RE: [ssac-gnso-irdwg] proposed new structure and recommendations for final report

[James M Galvin <jgalvin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Owen,

Sorry to be so long in responding to your message.  You asked if it is 
possible to make our recommendations mandatory?  I can not precisely 
answer your question but I will provide some insight.
This group has no standing to make anything "mandatory".  Our role is 
to report back to our respective chartering groups: GNSO and SSAC. 
Each of us as individual members can then follow up within our 
respective groups to ensure whatever action we believe is appropriate 
is enacted.
Also, my choice of words below for the recommendations was deliberately 
conservative.  While I believe there is some consensus for the concepts 
described, I wanted to wait until we have a more complete document 
drafted before the working group members engage in too detailed a 
discussion of what we are trying to say.
Thus, once we have a document, we can more carefully consider how 
strongly we want to word our recommendations, i.e., consider how best 
to say they should be "mandatory".
Hope this helps,

Jim



-- On June 9, 2011 12:31:22 PM -0700 Owen Smigelski 
<Owen.Smigelski@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote regarding RE: [ssac-gnso-irdwg] 
proposed new structure and recommendations for final report --
> Hi Jim,
>
> I think the below outline looks good: it identifies the issues and
> proposes a solution.
>
> My only concern is that this report will go nowhere, e.g. generate
> some discussion and then WHOIS remains static for years to come.  Is
> there any way to make these recommendation changes mandatory?  I know
> ICANN cannot make the changes to WHOIS directly (that's for
> IETF/others), but what about changing the registrar/registry
> agreements to require them to provide internationalized WHOIS that
> conforms to ICANN requirements in the report in 5 years?  That will
> certainly incentivize the necessary actors to discuss and agree upon
> a new protocol and implement the changes.   My above timeframe and
> method for making this required are just examples.
>
> I'm certainly open to other proposals, but I would certainly like to
> see our efforts result in actual improvements to WHOIS.
>
> Regards,
>
> Owen
>
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:  This message is intended only for the use
> of the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain
> information that is privileged, confidential, and exempt from
> disclosure under applicable law. If you have received this email in
> error, please immediately notify the sender by return email and
> delete this email and any attachments from your system.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ssac-gnso-irdwg@xxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-ssac-gnso-irdwg@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James M Galvin
> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2011 15:18
> To: ssac-gnso-irdwg@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [ssac-gnso-irdwg] proposed new structure and recommendations
> for final report
>
>
> We are meeting on Monday, 16 May, at 1500 UTC.  Our last two
> meetings have been cancelled due to lack of participation.  However,
> it is important that we move forward and seek closure on our work in
> this group.
>
> I am going to propose a path to closure in this message.  It
> represents my understanding of our last meeting on 18 April
> (transcript has been available for some time), our public meeting
> during ICANN San Francisco (transcript has been available for some
> time), and a few private conversations I have had since and between
> those two meetings.
>
> I am submitting this proposal as an individual.  I welcome
> discussion on its merits and completeness both in the meeting on 16
> May and on this mailing list.
>
> Speaking as co-Chair, I am going to press to move forward with this
> plan, incorporating feedback and suggestions from our discussion in
> our next meeting on 16 May as well as any future discussions in
> meetings and on this mailing list.  I will interpret silence as
> agreement with this plan and its evolution.
>
> In the rest of this message I am speaking as an individual.
>
> As a reminder, the mission of this working group is as follows:
>
> The IRD-WG shall study the feasibility and suitability of
> introducing display specifications to deal with the
> internationalization of Registration Data.
>
> In our interim report we have evolved 4 models and we sought
> community input on the efficacy of the those models.  We did get a
> few well reasoned comments but it is fair to say that we did not
> receive anything close to a community consensus on how to choose
> between the models.  I would like to propose something different
> than choosing between the 4 models, which we discussed during our
> last meeting.
>
> In my opinion, the models are trying to address the problem of
> executing translation and transliteration.  Model 1 is status quo,
> i.e., we stick with the system we have and require US-ASCII to be
> present at all times.  The other models distribute the translation
> and transliteration services in various ways.  I do not think we
> need to solve this problem.  I think we identify this as the problem
> that needs further study.
>
> Specifically, I suggest the outline below for our final report.
> This is an expanded outline insofar as I try to say a bit about what
> I would expect to be in each section.  It is probably not explained
> as well as it could be but I do hope it gets the point across.  I
> did not want to make this message any longer than it already is.  I
> also was not trying to write the report since I do want some
> discussion about this approach first.
>
> The model for the outline is we state what we have, we make some
> observations about what we have, and we propose further
> study of a few specific issues.
>
>
>
> 1. INTRODUCTION - Mostly boilerplate information including problem
> statement and details about the formation of this group.  We can
> re-purpose a great deal of what is in the interim report.
>
> 2. BACKGROUND - This should include all the facts we need to support
> our findings.  Most of this is in our interim report.
>
> a. what we know various registrars and registries are doing today to
> support the display of internationalizes data.
>
> b. what we know about the existing WHOIS protocol.
>
> c. what we know about the definition of registration data.
>
> d. what we know about where different registration data elements are
> collected, stored, managed, and displayed.
>
> 3. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS - This could be a part of the background
> information but my current thinking is that it is better to elevate
> to a major section.  In this section we summarize all the
> international standards and standard practices that exist for
> internationalizing the various elements of existing registration
> data.  Most of this is in our interim report.
>
> 4. FINDINGS - In this section we list the conclusions we can draw
> from all the facts stated previously.
>
> a. WHOIS is insufficient.  It has no structure and hence no method
> of signaling encodings.
>
> a.1. Registration data has multiple purposes and
> internationalization requirements are different depending on the
> purpose.  To the extent the data is already represented in XML,
> e.g., within EPP between registrars and registries,
> internationalization is primarily ensuring the data is properly
> tagged with the script that is in use.
>
> a.2. The lack of structure in WHOIS excludes any signaling
> mechanism, thus the data can not be correctly tagged and further it
> can not be correctly displayed.
>
> a.3. There are recognized standards for internationalizing many of
> the elements of registration data but in many cases the data would
> need to be translated or tranliterated for use with the current
> WHOIS.
>
> b. Registrants are monolingual.  This is intended to highlight the
> problem of who does the translation or transliteration and what it
> means to responsibility for quality and compliance.
>
> c. Quality of data is not a well defined phrase.  Registrants are
> expected to provide high quality data but can it be verified?  Even
> if could what happens to the quality after translation and
> transliteration and who is responsible for that?
>
> d. Registration data is itself undefined.  WHOIS services do vary.
> WHOIS requirements vary between registrars and registrants as
> evidenced by the contracts.
>
> 4. RECOMMENDATIONS
>
> a. Seek a plan to define registration data, who collects it, who
> stores it, who is responsible for it, and specify its purpose.
>
> b. Seek a plan to replace WHOIS.  In other words, although the data
> can probably be internationalized, displaying it is problematic with
> the current system.  This study would need to consider if
> registration data should be translated or transliterated, who should
> do it, what it means to the overall registration data
> infrastructure, and what it means to the quality of the data.
>
> c. As an interim solution, given the continued use of WHOIS, as much
> as possible, all parties in the lifecyle of the registration data
> should adopt the international standards noted above for
> registration data elements wherever they can.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jim