[gnso-ppsc-wg] Your feedback requested - section 3.1 Participation

[Marika Konings <marika.konings@xxxxxxxxx>]

3.1. Participation

Members of a WG are expected to be active participants, either on the WG 
mailing lists and/or in the WG meetings, although some might opt to take an 
observer approach (monitor mailing lists and/or meetings). The WG Chair is 
expected to make an assessment at the start of every meeting whether a ‘quorum’ 
has been reached to proceed with the meeting and discussions. A quorum has not 
been defined in exact numbers in this context, but should be understood as 
having a representative number of WG members present. For example, the Chair 
may decide that there is no quorum to make decisions, but that there is a 
quorum to have initial discussions on a certain issue and following those 
initial discussions encourage members on the mailing list to share their views 
before a decision is made at a subsequent meeting.

If there is lack of participation resulting in meetings being cancelled and/or 
decisions being postponed, the Chair is expected to explore the reasons (e.g. 
issues with the schedule of meetings, conflict with other activities or 
priorities) and attempt to address them (e.g. review meeting schedule). If 
there is no obvious way to address the situation, the Chair should approach the 
Chartering Organization, GNSO Stakeholder Groups, or Constituencies for 
assistance (e.g. request for additional volunteers to the WG) on whether there 
is enough / sufficient interest from the community / delay work.

________________________________
Comments:

INTA: The Committee agrees that the process for participation set forth in this 
subsection provides flexibility, but is concerned that the lack of definition 
of what constitutes a "quorum" could create a lack of consistency between 
operations and results of different WGs and could also result in a failure to 
include the viewpoints of various constituencies (e.g., if for some reason 
several members of a particular constituency are not able to make a particular 
meeting and a vote on a critical issue is taken). Therefore, the Committee 
recommends:

· Amending this subsection to define what constitutes a “quorum” with 
specificity.

GD: Section 3.1 describes the expectations for participation by working group 
members, and the role of the Chair in determining quorum.  Based upon 
experience in previous working groups, we recommend setting a maximum number of 
failed attempts to achieve quorum, at which point the GNSO Council would 
intervene to reconstitute the working group, which may include a new Call for 
Volunteers.