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Stéphane Van Gelder comments to the PDP-WT's proposed final report

  • To: gnso-pdp-final-report@xxxxxxxxx
  • Subject: Stéphane Van Gelder comments to the PDP-WT's proposed final report
  • From: Stéphane Van Gelder <stephane.vangelder@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:49:37 +0100

<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: 
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class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Having read the Policy
Development Process Work Team's Proposed Final Report, I would like to commend
the WT on the quality of the work that has gone into preparing this report and
offer the following questions/comments (also provided as an attached 
PDF).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span>Please note that these
comments are made in my personal capacity. I do offer them in the hope that my
experience over the past few years as first a GNSO Councillor, then Council
Vice Chair and now Council Chair may be of use. But they should by no means be
considered statements made either by the GNSO Council Chair or on behalf of the
Council as a whole.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Stéphane Van Gelder</p><p 
class="MsoNormal">Rec 1.</p><p class="MsoNormal">What's the rationale
behind leaving in place the possibility of an issues report being requested by
the Board or an AC? How does the WT see the GNSO Council coping with such
"outside influences"? Wouldn't this have been a good opportunity to
remove this possibility from the rules and therefore bring them in line with
the reality of the PDP process as we see it today (the report does state that a
request from the Board or another AC has never been made in the 
past).&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 
4.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Of what use does the
WT see the proposed template being if it is not compulsory? Given the severe
load that already exists on volunteers in the GNSO community, does the WT not
feel that requesting that extra work be done before an issues report, but not
making it compulsory ,will lead to people taking "short cuts" and not
filling out the proposed template?</span>&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 12.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">What is the WT's
recommendation to Council on how to determine which issues require a workshop
and which don't?</span>&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Re 14.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">What is the WT's
recommendation to Council on how these resources should be measured and how
Council can determine the availability of resources, given that there is
currently no mechanism in place to allow Council to do so?</span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 
16.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">I know of no practice
to allow a Councillor to defer a PDP for one meeting (which does not mean that
such a practice does not exist). We do have an informal practice of allowing a
GNSO SG or Constituency to request through one of its Council reps that a vote
on a motion be deferred for one meeting if it is the first time that motion has
come up. Is this what is meant here?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">This also applies to
Rec 38.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 19.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">I recommend a change
of wording to make this recommendation clearer. I recommend that the last work,
"bylaws", be changed to "GNSO Bylaws" to make it clear that
this is not the same document that is being referenced earlier in this
paragraph (ICANN Bylaws).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 22.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Congratulations to the
WT on this recommendation, which I think will serve to simplify our 
processes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 34.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">What are the WT's
recommendations on the timing of the initial report, i.e. when does the WT
think this should be published by the working group in question? It may be that
the WG does not have a clear enough idea of what it will report on in the first
few weeks of its work. And as Rec 36 talks about actions when there are
significant differences between a WG's initial and final reports, I think the
expectations that are placed on the WG for its initial report should be
clarified and detailed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Also, I see this is
not addressed in the WT's timing chart or recommendations listed in the
"overarching issues" part of the report.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 39.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p 
class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Why is the WT
"concerned" with the GNSO Council accepting some recommendations and
not others? Surely that is exactly what is expected of the Council, to provide
final approval, or disapproval, of recommendations made as part of a 
PDP…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Small 
point: there's a
typo in this rec's last sentence (see word crossed out and shown in red below).
The PDP-WT would like to encourage the GNSO Council that <s 
style="text-line-through:
double"><span style="color:red">there</span></s> were it does have concerns or
would propose changes to recommendations, it passes these concerns and/or
recommendations for changes back to the respective PDP Working Group for their
input.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Rec 
42.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">As the WT indicates it
is seeking further input from the community on this point, I would like to
voice my preference for option 1, the "narrow sense" interpretation.
In my view, the Board cannot choose to ignore a GNSO Council vote as it sees
fit. That would constitute a negation of the bottom-up policy development
process.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">Preliminary
conclusions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB">The WT discusses the
relationship between the current (considered by some) low voting thresholds
required to request an issues report and the Council's ongoing prioritization 
effort.
In my view, the WT should not link the two but make a determination on the
voting thresholds directly. The Council is indeed experiencing severe strain on
all its resources (staff and volunteers) and it is my view that the voting
thresholds for an issues report, which is in effect the first step towards
initiating a PDP, are too low. I would therefore encourage the WT to recommend
something in this area, and not "throw this back" to the Council's
prioritisation efforts which are currently an attempt more to deal with
workload that is <u>already there</u> than to cope with possible new workload
coming in.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span 
style="mso-ansi-language:EN-GB"></span></p></body></html>

Attachment: SVG comments on PDP WT report.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

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