[alac] Internal Procedures | Almost done

["Sebastian Ricciardi" <sricciardi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

SEBAS >>> Thomas, thanks for your message. See my comments tagged below.
SEBAS >>> Best Regards, Sebastian

> My comments in Blue.

Please don't rely on color-coding comments...  At least my software
doesn't cope with that too well.

SEBAS >>> Got it.

> Here we go :

| The document preparation process can be initiated by any
| committee member

> seems obvious to me. All ALAC members have the
> same rights and can make contributions to the comitee work),

| by posting an initial draft to the committee's mailing list.
| That member of the committee shall act as the document's editor

> (I don't see why this has to be this way. ICANN staff - in thise
> case Denise - can perform this task. In fact, she is doing it
> right now, and things work pretty good.).

| The editor shall be responsible for posting a number of drafts

> (responsible? for how many drafts?),

As I said earlier: Don't throw a draft at the committee and expect
that someone else takes it up.  Post iterations as necessary.

| taking into account any input gathered from the remaining
| members of the Committee during discussion of the draft. Any
| objections raised during this discussion shall include a
| reasoning and a proposal for improvement.

> It seems to me that is better to have Denise working on drafts
> and editing it gathering imput for the others members of the
> commitee.  On the other hand, it is a question of good manners to
> object any idea or complain only when you have another reasonable
> proposal. We don't have that kind of problems yet. Everyone in
> this group has been very polite to express their dissagreements.

Maybe we can settle on some simplified wording, like this?

"Each draft under discussion by the committee shall have a
designated editor, usually the individual which has posted the
document's initial version.  It's the editors responsibility to
collect reasoned input and objections from the members of the
committee, and to produce revised drafts as necessary."

SEBAS >>> I fell much more comfortable with this version.

| When a document has been under preparation for at least three
| business days, the chairman alone, or in his absence, the two
| vice-chairs acting together, may call for a decision on the
| document under preparation, after consultation with the editor.
| This decision can happen in two ways:

|   a.. A vote can be held as described above.

|   b.. The committee can be asked for objections. In this case,
|   a document is considered accepted unless one fifth or more of
|   the members of the committees has objected within two days,
|   either directly or through a proxy.

> I really like the figure of proxies in Votes. What I don't like
> is to describe the whole process in such a formal way. If someone
> post a draft, and no one present objections in a reasonable
> period of time, Vittorio could post a message asking for new
> proposals, and so on ... but it is a natural process in the
> search for concensus of normal people. We did not have any
> problems so far, and I don't know why we have to change this now.

So what do you want to remove, substantially?  The three day minimum
turn-around?  The choice between "no objection" and vote?  The
mechanics of the "no objection" mechanism?  Or is it just the
wording, and not the substance?

SEBAS >>> It would be better if we let the ICANN Staff  or any of the Vice
Chairs call for votes too. The reason I'm proposing this, is because usually
ICANN Staff will have more "avaliability" and time frame notion. No wonder
Vittorio and Vice Chairs take their work with a lot of responsability (I
think we all are agree with that), we should acknowledge that our work here
is voluntary and we keep short of time in some ocations. It's a practical
thing, in order to get "fluency" at work.
I like the rest of the paragraph.

> Let's leave this work for the definitive ALAC.

>> On the other hand, I don't see how any "outsider" can challenge
>> the validity of our documents when all of us agree on the
>> issued document.

That's obvious when everybody indeed speaks up in favor of
something. But how do you handle a no-objections period?  Or how do
you handle a vote in which only half the committee even
participates, for whatever reason?

That's the cases which will inevitably lead to contention in the
future unless we agree on the basic time frames we'll need for that
-- and unless we actually agree to accept a "no-objections" approach
for ourselves.

SEBAS >>> Anybody who is asked for approvement or objections should accept
the decision took by the majority if he/she didn't respond to the commitee
call. I think it is common sense. On the other hand,  no decision should be
take based on the votes of less than simple majority (more that half).