Hi, Ralph and Jon

Its good to hear from new members, thanks for your interventions. Let me update you on the process these discussions are part of.

The process of developing a new charter for the NCSG actually started about six months ago, with preparations for the Paris ICANN meeting in June 2008.

In Paris we had a lengthy discussion of the idea of allowing individual membership and the future status of constituencies in a new Noncommercial Stakeholders Group.

In July I proposed a plan for provisional individual membership which was accepted by the NCUC.

During this period ICANN formed a special working group composed of all the GNSO constituencies which came up with the new bicameral structure of the GNSO which was eventually approved by the Board. In July. In August we held discussions with ALAC about the nature of the new NCSG.

In September we began discussion drafting a new charter for the NCSG. On September 24, I circulated the first draft proposal for defining and recognizing new constituencies.  

If you look at our archives for October 2008, you will find extensive discussion of the proposed new structure. This led into the Cairo meeting. At the Cairo meeting we not only had extensive discussions within the NCUC meeting, but also met with the business user constituencies and with ALAC to discuss the proposals for several hours.

You can review our online discussion archives at this link http://listserv.syr.edu/archives/ncuc-discuss.html

Based on all this we prepared a consolidated draft for submission to the Board. I circulated the first draft to the list 15 November and a finalized version 24 November. In both cases it was made clear that the agreed version would be sent to the Board Governance Committee immediately.

So the draft I am circulating is not “Milton’s proposal” as you called it, but the _NCUC’s proposal_, i.e. the official proposal of this constituency, which emerged from extensive discussions over a 6 month period.

On November 25 – a day _after_ our finalized draft was submitted to the Board, Cheryl submitted to our list an “alternative” draft. As I am sure you can understand from the long prologue, this draft has no real standing in the process I have described. It reflects Cheryl’s own ideas, not those of the constituency as a whole. It contains structural proposals that did not obtain any support either from NCUC members at the Cairo meeting or on the list, so far. Whatever the merits of the proposals, however, her “alternative” comes too late to have any serious affect on the process. The NCUC draft has already been submitted. Any modifications of that draft will come later, after we have received feedback from the Board and the staff on the official proposal. From this point on, the NCUC proposal is our working document. If you or anyone else wants to alter it, the alterations must be proposed as amendments to that document.

If Cheryl and others want to modify the draft we are working on, the time for amendments will come after we have received input from the staff and Board. You will be notified of those comments, and we will have an organized process for making proposals and implementing them.

At this juncture, it is not productive – and indeed, it must seem quite “off-putting” (as you put it) and confusing  – to have someone to submit a completely alternative draft, as if we were still in the initial drafting stage. If you sense “bad blood” here, it stems from Cheryl’s attempt to disrupt the process we are engaged in, and her unwillingness to accept the fact that her ideas for NCSG organization haven’t gotten any support. What you see here is really an attempt to substitute a unilaterally drafted proposal for one that the constituency as a whole developed and agreed to submit. Again, I invite you to review the archives to confirm this.

You asked for explanations why the NCUC proposal is “better” than Cheryl’s. The first and most important reason is that it is the proposal the constituency as a whole has agreed on up to this point. The substantive reasons why most members don’t support what Cheryl has proposed are 1) it is an overly complicated proposal with too many positions and too many moving parts, and people believe that it is not sustainable in a volunteer organization; 2) it is designed to shift all executive and administrative power to constituencies (which will be multiple and unintegrated) and away from the NCSG membership as a whole. This will fragment the NCSG and make it extremely difficult for it to develop unified positions and to operate effectively in the GNSO.

You are a recent member and someone who did not attend the Cairo meeting, where these problems were discussed extensively, so it is not surprising that you may feel as if the discussion is opaque. But believe me, Cheryl’s ideas have been considered – and rejected – by most of the members up to now.

Regards,

--MM