Please allow a proper community comment period before making any decision on these recommendations

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxxx>]

> It should also be noted that these recommendations may be the subject of 
> possible action by theGNSO Council on 14 March 2012 at the ICANN Meeting in 
> Costa Rica.

I have not had a chance to read the documents yet, but seeing a line like the 
one above has a chilling effect.  I wish to comment on that as a stand alone 
issue.

It is bad enough that top-down decisions were made by the ICANN Board that had 
no basis in GNSO bottom-up policy on new gTLDs and for which there was no 
review.  In this case I refer to the ICANN Board decision to prohibit any IOC 
or IFRC related applications at the top level.  But that is now done, and is 
one of the constraints of an ongoing application process.  For the GNSO Council 
to now decide that it can vote on a Drafting Team proposal to change that 
before there has been either Stakeholder Group review or Community review of 
the recommendations would compound the growing disregard for proper process in 
ICANN.  It would signify a opportunistic disregard of  ICANN processes on the 
part of SO leadership and would make a sham of the enormous efforts that have 
gone into establishing, reviewing and amending the processes that legitimize 
ICANN operations.

I believe any vote the GNSO council takes on these proposals before a full and 
proper review will be improper and diminish the stature of the GNSO and the 
by-laws basis on which its work depends.  I strongly recommend against any such 
premature reaction.

I plan to comment on the substance of these recommendations a later time during 
this abbreviated review period.

Avri Doria