Re: [gnso-whois-wg] Draft outcomes report v 1.6

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Vittorio,

I agree with a lot of what you say.  We are however in a hybrid  
situation that forces us to look at the situation in a more decision  
making way.

This is a WG that was chartered by the GNSO council with a specific  
lifetime - 120 days, which we have already gone beyond.

Additionally while the Board Governance WG on the GNSO is working on  
recommendations for new consensus based procedures for the GSNO we  
are still very much controlled by the by-laws stipulating the  
constituency based decision procedures.

As I said above, the WG is a hybrid, created under the current GNSO  
council guidelines but with a limited charter and life-time.  This WG  
is designed to have constituency+nomcom-appointee based membership  
with open observer participation.

This is why I suggest that we collect the information in as  
informative and complete a method possible and pass it back to the  
council.  What happens to it next would be decided by the council,  
and depending on what the council decides, then by the Board with the  
advice and comment of the community and the ACs.

As inviting as it might seem to continue to work in the WG  
environment until such time as we reach true cooperation and  
agreement between all the varied positions, the current ground rules,  
as far as I understand them, does not give us that luxury.

thanks
a.


On 8 aug 2007, at 11.49, Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> Ken Stubbs ha scritto:
> > I am concerned here that the first conclusion could be skewed by  
> > using as a basis for the conclusion the total number of participants.
> > We need clear disclosure here of numbers of participants on a  
> > "constituency by constituency" basis..
> > Support can only be defined by relative "constituency "  
> > percentages not by relative participant percentages.  you could  
> > easily have participation in a group like this where one  
> > constituency could have 10-15 times the numbers of participants  
> > compared with another constituency.
>
> I see your point, and it is a valid one. However, this should be a  
> consensus-based working group, which means that work should  
> continue until full consensus, or at least rough consensus, has  
> been reached. That way, it would be irrelevant whether any  
> constituency or interest group is over- or under-represented, since  
> you need in any case to accommodate everyone's requests, and find  
> compromises that can be acceptable to all.
>
> The problem you expose appears only when you start to work by  
> "support" and "alternate views", thus creating the problem of  
> objective measurements of the levels of support. Personally, I  
> think that only items on which there is extremely broad consensus,  
> and no strong objections from any participant, should go into the  
> report. If we can't manage to find agreement on something, we  
> should simply leave it out or list all views at the same level,  
> rather than opening the disagreement on whether the one listed as  
> "supported" or "agreed" is actually the most supported one, and to  
> which extent - which, I agree, is something that is very difficult  
> to assess fairly in an open WG.
>
> Also, there is a disconnect between the GNSO constituency system  
> and the range of stakeholders that are affected by Whois. Some  
> groups, such as governments, individual registrants and final  
> users, are not represented in any voting constituency of the GNSO.  
> Others, such as domainers or web hosting companies, might belong to  
> some constituencies but aren't actually represented in their  
> leadership. Ideally, participation in this work should expand  
> beyond traditional constituencies, which is why we are using an  
> individual-based open working group.
> --
> vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
> -------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------