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

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This comment is specific to the design goals of a poll.

An alternative to the co-chairs designed poll of April 16th was
offered on April 16th. See:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/gnso-vi-feb10/msg01120.html The access
password was, and remains, "VI-poll1".

The alternative sought expressions of support or opposition to the
atoms or elements of policy.

Eric


On 6/13/10 9:18 AM, Mike O'Connor wrote:
> 
> 
> 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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