Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] REVISED Proposal-support poll -- consensus around "atoms"

["Mike O'Connor" <mike@xxxxxxxxxx>]

my first reply to Roberto's note was composed in a hurry as i was heading down 
the road towards a Saturday-evening off the 'net -- i didn't want to leave the 
impression that the two of us were battling over the poll...  now that i am not 
in "panic mode" let me respond to what i think is Roberto's primary point -- 
the need to focus on finding some small pieces of middle ground -- the "atoms" 
he talks about.  i completely agree with Roberto on that point.  the poll is 
just to find out a) where people are and b) where there is "wiggle room."  

i'm also with Roberto in that we seem to be focusing on the proposal beauty 
contest rather than identifying "atoms" of agreement.  on reflection, it may be 
that we polled on the wrong dimension -- that we should have polled on the 
headings in Kathy's table, rather than the proposals.   those headings are the 
"atoms" and understanding how people feel about them is probably the path to 
consensus.  by polling on the proposals we may have amplified the 
beauty-contest and i also share Roberto's view that there's less flexibility in 
people's positions than i had hoped.  

part of this hardening of positions may be caused by the recent conversation 
which implied that we might draft a report which contains several options, with 
a level of support for each.  this might be viewed as a way to throw the choice 
to the Council (which is *not* consensus-based) and that this poll will be used 
to describe support for those options.  on reflection i realize that i may have 
introduced this confusion into the conversation, so let me remove it.  we will 
only submit a report WHEN we find consensus (or have decided that we can't).  
until then, we update the community on our progress and continue our work.  if 
we get to consensus in time for gTLD-rollout, great.  otherwise, the rollout 
proceeds without our input.  i asked Margie for details on how to generate an 
Interim Report so that we could avoid schedule-slip IF we have a consensus 
position to put forward, NOT to open the door to a multi-option report that 
throws the choice to the Council.

the approach we've been following is that the WG goes through the PDP cycle 
twice...  

--  the first time (this time) we urgently try to find things we can agree on 
in time to moderate the Board/DAG baseline in time to meet the gTLD rollout 
schedule.  if we can't find consensus around any of those things then we won't 
forward a report and we'll move on to the second time through the PDP process.  
we are rapidly coming to the end of the runway for this iteration -- basically, 
if we can't arrive at consensus on some "atoms" during Brussels, we'll be done. 
  if we do arrive at an agreement in Brussels, we're still on track to very 
quickly publish an Interim Report with those items and complete the first PDP 
cycle.

--  the second time through the process we do the deeper analysis of economic 
impact, harms, regulatory approaches and so forth that our charter calls for 
and then see if we can come to a consensus around those larger issues.  it 
would be great if we could get through that broader work before the new gTLD 
train leaves the station but the odds are that we won't, since that process is 
likely to take the standard 12-15 months of a "normal" PDP and might even run a 
little longer given the complexity of the research that we need to do.

at any rate, the pressure is still on.  we are not at consensus yet and we need 
to get there quickly if we are to influence the Applicant Guidebook.  back to 
work!   :-)

mikey





On Jun 12, 2010, at 4:36 PM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:

> 
> Mikey,
> 
>> as your co-chair and scribe, i don't have any objection to 
>> others taking the poll.  but it would make my life a lot 
>> easier if they indicated that they are not WG members when 
>> they fill out their entry so i can tell who is who when i 
>> summarize the poll.  i admit, i worry a little bit about 
>> craziness and pranks, but i'm willing to wait and cross that 
>> bridge if we come to it.
>> 
>> Roberto?  you have any thoughts either way on this?
> 
> I confess that I am seriously puzzled by the exchanges I see in the last
> couple of days wrt the poll.
> Personally, I have no objections whatsoever to "non-members" taking the
> poll, for two reasons, and with a caveat.
> The first reason, is that you cannot prevent it. Although this might not
> seem a good reason per se, it simply means that I see no point in putting an
> additional burden in terms of control, count, identity check, aso. for
> something that is not a vote, but a poll.
> The second one, maybe more substantial, is that I do believe that there are
> people who did not subscribe to the WG because they knew that they could not
> afford the commitment of tons of emails, need for quick responses to issues,
> two weekly teleconferences (maybe at impossible hours from their time
> zones), but that would like to express an opinion anyway. And I believe that
> their opinion is useful to the co-chairs in assessing the situation.
> The caveat is, surprise surprise, the same one that Mikey has expressed: a
> way to identify them as "external contributors" to the poll, not WG members.
> Anyway, the reactions I have read, like the reasons for not allowing
> external folks to participate to the poll (as they could "stuff the ballot
> box") is IMHO disproportionate. And the reason is that this is not a "ballot
> box", but a "poll". When the co-chairs will count the preferences, assuming
> that we will do it in a formal way, it will not be with the spirit of
> declaring a "winner", not even a "majority candidate" that will be in a sort
> of pole position for a compromise solution. Nothing at all of this. I cannot
> speak for my colleague co-chair, but personally what I was looking for was
> not the first choice of you folks, which I probably could have easily
> guessed without having to go through a poll, but which are the grey areas
> (actually, the "yellow" areas). What are the possibilities to create a
> common ground, even limited.
> 
> What I see, is a dicomforting scenario. What is upsetting to me is not so
> much the clear cut in two opposite camps (those who favour RACK+ are against
> JN+2 or FreeTrade, and viceversa), but other things. For most, actually
> close to all, members the opinions on the highest ranking proposals are
> either green or red, with very little yellow margin. But that was
> predictable. What is upsetting is that members of the WG are starting
> saying: "But xyz did not vote, did he have the chance to vote, it would have
> been +1 for proposal abc". Folks, for the nth time, this is not a "vote". I
> do not care if proposal P1 or P2 is liked by a few people more than proposal
> P3 or P4. What I care is what are the elements of proposals P1, P2, P3 or P4
> that are not acceptable to some, in order to go to a next phase in which we
> can see what we can do to smoothen some aspects of the proposals in order to
> reduce the concern and make them consider less "risky".
> But I see that in spite of the work done so far, we are still in
> beauty-contest mode. We are not here, to repeat a metaphore used a few weeks
> ago, to choose the best molecule, but to break the molecules into atoms,
> pick the atoms that are acceptable (or at least not violently opposed), and
> build with them the molecule of consensus.
> To explain better the way I see things, let me make an example.
> One question is not whether we should have or not VI, but under what
> circumstances, and with which safeguards, the opponents of VI would feel
> sufficiently protected from the risks they see in VI to accept a limited
> test. Another question is not whether small TLDs should be obliged to have
> ICANN accredited Registrars or not, but rather under which circumstances
> could an exception be made, and what are the conditions and risks that we
> need to take into account before defining which is the extent of the
> exception.
> Analysing the result of the poll so far, I see that among the people who
> state they cannot live with the status quo (Board Motion and/or DAGv4) we
> have friends of proposal abc and foes of proposal xyz, and friends of
> proposal xyz and foes of proposal abc. Knowing that if we cannot come to a
> consensus, you will not get the proposal you like, but the status quo you
> don't like, I count on you to come together and forget about your favourite
> proposal, and help crafting a "new thing" (a "bossa nova", as the Brazilians
> would say) that you and others can live with. To replace the status quo you
> cannot live with.
> 
> It is too late to get something done in this direction before Brussels. But
> I count very much on the F2F in Brussels (meeting on Saturday and bar
> anytime) to narrow the gap we have as of today.
> 
> Cheers,
> Roberto

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