RE: [alac] Action points / proposals from the Rome meetings

["Denise Michel" <denisemichel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI -- under ICANN's bylaws, the GNSO Council is responsible for the "DNSO
General Assembly e-mail announcement and discussion lists".  For those
unfamiliar with the "General Assembly" (GA), the "GA list" was the primary
participation mechanisms of the Domain Name Supporting Organization's (DNSO)
General Assembly.  The DNSO is now the GNSO and the General Assembly was
eliminated as part of ICANN's reform.  ICANN's Evolution and Reform
Committee (ERC), which proposed the reform package approved by ICANN's
Board, expected the ALAC to "absorb" the GA list, as noted in the ERC's
Final Implementation Report:

"The Blueprint recommended that the GNSO General Assembly be a
cross-constituency meeting place, chaired by a member of the GNSO Council,
and not be a forum for making decisions or recommendations, or taking formal
positions. There is no apparent enthusiasm for this recommendation from the
GNSO constituencies, without whose active cooperation it could not function
in the manner contemplated by the Blueprint. Therefore, the ERC recommends
that in the steady-state future there be no GNSO General Assembly. The
purpose of communication among the broader community that it has served to
date can be absorbed by the At Large Advisory Committee recommended in this
Report. Until such time as the ALAC is able to function effectively, we
recommend that the GNSO Council manage a moderated mailing list open to all
for discussion of names policy issues."

The web-based ALAC forum is moderated (spam, etc. is not posted).  ALAC
members, per your request, receive all emails sent to the forum address
(before they are posted).


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-alac@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-alac@xxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
> Roberto Gaetano
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 9:04 AM
> To: roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; izumi@xxxxxxx
> Cc: alac@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [alac] Action points / proposals from the Rome meetings
>
>
> >
> > >      17.  We should find a way to revitalize our forum and/or
> > >      replace it with something more appealing to users.
> > >      (Proposal: shall we merge it with the GA list?)
> >
> > >    Though Denise said it is moderated, I think it is not - there
> > >    are too many spam mails there!  Merging with GA, or adding a
> > >    new list with GA may work.
> >
> >Traditionally, the GA list has only been open to subscribers;
> >alac-forum is attracting spam, though.  The real problem of the GA
> >list is not spam, though:  It is the bad karma that this list has
> >collected.  In hindsight, I guess that shutting down the GA list and
> >starting over with stricter rules migh have been a better idea than
> >keeping the moribund GA list alive.
>
> I agree that to force a merger will create more problems than it solves.
> Also, if the idea is to find "something more appealing to users" I don't
> think that the GA will help.
>
> >
> >That said, we urgently need to find some way for open discussion --
> >the current forum clearly does not work: While we may have a hard
> >time to reach out, those people who are coming to us (through the
> >forum) have an even harder time getting any response back from ALAC,
> >or getting involved in any discussion with others who are
> >interested.  Let's face it: In terms of enabling communication among
> >individuals about ICANN issues, we have been a miserable failure so
> >far.  I'd hope we can change that.
>
> The problem is that if the message is received by everybody, with nobody
> specifically in charge for it, it will not be answered. If we
> want to manage
> an open forum, we need to allocate the resources to it.
> Personally, I would be more in favour to a web post without sending to a
> mailig list. But this does not change the issue, which is who answers.
>
> >
> > >      18.  We should find a way to make the als-discuss list
> > >      operational and active.  (Proposal: shall we appoint one of
> > >      us as "facilitator" for public communication, with the
> > >      specific responsibility to oversee public discussion mailing
> > >      lists?)
> >
> > >    I would recommend to have two people, perhaps, than only one
> > >    facilitator. Unless we have "superman/women".
> >
> >While it's good to have someone who's responsible, I'd hope that --
> >once we have put an infrastructure in place that actually encourages
> >communication -- all members of this committee attempt to
> >participate in discussions.
>
> Again, it is OK if everybody participates to the discussion on a
> voluntary
> basis, but without a responsible we will never get good results.
>
> Regards
> Roberto
>
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