>>> --------------------------
>>>>>> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Device
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>> From: Jordyn Buchanan [mailto:jordyn@xxxxxxxxxx]
>>>>>> Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2013 10:33 AM Eastern Standard Time
>>>>>> To: Holly Raiche <h.raiche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>> Cc: gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx <gnso-policyimpl-dt@xxxxxxxxx>;
>>>>>> Marika Konings <marika.konings@xxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [gnso-policyimpl-dt] RE: The agenda
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Although I am more optimistic than most about being able to find
>>>>>> useful dividing lines between policy and implementation*, I also
>>>>>> worry that this discussion could be a real rathole for the working group.
>>>>>> More importantly, I'm not sure it's as interesting a question as it
>>>>>> may seem at first blush.  We need to try to allow more consistent
>>>>>> implementation policies that allow for proper multistakeholder
>>>>>> participation and also encourage more feedback between the
>>>>>> policy-making and implementation processes where appropriate.  I
>>>>>> think if we get this right, the distinction between policy and
>>>>>> implementation starts to matter a lot less--we get in trouble today
>>>>>> because the implementation phase is poorly defined and subject to
>>>>>> pretty unpredictable outcomes/process.  Since on one side we have
>>>>>> the heavyweight structure of the PDP and on the other side we have
>>>>>> the chaos of undefined "implementation", you get people trying to
>>>>>> contort the policy/implementation distinction around which side is
>>>>>> more likely to result in their desired outcomes instead of any real
>>>>>> considered distinction of what the words actually mean.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I do think it is useful to think about what "policy making" means
>>>>>> when the goal isn't a Consensus Policy, and this is directly
>>>>>> referenced in the doc that Chuck sent around.  Today, it's unclear
>>>>>> how the GNSO goes about creating policy other than in the form of
>>>>>> Consensus Policy; I think it's worth thinking about whether there
>>>>>> should be lighter-weight mechanisms where the intent isn't to affect
>>>>>> contractual obligations, or at the very least how the GNSO goes
>>>>>> about causing these other policies to be created through the PDP.
>>>>>> Similarly, it's important that these policy outcomes be documented
>>>>>> so that there's somewhere for the community as well as ICANN staff to 
>>>>>> take note of them.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> To me, getting all of this right is much more important than
>>>>>> figuring out exactly where the dividing line is between policy and
>>>>>> implementation.  In fact, getting good process in place will
>>>>>> probably make the policy v. implementation debate a lot more tractable.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Jordyn
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * As Chuck notes, figuring out what is policy may be in scope for
>>>>>> the working group itself, but probably not for us.  Having said that
>>>>>> I'll briefly note that my view is that "policy" is basically
>>>>>> whatever the GNSO Council says it is; there are some limitations on
>>>>>> the power of the GNSO to set policy, but not many and they're more
>>>>>> about "Consensus Policy" in particular and not "policy" in general.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Sat, Jun 15, 2013 at 7:18 AM, Holly Raiche 
>>>>>> <h.raiche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>> First,  thanks to both Marika (and ICANN staff) and Chuck for
>>>>>>> getting the WG conversations started.  From the WG template, it is
>>>>>>> clear that our first task is to fill in section II - Mission,
>>>>>>> purpose and Deliverables. And we should start with the Mission.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> At this early stage, I think we need to go beyond what Jordyn/Chuck
>>>>>>> have suggested for mission.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Reading the Draft Framework, and comments made during the Beijing
>>>>>>> meeting, we haven't even agreed on what we mean by 'policy'.  As
>>>>>>> the Draft Framework sets out, the term policy can mean anything
>>>>>>> from a formal policy that requires a PDP process all the way to
>>>>>>> general practices, with no attendant process.  Yet in some cases,
>>>>>>> 'operational' policies may well impact on the larger community and 
>>>>>>> should involve that consideration - however informal.
>>>>>>> As the Framework document also points out, the line between what is
>>>>>>> policy (however we define it) and implementation will not be easy to 
>>>>>>> draw.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> And other issues have been raised by other commenting parties
>>>>>>> including when comment is sought (too late in the process or not)
>>>>>>> and in what time frame - versus another statement that the actual PDP 
>>>>>>> process can take years.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Yet I do not think we can come up with anything meaningful unless
>>>>>>> we can get a better handle on what we are talking about.  Again, as
>>>>>>> the Framework document notes, all the AC/SOs have a role in policy
>>>>>>> - so we need to start there - what do we mean when we say policy,
>>>>>>> and how do we ensure that all who are impacted by 'policy' are
>>>>>>> heard in a meaningful and timely fashion both when it is developed
>>>>>>> and when a change is considered.  And, of course, its
>>>>>>> implementation is part of that conversation - one that was
>>>>>>> highlighted in new gTLD issues, but as the IPC notes, what is finally 
>>>>>>> produced should be forward looking.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> So I look forward to the meeting this coming week
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Kind Regards
>>>>>>> Holly Raiche
>>>>>>> h.raiche@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
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