Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] REVISED Proposal-support poll

[Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Roberto Gaetano,

On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 3:06 AM, Roberto Gaetano <roberto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> Mikey,
>
> > as your co-chair and scribe, i don't have any objection to
> > others taking the poll.  but it would make my life a lot
> > easier if they indicated that they are not WG members when
> > they fill out their entry so i can tell who is who when i
> > summarize the poll.  i admit, i worry a little bit about
> > craziness and pranks, but i'm willing to wait and cross that
> > bridge if we come to it.
> >
> > Roberto?  you have any thoughts either way on this?
>
> I confess that I am seriously puzzled by the exchanges I see in the last
> couple of days wrt the poll.
> Personally, I have no objections whatsoever to "non-members" taking the
> poll, for two reasons, and with a caveat.
> The first reason, is that you cannot prevent it. Although this might not
> seem a good reason per se, it simply means that I see no point in putting
> an
> additional burden in terms of control, count, identity check, aso. for
> something that is not a vote, but a poll.
>

There are alternative polls, with features that would make it more possible
to ensure that the participants are legitimate. For example in certain type
of polls, the link to the poll is sent out by email to the eligible voters
who get an email confirmation as soon as their response is recorded. Any one
who receives an email confirmation when he or she hasn't actually took part
in the poll gets to know that the link has been hijacked and the poll
manager knows that poll is stuffed.


> The second one, maybe more substantial, is that I do believe that there are
> people who did not subscribe to the WG because they knew that they could
> not
> afford the commitment of tons of emails, need for quick responses to
> issues,
> two weekly teleconferences (maybe at impossible hours from their time
> zones), but that would like to express an opinion anyway. And I believe
> that
> their opinion is useful to the co-chairs in assessing the situation.
> The caveat is, surprise surprise, the same one that Mikey has expressed: a
> way to identify them as "external contributors" to the poll, not WG
> members.
>

For a fair reflection of the opinions of external contributions, the
background information on the formation of the vertical integration working
group, the work done so far, links to all the documents compiled and posted
so far and the link to the poll - everything needs to be distributed as
widely as possible, to give a fair opportunity for every "external
contributor" to take part. That would mean the whole of the icann community
and if stretched too far, it could mean the whole world. Neither of this can
happen as part of the work of a limited, time-bound working group, so it is
only those external contributors who are closer to the issue or closer to
one of the proposing groups who would get to know about the poll and show
interest in participation. So the net result of the opinion of the external
participants would only serve the purpose of causing a bias, or worse
rigging the poll in case any of the proposers have an unduly strong
inclination to influence the outcome of the poll. Even if permitted with the
caveat, that unbalanced opinion shown as the external opinion would sway the
opinion of insiders.

Sivasubramanian M



> Anyway, the reactions I have read, like the reasons for not allowing
> external folks to participate to the poll (as they could "stuff the ballot
> box") is IMHO disproportionate. And the reason is that this is not a
> "ballot
> box", but a "poll". When the co-chairs will count the preferences, assuming
> that we will do it in a formal way, it will not be with the spirit of
> declaring a "winner", not even a "majority candidate" that will be in a
> sort
> of pole position for a compromise solution. Nothing at all of this. I
> cannot
> speak for my colleague co-chair, but personally what I was looking for was
> not the first choice of you folks, which I probably could have easily
> guessed without having to go through a poll, but which are the grey areas
> (actually, the "yellow" areas). What are the possibilities to create a
> common ground, even limited.
>
> What I see, is a dicomforting scenario. What is upsetting to me is not so
> much the clear cut in two opposite camps (those who favour RACK+ are
> against
> JN+2 or FreeTrade, and viceversa), but other things. For most, actually
> close to all, members the opinions on the highest ranking proposals are
> either green or red, with very little yellow margin. But that was
> predictable. What is upsetting is that members of the WG are starting
> saying: "But xyz did not vote, did he have the chance to vote, it would
> have
> been +1 for proposal abc". Folks, for the nth time, this is not a "vote". I
> do not care if proposal P1 or P2 is liked by a few people more than
> proposal
> P3 or P4. What I care is what are the elements of proposals P1, P2, P3 or
> P4
> that are not acceptable to some, in order to go to a next phase in which we
> can see what we can do to smoothen some aspects of the proposals in order
> to
> reduce the concern and make them consider less "risky".
> But I see that in spite of the work done so far, we are still in
> beauty-contest mode. We are not here, to repeat a metaphore used a few
> weeks
> ago, to choose the best molecule, but to break the molecules into atoms,
> pick the atoms that are acceptable (or at least not violently opposed), and
> build with them the molecule of consensus.
> To explain better the way I see things, let me make an example.
> One question is not whether we should have or not VI, but under what
> circumstances, and with which safeguards, the opponents of VI would feel
> sufficiently protected from the risks they see in VI to accept a limited
> test. Another question is not whether small TLDs should be obliged to have
> ICANN accredited Registrars or not, but rather under which circumstances
> could an exception be made, and what are the conditions and risks that we
> need to take into account before defining which is the extent of the
> exception.
> Analysing the result of the poll so far, I see that among the people who
> state they cannot live with the status quo (Board Motion and/or DAGv4) we
> have friends of proposal abc and foes of proposal xyz, and friends of
> proposal xyz and foes of proposal abc. Knowing that if we cannot come to a
> consensus, you will not get the proposal you like, but the status quo you
> don't like, I count on you to come together and forget about your favourite
> proposal, and help crafting a "new thing" (a "bossa nova", as the
> Brazilians
> would say) that you and others can live with. To replace the status quo you
> cannot live with.
>
> It is too late to get something done in this direction before Brussels. But
> I count very much on the F2F in Brussels (meeting on Saturday and bar
> anytime) to narrow the gap we have as of today.
>
> Cheers,
> Roberto
>
>