Re: [soac-mapo] charter and mission

[Evan Leibovitch <evan@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 12 July 2010 08:56, Antony Van Couvering <avc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

Thanks Jon you did wonderfully :-)
>

OK; that particular idea can die peacefully in its sleep.


> An IO is one person, hence a lightning rod for conspiracy theories.
>

It was my understanding that the IO would receive complaints from
communities that have a problem with various applications. The IO would
serve as an initial filter against objections that were petty, bullying, or
not widely held on a global basis. There could be published guidelines that
would guide, but not force, the IO's evaluation of incoming complaints.

(It was also feared by At-Large that an objection-based MAPO could be
(ab)used by a well-monied group to intimidate and out-spend a smaller gTLD
applicant until they gave up, even if the objector knew that their
complaint(s) would be ultimately rejected. Think ".xenu", though it could
conceivably be applied any time a large organization says "why didn't I
think of that?". The mechanisms to prevent such gaming don't sufficiently
exist in the currently proposed MAPO implementation but are built-in to the
IO process.)


Also, one person, even of the utmost probity, has biases a broad-based group
> would not (though a group might have other biases).  That's why a panel
> might work better.
>

An advisory panel would work, but I would keep it advisory so to avoid
politics within the panel. I would anticipate that the actual work of the IO
would be far more research and fact-gathering than judgment-making, similar
to that of an ombudsman(*). Also as with an ombudsman role, a very high
level of transparency would be demanded from the IO so to minimize the
conspiracy theories.

There are many judgments on trivial complaints that could be dismissed by an
individual quickly and inexpensively. Perhaps a panel could act as an appeal
process under certain rigid conditions.


> On the other hand, the IO position already exists.
>

That was the intended benefit; to slightly modify something already in the
DAG (that has gone through two revisions without substantial complaints
against the concept) rather than creating something from scratch.

As I said at the beginning, it would not be difficult to make MAPO
complaints an explicit part of the existing IO role rather than a separate
bureaucracy. Consider that the IO *already* has a mandate that could include
MAPO-based objections. All I am suggesting is to make this the primary path
for such complaints.

- Evan


(*) I am making comparisons with the generic role of *any* ombudsman, trying
desperately to avoid any debate here over ICANN's particular implementation.