[alac] Internal Procedures

["Sebastian Ricciardi" <sricciardi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

My comments in Blue.

Best Regards,

Sebastian 

> > Thomas, would you be comfortable in simplifying your draft
> > deleting issues concerning Staff and Liasons interaction and the
> 
> Can live with that.
> 
> > process of documentation ? We can agree very fast on Officers and
> > Voting, proxies and time frame so let's do that.

OK. Good.

> 
> I'm not sure what precisely you want me to remove from the
> documentation process.  Key elements:
> 
> - Documents have owners, and owners have some responsibility.  I.e.,
>   please don't throw a draft at the committee and expect others to
>   take over.
> 
> - Objections should come with a reasoning.  That's really just good
>   manners and common sense.  Objections without reasoning are
>   useless when the aim is to produce a good document.
> 
> - There is a choice between a quick "no objection" process (when
>   chair doesn't expect contention) and a more time-consuming vote
>   (when chair expects some contention) for the adoption of a
>   document.
> 
> - There are some basic timelines.
> 
> Which of these should be removed, in your opinion?

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?), 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.


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. 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. Come on ! Let's 
asume we publish a document about Internal Procedures of ALAC, and this 
document is the very same Thomas draft (which I like, with the reservations I'm 
posting here). If Danny Younger, John Doe or anyone challenge the validity of 
the document,  I will support it, because it cames from our commitee work. even 
if I don't like it ! That is common sense and teamwork, and I think we 
certainly have this attributes.   
> 
> > If you think the procedures should be more restrictive, I don't
> > have a problem to add more issues as long as they do not disturb
> > job fluency (Notify the comitee when a member ask for staff help
> > in editing a document is really a pain in the ass - excuse my
> > french).

> 
> You are reading too much into this.  (Which may mean that I should
> revise the language.)

I'm not comfortable with these paragraphs :


                   Interaction with Staff
ALAC staff may participate in the committee's discussions, and may act as an 
editor in the document preparation process. When staff takes this role, the 
committee shall be notified whether a member of the committee has asked for 
staff assistance, or whether staff is acting by its own initiative. Staff may 
not participate in votes, and may not file formal objections against the 
publication of any documents.


The reason I do not like this paragraph is because - I think - it will add 
nonsense burocracy to the process of issue a simple draft for discussion. I 
don't see why it should be different if the draft is submitted by anyone in the 
comitee or the ICANN Staff neither when the staff is acting by its own 
initiative or supporting an ALAC member.


> What's meant by that particular text is that a draft from staff
> should come with some brief note like "xyz asked me to prepare
> this", or "here's what I propose".  That's really just basic
> transparency, and, by the way, something which already works quite
> nicely with the latest drafting done by Denise.

It doesn't mind if it just a brief note. I think it doesn't make any sense to 
add formalities and obligations.  

> 
> Regards,
> -- 
> Thomas Roessler <roessler-mobile@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>